Radio Weekly #15 – Olympic Comedy

Radio Weekly With Ian Wolf

This week Ian Wolf looks at how radio comedy is covering the Olympic games…

The Sinha Games

On Radio 4, doctor-turned-comedian Paul Sinha presented a one-off show about the Olympics, which serves as a sequel to his 2011 cricket programme, The Sinha Test.

In this half-hour, Sinha talks about his own obsession with the games and how he has collated so much Olympic trivia over the years, perhaps the most interesting being about the 1956 water polo match between the Soviet Union and Hungary, which took place when the former country was invading the latter country…

Then there’s the story of the world’s least known Olympic gold medallist from Team GB, Andy Archibald, a reserve member of the 1976 pentathlon team, who also just happened to by Sinha’s House Master at school.

There’s quite a bit of interesting material to this one, but I can’t help but feel that this could’ve been a bit longer. If it was a full hour, like a normal live stand-up show, it might have been able to get through some of Sinha’s funnier material. Still, it was decent half-hour show from the comedy doctor.

The Blagger’s Guide to the Games

One of the longest running comedies on Radio 2 has made its return for the Olympics, as David Quantick presented a guide to the games for people who may not know that much about it…

The Blagger’s Guide to the Games is full of information and rapid fire gags, cut in with sound effects and music left, right and centre. This is a four-part series, so it’s longer and more informative that The Sinha Games, and covers certain aspects of the games further in depth. For example, there’s an entire section about the austerity games in 1948 (when London last held the event), as well as a gymnastics guide.

The main aspect of this programme, for those who haven’t listened to previous editions of The Blagger’s Guide, is that it’s so full of gags and material that often you miss some bits and have to listen to it again. My highlight of the show was a sequence about the austerity games, which featured impressions of Ben Elton, Kenneth Williams and Michael McIntyre all rolling into one. Excellent.

However, in the same section I was less keen on the rationing routine which featured a Dad’s Army skit between Lance Corporal Jones and Mrs. Fox after the end of the war. It wasn’t so much the lack of humour that was the problem, but my own pedantry. I’m a huge Dad’s Army fan, and I know that in the final episode Mrs. Fox becomes Mrs. Jones. But that’s just me…

There’s much to enjoy from The Blagger’s Guide…, though it’s one of those shows that needs your full attention.