Radio Weekly #21

This week Ian Wolf comes across an odd way of securing the BBC’s future and learns how not to use strawberries during sex.

Dilemma

Entering its second series, Dilemma is a Radio 4 panel game hosted by Sue Perkin where the guests are forced to admit what they’d do in various – unlikely – ethical situations.

In this opening episode Paul Sinha was asked what it would take for him to stop supporting Liverpool FC; the poet Lemn Sissay was queried on plastic surgery; actor Margaret Cabourn-Smith was asked how far she would help her daughter if she was involved in a drunken hit-and-run; and Graeme Garden had to decide if would only watch ITV in order to preserve the BBC’s future.

Aside from Lemn Sissay, the panellists all had their moments. But my favourite ‘bit’ was when the show opened out to the audience, and the panel then had to pass judgement on their dilemma – including a man who was at the show with two women and didn’t know which one to take back home after. Safe to say he didn’t come off well.

Dilemma’s basically just a round-table discussion programme with jokes. It’s nowhere near as fierce as other panel shows like Mock the Week, and if you like your panel shows to be a bit more relaxing then Dilemma is one to seek out.

Jigsaw

On late-night Radio 4 is a new sketch show from comedians Dan Antopolski, Tom Craine and Nat Luurtsema.

Jigsaw’s most notable characteristic – if indeed it is such a thing – is their brevity. Most of the sketches are very short, which given the fact the show is only 15 minutes long is a sensible move. The average length of the sketches appeared to be around a minute.

With such a format, it’s key to try and makes the sketches hit the mark as often as possible; in this first episode most of the sketches didn’t quite hit the mark, but when they did they really flied. My personal favourites was just one sketch in, when a couple are having sex; the women then gives her partner some strawberries, unaware of his allergy to them. I also quite liked the technology sketch with music about the “Bandwidth Bandito.”

It’s hard to sum up such a short show, but there are some gems hidden within this shower of sketches. I’ll certainly be tuning in next week.