Comedy on't radio.....good, bad and the ugly

Anyone here listen to sitcoms, panels games etc on the wireless. What would you recommend to newbies to hear and avoid, current and past.
Hear..mostly R4 and R4 Extra. Mostly current.
Clare in the Community - amusing p*sstake of political correctness
Weak At The Top - quite a droll pop at the corporate world with Alexander Armstrong as an objectionable, unPC marketing exec
Bleak Expectations - entertaining Dickens spoof
Mark Steel's In... - pretty funny stand up with material centred on whichever town he's in.
Hancock's Half Hour - legendary stuff and deservedly so
Giles Wemmbly Hogg Goes Off - v amusing with Marcus Brigstocke as gormless ex public school goon on his round the world trips
Avoid
The Castle - contrived medieval sitcom with constant modern day cultural references
Everyone Quite Likes Justin - a not particularly funny show about a Manchester DJ
Reruns of stuff like The Goons, Round the Horne, Navy Lark, Men From The Ministry etc from the 50s-70s. Have generally dated badly.

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Badmouthing the Goons??? Nugent, wash your mouth out! Especially when your moniker comes from "The Phantom Headshaver of Brighton!"
I still laugh at the Goons and even Round The Horne. The Navy Lark seems rather silly but then again it's comedy of the familiar to me. If you enjoy spoofs you might try "Tales of the Mausoleum Club" which were a series of spoofs of different authors... as in "The T Machine" a Wellsian affair. The trouble with comedy - ALL comedy is that for it to last it can't be tied to a particular era - thus the Goons, with their dependence on logic carried to an illogical conclusion last whilst ITMA with its topical references - which led to it being a must listen event in its day is almost impenetrable except to a history student. Still love Tommy Handley's technique tho'.

Anyone happen to know whether Watson & Oliver, which debuted last night, originated on radio? Cos it had that vibe about it - absolutely terrible. The only good thing about it was the guest appearance by John Barrowman.

Sorry I Haven't a Clue.
Slowly recovering after Humph's unfortunate demise.
Just a Minute.

Funnily enough, both are on radio 4 and been going for ages.

I don't think that the Goons, or Around the Horn are dated. Still very silly, in the case of the Goons, and funny.

Watson & Oliver was very poor. The Question Time sketch was a watered down version of the Dead Ringers sketches where Jan Ravens portrays Sue MAC-Gregor!

Watson & Oliver was shockingly awful. Didn't make me titter even once. Pointless sketches poking fun at pointless targets (Myleene Klass, William and Kate - Err.. Why?)

Favourites on Radio:
Panel shows - The Unbelievable Truth, The Museum of Curiousity, Heresy, So Wrong it's Right.
Stand up - What To Do If You're Not Like Everyone Else (Andrew Lawrence's tirades will have you in tears - especially if you're on the recieving end!)
Sitcom - Safety Catch (Darren Boyd is terrific in this), Cabin Pressure, Clare in the Community, Bleak Expectations

HI WildMike, I`d forgotten about The Unbelievable Truth. However Bleak Expectations is actually now on TV on Monday Nights at 8:30 on BBC 2 under the name of The Bleak Old Shop Of Stuff. It even has Mark Evans in it tucked away in its cast. Depending on your preferences, dont look at the screen and it could be the radio.

I did think the last W&O was better, strangely enough - usually the first of a sketch series is the best. But you know it's a bad sign when the Beeb don't even bother to trail it.

Re Watson and Oliver - didnt make me laugh out loud but some sketches were OK I thought like the drawn on eyebrows and the police skits. The Myleene, Question Hour, Pride & Prejuduce and Barrowman pieces were pretty poor though. The main prob I have with this format is the intro where the dialogue is very forced. Only Morecombe and Wise ever made this look natural. For the over 40s I guess sketch shows are old hat but for younger peeps it's probably quite new.
Bleak Old Shop of Stuff and Bleak Expectations are by the same writer though I cant help thinking the radio show is much better

I think the BBC are trying to experiment with comedy formats at the moment, looking for something new that works - viz Kevin Bridges and, last night, Sarah Millican (begin again). Don't know if anyone saw that - the opening interview with Chris Packham was aw-kward, an amazingly weak opening for a new series. But the rest was okay. Personally I'm put off, if anything, by the chat show element of things like this. I guess the difficulty is to find the right vehicle for people who are essentially stand-ups.

Not easy I grant esp given cuts to their budget. I think the new Room 101 format works well esp the extended repeats but I dont know why they just dont broadcast it like that in the first place. But the stand-up as talk show host format doesnt work that well on any channel IMO esp Alan Carr on C4. Best have them on the better panel shows like QI.

chris packham was well out of this depth but very few stand ups fare well when they have to respond in a impromptu or spontaneous situation - behind the mask maybe most of them are bland and uninteresting.
i have the Bleak Expectations set on CD and it gets a bit tedious, whereas i enjoyed the TV series better - maybe because there were plenty of visual gags to break the monotony.
The Goon Shows for all their dated references and WWII themes are still inspired genius at times
any fans of You'll Have Had Your Tea (Graeme Garden and Barry Cryer)?

To be fair, I'm not sure it was Packham who was out of his depth. Millican had invited a naturalist as guest, and then seemed surprised that he took his own subject seriously. I mean, conservation and that: all very worthy, but lighten up, mate...

Me for one Huck, that is a fan of Hamish and Dougal. Wish they'd done more than just the 18 quarter of an hour slots. I get what you mean viz Bleak Expectations.

Anyone here remember another R4 series of 15 min shows, The Consultants? Very funny stuff.

Well I still love Round the Horne,the Clitheroe Kid and the absolute gold that is Hancock's Half Hour! Of their time-ofcourse!-but a joy to listen to. Probably not to everyones taste but recently enjoyed the re-runs of the Radom jotting's of Hinge and Bracket and For Better or for Worse ( Radio 4 Extra-I Love You! ) and also Floggit's (?). Can't find them available anywhere for purchase. More recent favourites: Old Harry's Game,Clare in the community,Linda Smith's a brief history of timewasting,An Actor's life for me (another one seemingly not available ) and Milton Jones.

Down the Line is probably the funniest show I've heard on radio. Much prefered it The Fast Show and Higson and Whitehouse's other shows.

Definitely Old Harry's Game, Nebulous, Bleak Expectations, as well as The Goons, I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again, Hello Cheeky and the original radio League of Gentlemen.

As for Australian radio comedy I recommend "Yes, What"?, the bush school programme that started in Adelaide in 1936 and is still going on radio. The ABC Shop has episodes on double CD sets.

An example of why Greenbottle was late for school, as I recall the lines.

"My uncle got burned sir"
"That's terrible. Was he badly burned"?
"They don't muck about at the crematorium".

Happily re-recommend "Old Harry's Game", and like to add (haven't seen it mentioned here yet) "A Brief History of Timewasting", but you might have trouble 'sourcing' it, if you know what I mean...

There's also a one-off series I really took to a year or so back based on a Robert Rankin book called 'The Brightonomicon'.

Might be worth tuning into Radio4Extra (formerly BBC7) every now and then, or try the webpage on the BBC website and look at the schedule. You might see something that looks interesting and if you're lucky, be able to use the listen again facility..

The comedy genius of The Goons will last, the era when it was recorded aside. It's just so b.....y funny.

Imagine two people who need to see over a wall. One stands on the other's shoulders but they can't see. They then swap places - without the 'top man' coming back down, id est in mid air, thinking this will work and then finding it still doesn't. They then carry on swapping again, with laughter in the background.

It was SELLER's aim, I read somewhere, to get SECOMBE to 'crack up' laughing during reading the scripts and he very often succeeded.

"I can't open the door"

"Just turn the knob on your side"

"I don't have a knob on my side"

AAAAH!
I call Goonwin's Law!

I used to be a big Goons fan as a teenager ( I even got a letter from the Home Office giving me a warning that I was a member of a law breaking society - The Goon Show Appreciation Society' as apparently they flouted copywrite laws in quoting chunks of scripts and selling cassettes of shows), but I realised that it was mainly Spike I liked. However when I saw the film of 'Hitler, My Part In His Downfall', where he gave every funny line to Jim Dale (playing the part of Milligan), I realised I had shared a flat with someone quite similar, and he was such a pain in the a@*e constantly trying to be funny, that we all moved out to avoid him. Since then, I find the Goons not so funny, not well written, and dated. I will listen to them if they are on the radio, but I dont go seeking them out, as there are many 'average' episodes between the good ones.

I tend now to seek out the Radio 4 panel shows, Sorry I Havent A Clue, UnBelievable Truth, and Just A Minute. Also the earlier series of Milton Jones.