Programme Index

Discover 11,128,835 listings and 279,940 playable programmes from the BBC

Ability

Series 4

Blood, Sweat and Dribble

Duration: 28 minutes

First broadcast: on BBC Radio 4 LWLatest broadcast: on BBC Radio 4 FM

Available for years

Matt (played by Lee Ridley, aka Lost Voice Guy) is 28. He has cerebral palsy and can only speak via an app on his iPad. Everyone who cares about Matt knows that this isn't the defining thing about him. Matt is funny and clever and "up for stuff".

Matt shares a flat with his best mate, Jess (Sammy Dobson). He has a rubbish carer, Bob (Jason Lewis). And finally, last year, in series 3 Matt met Anna (Lisa Hammond). They have loads in common and she is even a wheelchair user so they can share their annoyance and grief and same sense of humour at people's crazy attitudes to disabilities.

Now in series 4 of this award nominated comedy, Matt has been with Anna for six months. They are just back from what should have been a romantic weekend away, but Matt is now worried that when Anna fell over in the hotel he wasn't able to pull her up again. So when Jess's new hunky boyfriend (Harry Hepple) offers to give Matt a training session in the gym, he reluctantly agrees.

Ability is the semi-autobiographical co-creation of Lee Ridley, who, like Matt, has Cerebral Palsy and uses his iPad to speak. Producer Jane Berthoud started developing this sitcom with Lee after he won the BBC New Comedy Awards in 2014. Lee later went on the win Britain's Got Talent in 2018.

The series is set in Newcastle.

Written by Lee Ridley, Kat Butterfield and Daniel Audritt
A Funnybones production for BBC Radio 4 Show less

About this data

This data is drawn from the data stream that informs BBC's iPlayer and Sounds. The information shows what was scheduled to be broadcast, meaning it was/is subject to change and may not be accurate. More