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Elvis McGonagall Takes a Look on the Bright Side

Comedy: Sitcoms

Surreal poetic sitcom. Elvis McGonagall goes in search of a positive side to life.

Surreal poetic sitcom. Stand-up poet, armchair revolutionary, comedian and broadcaster Elvis McGonagall goes in search of a positive side to life.

BBC Radio 4 Extra

BBC Radio 4 LW

Elvis McGonagall Takes a Look on the Bright Side: Series 1

Clarke Peters

Richard Smith

Susan Morrison

Lewis MacLeod

Gabriel Quigley

Frank Stirling

Helen Braunholtz-Smith

Elvis McGonagall Takes a Look on the Bright Side: Series 1: Episode 4: Go Wild in the Country

Comedy

Comedy: Character

Episode 4

Episode 4: Go Wild in the Country

Series 1

Go Wild in the Country

BBC Radio 4 - Elvis McGonagall Takes a Look on the Bright Side, Series 1, Go Wild in the Country

Elvis ponders what's so great about country life.

Elvis ponders what's so great about country life. Should he run with the deer or shoot them? With Clarke Peters. From May 2014.

Stand-up poet, armchair revolutionary, comedian and broadcaster Elvis McGonagall (aka poet and performer Richard Smith) is determined to do something about his bitter, dyspeptic and bloody-minded view of contemporary life. There are good things out there, if he could only be bothered to find them. 

From his home in the Graceland Park near Dundee, the Scottish punk poet goes in search of the brighter side of life. With the help of his dog, Trouble, his friend, Susan Morrison, and his own private narrator, Clarke Peters, Elvis does his very best to accentuate the positive - he really does. Recorded almost entirely on location, in a caravan on a truly glamorous industrial estate somewhere in Scotland.

Episode 4. Go Wild in the Country. The Graceland Caravan Park is beset by second home owners trying to 'keep it real'. Surrounded by Laura Ashley wheelie bins, he begins to wonder what's so great about country life anyway. I mean what are you supposed to do - run with the deer or shoot them?

As Elvis, poet Richard Smith is the 2006 World Poetry Slam Champion, the compere of the notorious Blue Suede Sporran Club and appears regularly on BBC Radio 4 ('Saturday Live', the 'Today Programme', 'Arthur Smith's Balham Bash', 'Last Word', 'Off The Page' and others as well as writing and presenting the popular arts features 'Doggerel Bard' on the art of satiric poetry and 'Beacons and Blue Remembered Hills' on the extraordinary resonance of AE Housman's 'Shropshire Lad', which was recorded on location as well.

(further info at www.elvismcgonagall.co.uk)

Written by Elvis MacGonagall, with Richard Smith, Helen Braunholtz-Smith and Frank Stirling.

Director: Frank Stirling
Producer: Frank Stirling 
A Unique production for BBC Radio 4.

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

Comic poet Elvis McGonagall tries to change his view of life.

Stand-up poet and armchair revolutionary Elvis McGonagall tries to change his dyspeptic view of life, with the help of Susan Morrison and his personal narrator Clarke Peters.

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Elvis McGonagall Takes a Look on the Bright Side

Series 1

Episode 4: Go Wild in the Country

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