BBC Radio 4 Extra

Comedy Controller

Comedy

Series in which guests choose six comedy shows that have influenced them

Comedy Controller: Alexei Sayle

Alexei Sayle

20/10/2012

BBC Radio 4 Extra - Comedy Controller, Alexei Sayle

Featuring Round the Horne, I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again and The Burkiss Way.

The comedian and writer lines up his favourite radio comedies: Round the Horne, I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again, The Burkiss Way, On the Hour, Down the Line and Chain Reaction.

Alexei Sayle, the original alternative stand-up comedian, actor and writer chooses his favourite comedies from the BBC radio archive. 

Alexei takes us back to his Liverpool childhood and Sunday lunchtime listening in Round the Horne (1965). There's more illicit childhood listening in I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again (1966) starring Tim Brooke-Taylor, John Cleese, Graeme Garden and Bill Oddie. Alexi's admiration of rule breakers guides his next choices, the logic defying The Burkiss Way (1980) and the news shattering On the Hour (1992), the original radio home of Alan Partridge. 

The idea of making something seem so real but twisting it deviously has always appealed to Alexei, and is at the core of the award-winning spoof radio phone in show, Down the Line (2007), starring Paul Whitehouse and Charlie Higson. Alexei's final choice finds him interrogating one of his best friends in comedy, the comedian Lenny Henry in Chain Reaction (2005). But did one of comedy's great talkers allow Lenny to get a word in edgeways?

Your digital radio entertainment station showcasing the best in comedy and drama

Your digital radio entertainment station showcasing the best in comedy and drama. With recent favourites from BBC Radio 4.

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Alexei Sayle

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