Welcome to the Radio Comedy Review blog.
Radio comedies are a largely ignored slice of the radio programming pie. Plenty of people don't stray from music stations when listening to the radio, and many people think of spoken-word stations as being the place only for news and current affairs.
I first became aware of radio comedies when flicking through digital stations late one night many years ago. I stopped on a spoken-work station and did something quite unexpected.
I laughed.
I don't remember the programme I was listening to, but the station was BBC Radio 7 (now BBC Radio 4 Extra) and I became hooked on all sorts of programmes hitherto unknown to me: Paul Temple stories, The News Quiz, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Poirot, Miss Marple and, of course, all sorts of comedy programmes and panel shows.
Over the last few years I've spent a lot of time listening to BBC radio comedies, either downloaded from the internet, streamed from BBC Sounds, or live on Radio 4 Extra, and I decided to share my opinions of those programmes with others who might be interested in finding something new to listen to.
So here are those opinions, in no particular order.