Episode 1

Clever, intelligent, witty and unexpected! Wordaholics is the comedy panel game all about words.

Gyles Brandreth presides over toponyms, abbreviations, euphemisms, old words, new words, cockney rhyming slang, Greek gobbledegook, plus the panellists' picks of the ugliest and the most beautiful words.

Ready to vie for wordy supremacy in the ring:

Stephen Fry
Natalie Haynes
Milton Jones
Lloyd Langford

Written by Jon Hunter and James Kettle.

Find out the meaning of words like giff-gaff, knock-knobbler and buckfitches, plus the difference between French marbles, French velvet and the French ache.

Hear the glorious poetry of the English language, as practised by writers varying from William Shakespeare to Vanilla Ice - and spend half an hour laughing and learning with some of the finest Wordaholics in the business.

Producer: Claire Jones.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in February 2012.