Alexei Sayle
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?
Last on
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"Alexei had a fearsome comedy reputation."
Read more about the making of this programme on the Radio 4 Extra Blog.
Clip
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Comedy Controller: Alexei Sayle
Duration: 00:23
Broadcasts
- Sat 20 Oct 201209:00BBC Radio 4 Extra
- Sat 20 Oct 201219:00BBC Radio 4 Extra
- Sat 17 May 201409:00BBC Radio 4 Extra
- Sat 17 May 201419:00BBC Radio 4 Extra
- Sat 16 Apr 201609:00BBC Radio 4 Extra
- Sat 16 Apr 201619:00BBC Radio 4 Extra
