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Press Releases
Happy Mondays new comedy for Monday nights on Radio 4
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Happy Mondays is a new season of comedy for Monday nights on BBC Radio 4.
Some of the most exciting comedy talent will get the chance to try out new ideas the best of which will be developed into series for both BBC radio and television.
From Monday 14 April 2008 for 13 weeks, stars including Jon Culshaw, Stephen K Amos, Rhys Thomas and Katherine Parkinson will appear in new shows on Radio 4.
Paul Schlesinger, Head of Radio Entertainment, says: "The joy of radio is its potential to develop and broadcast ideas in a very short time-frame.
"This I hope sends out a very positive message to talent and listeners alike. Both established, as well as relatively new comedy writers and performers, have an incentive to try out new formats in this strand and listeners can genuinely say they heard it here first."
Lucy Lumsden, Controller, Comedy Commissioning, BBC Vision, says: "Radio plays a vital part in the journey that the BBC can offer the nation's much-valued comedy talent. I'm delighted to support this season of new shows."
Caroline Raphael, Commissioning Editor, Comedy and Entertainment, Radio 4, says: "There is a fabulous tradition of radio shows moving to television and I have high hopes that some of these intriguing new ventures will delight the Radio 4 audience and then go on to be hits on TV."
The run kicks off on Monday 14 April at 11.00pm with an hour-long special called Happy Mondays: The Big Night In
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It's like a night "down the local" with stand-up, sketches, games and live music a taste of some of the upcoming talent that will be heard over the next three months.
Produced by Julia McKenzie and Ashley Blaker (original producer of Little Britain), the show is recorded in front of an audience.
Other shows in the season include:
Happy Mondays: The Don't Watch With Mother Sketchbook (Monday 21 April, 11pm) Rhys Thomas (Star Stories and Down The Line), Lucy Montgomery (Down The Line and Tittybangbang) and Tony Way are the sketch group Don't Watch With Mother. They've been around for 30 years and they're showing off some of their best work from the past decades. Charlie Higson (The Fast Show and Down The Line) script edits.
Happy Mondays: The Secret World (Monday 28 April, 11pm) Bill Dare (creator of Dead Ringers) teams up with Jon Culshaw and a new wave of impressionists as celebrities and politicians are caught unawares by the microphone.
Happy Mondays: John Finnemore, Apparently (Monday 5 May, 11pm) John Finnemore is one of comedy's unsung heroes. He has written his own new series, Cabin Pressure, for Radio 4 and written for Armstrong and Miller, Dead Ringers and Mitchell and Webb's TV and radio series. Here, he not only writes but performs all of his own sketches.
Happy Mondays: Pappy's Fun Club (Monday 12 May, 11pm) with their modern take on the gang show, IF.comedy award nominees, Pappy's Fun Club, became the hit of last year's Edinburgh Fringe. Their mixture of gag-heavy writing and exuberant performance style leads to a radio listen somewhere between Round The Horne, TFI Friday and The Muppet Show!
Happy Mondays: The Odd Half Hour (Monday 19 May to 9 June, 11pm) - stand ups Stephen K Amos and Jason Byrne, and comic performers Katherine Parkinson (IT Crowd and writer and star of Mouth Trap) and Justin Edwards (The Consultants, Respectable), are brought together for a gang show that mixes the political with the plain silly.
Happy Mondays: Spike's Lookalikes (Monday 16 June to 7 July, 11pm) Mark Watson is best known for his stand up and his Radio 4 show Mark Watson Makes the World Substantially Better, but here he pens a sitcom set in the world of lookalikes.
Notes to Editors
John Finnemore's new series Cabin Pressure will be broadcast on Radio 4 from Wednesday 13 August, 11.30am.
Katherine Parkinson's new series Mouth Trap will be broadcast on Radio 4 from Monday 13 May, 11.00pm.
Radio 4 Publicity
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