Friday 7 February: "We present The News Quiz..."
8am - an early start for the producer as there's an hour and twenty minutes of material that has to be ruthlessly cut down to 28 minutes by transmission time - 6.30pm.
Studio manager, Andy Garratt, is in control of SADiE, the digital editing machine, and we watch as whole questions on OFSTED, asylum seekers and Gordon Brown disappear from the screen at the flick of his mouse.
By lunchtime a rough edit has reduced the show's length to 38 minutes and, as the afternoon progresses, it's the final few minutes that prove the most tricky. Every surplus laugh, pause, cough or stumble is ditched to leave room for the funny stuff, and finally at 4.30 we reach the magic number - 28 minutes and 15 seconds.
Once we've established that the programme contains nothing that need worry the lawyers or the Radio 4 controllers, the final cut is put onto tape, delivered to the Continuity department for broadcast and it's time to hit the bars of the West End and forget all about current affairs for a while.
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