At this point, John Finnemore could record a programme that was just him licking and then describing the taste of different spiders, and Radio 4 would broadcast it. Luckily, he keeps producing things that are actually really rather good, and mostly don't involve too many legs.
This is the first episode of his second series of "Double Acts", which is an anthology programme of standalone episodes, in which a pair of well-known radio comedy actors generally spar nicely about some sort of ludicrous scenario. Such as this episode "The Queen's Speech", in which Queen Victoria meets the first wax cylinder recording device.
Victoria is played by Stephanie Cole (who I'm beginning to suspect has no small amount of blackmail material about Finnemore, given how often she appears in works of his) and she does an excellent job of it. The haughty, imperious queen is essentially a slightly posher Caroline and that works very well with her skill set. She's nicely balanced by Kerry Godliman, the poor suffering wife of the inventor of said cylinder, who doesn't quite know how to behave around the monarchy (or possibly anybody).
Not quite as hilarious as his Souvenir Programme or Cabin Pressure, but that's not really the aim with this. It's meant to be a reasonably relaxed character piece and it does that beautifully. It actually has an impressively emotional ending for such a short piece.
Highly recommended.
Tagged: Radio Comedy Two hander Sitcom Anthology