The Cambridge Geek

The Nether Regions

Don't be too distracted by the Twilight Zone-inspired intro to this show, it's not another science-fiction bonanza from Rob Grant and Andrew Marshall in the style of Quanderhorn Xperimentations, but instead a collection of sketches, covering a fair range of topics.

I'll admit, I was a bit wary of this at first, as it starts out with a joke about "Miss Amazon's corner shop", that feels about ten years too late. (I checked, ten years isn't that far out. Remember this old Mitchell and Webb sketch?)

Luckily, it cracks on to some more novel ground with sketches about gentlemens' prosthetics, the weather report as delivered by American conservatives and an Alan Bennett support group. That last is easily my favourite, as they try and stop each other from slipping into whimsical anecdotes, consider joining "Nice cup of tea" Anonymous, and get out the dry quip patches.

There's also a running joke of spoof versions of shows. So there's Throne of Forks, Yesterday's World and The Queen. Variable quality these ones, with 24 (seconds) a nice touch, but some of the others a bit laboured. That might be a problem with this duo in general, as I remember the Quanderhorn work occasionally having jokes that either feel a bit tired/late or were allowed to run on too long. Other examples might be the Wodehouse Batman, and the joke about vegans. We get it, they like to mention they're vegans a lot. That is no longer an original joke.

But there's also some beautifully cutting moments. The potted history of the Royal Family had a real belter of a line from Charles, and the Forks finale was nigh perfect.

Hits and misses abound, but there's not a massive amount of sketch shows about on the radio, so enjoy this one.

Score:
Score 4

Tagged: Radio Comedy Cast Sketch Anthology