Radio can fill the gap left by a slump in TV production to champion new British talent, the head of BBC Radio 4 comedy has said.
Julia McKenzie, the station’s commissioning editor for comedy, said it is still taking risks amid a “challenging” commissioning landscape and that she is keen to give opportunities to people “desperately trying to start their career”.
A production slump across the TV industry has left comedians struggling to get ideas to screen. “It’s challenging for people to take a punt on emerging talent,” said McKenzie. “The pressure is to deliver bigger names to attract an audience because there’s so much competition for ears and eyes.”
New commissions for BBC Radio 4 include a first series for up-and-coming Birmingham standup Lindsey Santoro, and a debut sitcom, Dan Does Dating, from writer Michael Beck, following the protagonist on a different date every episode. Radio comedy has been invigorated by the success of podcasts, McKenzie said: “It’s revived comedy as an entity. It’s made it relevant.”
The latest figures from BBC Sounds show that, between July and September this year, three of the top 10 radio shows listened to on-demand were comedies – Mark Steel’s in Town, The Unbelievable Truth and The News Quiz.
Audio can be the first step towards a career in TV for comedians, McKenzie said. “Lots of iconic shows started out on Radio 4 – On The Hour, Goodness Gracious Me, Miranda, League of Gentlemen and, more recently, Ladhood.
Acclaimed sketch duo the Delightful Sausage premiered Icklewick FM, a parody local radio show, on Radio 4 earlier this year. It is returning for a second series, and as part of a joint commission with McKenzie’s TV counterpart, Jon Petrie, there’s an eye on a future move to screen.
“McKenzie explained: “I want to commission stuff that is brilliant for audio, but I’m also a pipeline for TV.”
Alongside classic shows such as The News Quiz, the station has space to take risks, McKenzie said – including risks difficult on TV. Jon Holmes’ satirical show The Skewer, for example, is an immersive audio mashup that responds to the week’s news: “That’s very provocative and hard to imagine on TV.”
She added: “It’s hard for people to get commissioned as sketch shows on TV – they just don’t do the numbers that they need, and it can be expensive.”
On radio, it’s easier and cheaper to build worlds. The sketch show is “a format that will endure”, said McKenzie, as the success of characters and short scenes on TikTok and other social platforms has shown.
New Radio 4 comedy will include sketch series POV, bringing comedians who’ve found success on social media to new audiences.Crybabies, who have already featured on Radio 4 with an adaptation of their live sci-fi parody Bagbeard, will return with a four-part pastiche of film genres.
There will also be new satire from Matt Forde, who will interview politicians and comedians about contentious issues, and Your Mum, from Aria-winning Laura Smyth.
With increasing concerns from the creative industry over AI and the threat it might pose, McKenzie said there’s no danger of it invading Radio 4 comedy. “There’s no substitute for people bringing their own lived experience and sensibility to their comedy,” she said. “It’s the humanity … which makes it so compelling.
“When you get comedy right, it cuts through in a way that other genres don’t. It’s part of what makes us human.”
