Christmas present shopping for comedy fans may just have become a little easier with the pre-Christmas release of a host of comedy greats from BBC Audiobooks including contemporary comedy comedians Mitchell and Webb the legendary Tony Hancock and the complete Blackadder series.
BLACKADDER THE COMPLETE COLLECTED SERIES
AVAILABLE 5TH NOVEMBER 2009
A complete collection featuring all four historic series plus over 3 hours of specials and extras including previously unreleased material. A host of stars including Rowan Atkinson, Tony Robinson, Hugh Laurie, Stephen Fry, Tim McInnerny, Rick Mayall & Miranda Richardson appear in The Black Adder, Blackadder II, Blackadder The Third & Blackadder Goes Forth.
Sit back and laugh along to this ever popular series written by Richard Curtis, Ben Elton & Rowan Atkinson. Plus Blackadder: The Cavalier Years, Blackadder: Woman’s Hour Invasion, Blackadder’s Christmas Carol, The Shakespeare Sketch, Blackadder: Back and Forth, Blackadder: The Army Years (Royal Variety Performance), Blackadder: I Have a Cunning Plan and Britain’s Best Sitcom: Blackadder.
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DAVE GORMAN: GENIUS BOXSET
AVAILABLE 5TH NOVEMBER 2009
A perfect gift, three complete BBC Radio 4 series, where Dave Gorman and celebrity guests consider the ridiculous, unworkable but sometimes genius ideas of the public. Includes 2008 Christmas special with Lee Mack.
Series one sees special guests, Paul Daniels, Richard Madeley, John Fortune, Neil Innes and Stewart Lee, help Dave Gorman peruse a parade of proposals to decide which pitch wins the legendary Genius trophy. Ideas include using laughing gas to quell rioters, a bubble wrap stress-buster, a 99p coin and running the House of Commons by the rules of Just a Minute.
Special guests Johnny Vegas, Armando Iannucci, Chris Addison, Brian Sewell, Carol Vorderman and Sid Waddell join Dave in series two pore over another pot pourri of plots, plans, inventions and scams. Including Bovril as a fizzy drink, turning parking meters into fruit machines, virtual reality headsets for chickens and perforated bread (the best thing since sliced bread).
In the third series Germaine Greer, Gyles Brandreth, Matthew Wright, Rob Newman, Charlie Brooker and Simon Munnery try to unearth some genuine gems of genius from some of these: a conveyor bed duvet, Lego prisons, talking parrots – and even an improved Genius voting system!
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HANCOCK: THE LOST RADIO EPISODES – SID JAMES’S DAD & THE DIET
AVAILABLE 5TH NOVEMBER 2009
Continuing the excitement of the release of Tony Hancock’s The Lost Episodes he is back starring in two long-lost episodes from the classic BBC Radio series, these are rare recordings made available for the first time in over fifty years. Including special sleeve-notes detailing the making of the original productions, these episodes celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Galton and Simpson writing partnership.
In Sid James’s Dad (28 October 1956), Sid is expecting a visit from his father. Being ashamed to admit his true profession, he has explained his regular appearances in court by telling the old man he is a judge.
The Diet (7 December 1955) sees Hancock being offered the lead role in a romantic film. Unfortunately, the American producer Mr Stroud (Kenneth Williams) tells Hancock he’s too fat for the part and tells him to diet.
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I’M SORRY I HAVEN’T A CLUE’S HUMPHREY ‘PLAY AS I PLEASE’
AVAILABLE 5TH NOVEMBER 2009
The incredibly varied life of I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue’s Humphrey Lyttelton – in his own words – and as heard on BBC Radio 4.
In conversation with June Knox-Mawer, Humphrey Lyttelton reflects on his extraordinary life; from schooldays at Eton and playing out Roll Out the Barrel outside Buckingham Palace on VE Day, to the formation of his band in 1948 and his emergence as ‘the godfather of British jazz’, the recording is peppered with some of his own great jazz favourites.
He was a cartoonist for the Daily Mail, a journalist for Punch and even formed his own record company. In this recording he shares his joy of music with his beloved humour.
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THAT MITCHELL AND WEBB SOUND: SERIES 4
AVILABLE 3RD DECEMBER 2009
The fourth BBC 4 radio series starring the ever popular David Mitchell and Robert Webb. The pair have also starred in Channel 4’s Peep Show and won numerous BAFTAS, national comedy awards and Chortle awards.
Sketches and biting satire with a cast of four, including David and Robert, performing in front of a live audience. Topics covered in this series, we meet an orthopaedic company with it’s very own trans-galatic portal (“the stargate is not a bin”), discover how Saturday night TV shows are invented (such as My Big Fat Greek Big Breakfast) and marvel at a mysterious new arrival at the Institute of Extraordinary Creatures.
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