John Finnemore hasn’t appeared live very often in the last few years, but in that time he has become something of a Radio 4 icon. His sketch show Souvenir Programme and sitcom Cabin Pressure have been huge hits.
In fact the recording of the final episode of Cabin Pressure had the most ticket requests of any Radio 4 recording in BBC history. But then again a) tickets were free b) Benedict Cumberbatch was in it. For this live run, combining new bits and bits of both radio shows tickets are £27.50 a pop on Ticketmaster and Benedict Cumberbatch is busy being Hamlet. Would fans stump up for a Cumberbatchless Finnemore?
There was certainly a very decent-sized loyal crowd in on Friday night. Quite a lot of families with young kids too, emphasising the broad appeal of Finnemore’s work. And also the fact that it is never remotely offensive. He specialises a clever sketches, wordplay and rhymes and manages to hark back to the trad English comedy of Python and The Goodies while adding small contemporary twists.
I particularly liked his “put it on a plate” song. Where someone like Michael McIntyre might turn the observation that trendy restaurant food gets served on pretty much anything except a plate these days into a few one-liners, Finnemore came up with an entire witty musical ditty on the subject. Much of the humour comes from the comedy of manners - there’s a great little “skit” as he calls them, about a customer leaving a tip in a coffee shop without the barista seeing him do it and digging an embarrassing hole for himself when he tries to rectify the situation.
Elsewhere a big roar went up for Roger Wattis, Britain’s voice of the silent majority. I was slightly worried that some people didn’t realise that this scion of Maidenhead was a piece of satire, but I think they got the joke when he talked of the English Channel basically being a moat. In a neat twist, Roger’s fictional son – also played by Finnemore – pitched up in the second half to distance himself from his father’s politics. But behind the goth-black clothes and cap it turned out to be a case of like father like son where prejudice was concerned.
Each night in this run Finnemore has a special guest from his radio show. On this night it was Simon Kane. This means that some sketches are different each night and for various skits Finnemore and Kane used scripts, lending the affair the feel of a radio recording at times. Occasionally the polite, self-mocking star fluffed his lines, but the audience had so much warmth for him they didn’t care. In fact they probably enjoyed it as a special treat because you never hear fluffed lines on Radio 4.
One of the loudly-cheered highlights of the second half was Finnemore in the guide of Cabin Pressure’s nice but dim Arthur Shappey, called upon to entertain imaginary passengers by delivering a lecture on polar bears, based on a children’s book about bears. It wasn’t the funniest moment of the night, but its air of silliness was certainly endearing. And like the rest of this show, there was nothing objectionable about it whatsoever. You won’t see another comedy show as English and middle class as this all year. In fact if Roger Wattis had been in the audience he would have probably loved it.
Until October 11. Tickets here.
