June 2024 - Rik Mayall, Panglobal Phenomenon

In 2004, Rik Mayall was commissioned by Harper Collins to write an autobiography. Given Rik's towering achievements in film and TV and the drama surrounding a serious quad bike accident in 1998, a memoir by Rik Mayall would be a sure-fire best seller.

There was only one problem. Rik really didn’t want to write an autobiography.

With co-writer Max Kinnings, Rik submitted Bigger Than Hitler, Better Than Christ - a memoir by THE Rik Mayall, a monstrous egomaniac, keen to tell his absurd, self-aggrandizing life-story about how he'd waged a 30 year war on showbusiness.

Rik’s method of writing involved “jamming”, improvising in front of  constantly rolling dictaphone - and it’s these recordings which form the backbone of Rik Mayall, Panglobal Phenomenon.

Presented by Max himself, I've produced this show for BBC Radio 4's Archive On 4 slot, and it has been the screensaver inside my brain for months now. It features interviews with Ben Elton, Helen Lederer, Peter Richardson, Bob Baldwin, Sanjeev Kohli as well as publisher, Trevor Dolby, and Rik's children - who help provide context to the audio (and correct a few errors on the way!) I've produced it for Mighty Bunny productions with Simon Nicholls as exec producer and archive restoration by Andy Goddard - who has thrown absolutely everything at these 20 year old dictaphone recordings. The show is on BBC Radio 4 on Saturday 1st June at 8pm and will be on BBC Sounds afterwards.

Also available on BBC Sounds (and part of the same Archive On 4 strand) is Gareth Gwynn Hasn't Fin-, a documentary about unfinished and abandoned projects. Covering everything from the Beach Boys Smile to the Sagrada Familia, and an awful lot in between, it attempts deal with some of the reasons things might fall by the wayside - but also why we're so fascinated by the stories of things that fail. 

The press release I wasn't allowed to use is here and the photos that got rejected by the BBC Sounds photo editor are here - and the whole thing was the subject to a suitably incomplete review in the Radio Times (left).

May 2024 - Gareth Gwynn Hasn't Fin-

Hey Jess, for the full show description on BBC Sounds, can we just take a few paras from the pitch doc and give them a tweak? I'll copy and paste some bits below…

Gareth Gwynn presents an exploration into all things uncompleted.  Books, films, TV shows, songs, albums, sonatas, painting, technologies, business plans, building projects - anything where the creator has (through their own choice or not) jacked the whole thing in. CHECK WE STILL DO A BUILDING IN THE FINISHED EDIT

They say “a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step” – but by Gareth’s maths, that leaves 2,111,199 steps which could be your last – and those are the ones he’s interested in. I THINK IM GOING TO USE THE STEPS THING IN THE SHOW SO REPLACE??

This show (which, it will become apparent, is far from finished itself - ARE WE STILL DOING THIS? SOUNDS SHIT WHEN YOU READ IT LIKE THAT) is an attempt to look failure in the eye - and discover exactly what’s going on when someone calls it quits. Each of the programme’s five (THREE ? IS IT THREE NOW?) sections explores a different reason or motivation for a creative work being unfinished - from the DELETE THIS. SAY WHAT'S IN IT. SMILE, LORRAINE HANSBERRY, JERRY LEWIS, KEITH HARING ,ROBIN OF SHERWOOD ETC- AND WE INTERVIEW ANGELA BARNES, JAE BRODERICK KIRSTIN WONG, JASON HAZELEY, BARNABY EATON-JONES, CHRIS KENDALL ETCETC

We'll find out what having a lumpen, half-finished piece of work on a CV really means for an artist - and for their audience. Do those fans chomping at the bit for some long lost album really want to hear it? Is sub-par than nothing? And, for the artist, what does it take to walk-away? What does it do to the creator’s mind to leave it there? What’s the psychological toil of an unfinished project on your next artistic adventure?

IS THAT ENOUGH TO GO ON? LET ME KNOW IF YOU NEED MORE.

 

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(So, I got told I wasn't allowed to use the above as the official write-up on the BBC webpage so it has ended up here. Same goes for the image at the top, which was turned down for all sorts of reasons! You can head to the BBC page to see what we did get away with).

April 2024 - September 1998

Last week, I appeared on the penultimate edition of The Now Show to talk about the internet and AI. The show itself first started in September 1998, the same month that Google launched, which gave me just enough of an excuse to look at the way the BBC covered the World Wide Web back in the mid-90s. It's is currently available on BBC Sounds.

I'll be appearing on next week's edition of Kiri's Comedy Club on BBC Radio Wales/BBC Sounds to talk about topical comedy - And as someone who turned up on a topical comedy show to make fun of the title sequence of a 30 year old tech show, I'm sure you can see why.

I also recently featured as Mark Drakeford (i.e. I wore a red jumper) on NonCensored with Rosie Holt and over on The Xennial Dome, we've got a very special edition  out this week, marking the 40th birthday of former guest Stuart Laws. Stu is back to look back at the month of his birth - April 1986 - which saw the release of Splash and the launch of the Twirl.

February 2024 - United Thingdom

O'r Diwedd 2023 is still available on S4C Clic and BBC iPlayer (with english subtitles). United Thingdom is currently available on BBC Sounds.

And tickets are now available for The Xennial Dome Live at Machynlleth Comedy Festival on 5th May. New episodes of the show are released every Tuesday and should be available on the playlist below.

January 2024 - O'r Diwedd 2023

 

Blwyddyn arall 👀 That’s a wrap! 🎬

📺 O’r Diwedd 2023
▶️ S4C Clic & @BBCiPlayer #yearinreview #lol #pastiche #humour #satire #funny #tudurowen #lookback #newyear #atlast #cymru #cymraeg #wales #welsh #comedy #comedian #comedians #lolz #satirical pic.twitter.com/OnvsWXjTfu

— S4C 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 (@S4C) December 31, 2023

O'r Diwedd 2023 is still available on BBC iPlayer and S4C Clic. It's in Welsh (with English subtitles available) and is a rattle through the year's news in sketches. Politics being what it is, it could also see the final outing for Mark Drakeford (Tudur Owen) and Andrew RT Davies (Sian Harries), in this form at least.

A few other things I've worked on have popped back online for 2024. The entirity of the BBC One Wales TV show Tourist Trap is currently available on BBC iPlayer as is Ministry Of Happiness - a two-part sitcom based on the early years of radio in Wales. On its inaugaral broadcast, I did a live tweet-along with the facts behind the story, which are still available here and here. 

Talking of tweet-alongs, BBC Radio 4 repeated Gareth Gwynn's Alternative Archive this week - an edition of Archive On 4 which looks at radio in different universes. I had a go at tweeting along to that too, but it's tricky going back to a show you did five years ago. 

And on the subject of the past, The Xennial Dome's Little Dome continues to be released every week with new episodes landing on Tuesdays. There should be a playlist below.