Author:BBC Radio Comedy,Steve Punt,Hugh Dennis
Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis present three more series of the much-loved BBC Radio comedy show
A long-time favourite of Friday night comedy fans, The Now Show presents the headlines through sketches, songs and stand-up, providing a wry, satirical perspective on UK and world events.
In these 19 episodes from 2015 and 2016, hosts Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis are joined by some of the brightest and best comedy writers and performers - including Mitch Benn, Pippa Evans, John Finnemore, Mae Martin, Adam Kay and Nish Kumar - for an entertaining romp through the worlds of politics, popular culture and current affairs.
Topics tackled include the Paris terror attacks, the Panama Papers, the EU referendum and its aftermath, Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and puppets. Plus, on its 100th anniversary, Jake Yapp makes a plea for us to keep British Summer Time 365 days a year; Ellie Taylor explains why Millennials are so anxious; Jon Holmes denounces our increasingly selfie-obsessed society and Andy Zaltzman makes an argument for sport to save us all. And as Christmas approaches, the team take a trip to a cat café, and celebrate the season with a Political Panto...
NB: Contains humour and language that some listeners may find offensive
Cast and credits
Presented by Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis
Written by Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis with the cast
Additional material by Liam Beirne, Rose Biggin, Catherine Bohart, Sarah Campbell, Rebecca Channon, Max Davis, Sophie Duker, Gareth Gwynn, Jon Hunter, Gabby Hutchinson-Crouch, Marc Jones, Dan Kiss, Jane Lamacraft, Jenny Laville, Laura Major, Robin Morgan, Sarah Morgan, Michael Odewale, Carrie Quinlan, Clare Wetton, Tom Whalley, Andy Wolton
Produced by Alexandra Smith, Joe Nunnery and Adnan Ahmed
A BBC Studios Production
Series 47 featuring: Gemma Arrowsmith, Mitch Benn, Georgie Bingham, Pippa Evans, John Finnemore, Sofie Hagen, Dr Phil Hammond, Harry the Piano, Jon Holmes, Tez Ilyas, Luke Kempner, Sarah Kendall, Mae Martin, Freya Parker, Robert Peston, Grace Petrie, David Quantick, Jess Ransom, Jasper Rees, John Robins, Emily Taylor, Dr Gabrielle Walker, Holly Walsh, Jake Yapp, Andy Zaltzman
Series 48 featuring: Gemma Arrowsmith, Mitch Benn, Marcus Brigstocke, Luke Harding, Isabel Hardman, Harry The Piano, Dr Nick Hawes, Jon Holmes, Alice Jones, Zoe Lyons, Mae Martin, Freya Parker, Lucy Porter, Jessica Ransom, Suzi Ruffell, Christoph Scheuermann, Felicity Spector, Vikki Stone, Ellie Taylor, Mike Wilmot, Jake Yapp, Andy Zaltzman
Series 49 featuring: James Acaster, Gemma Arrowsmith, Dane Baptiste, Matt Burgess, Pippa Evans, Tez Ilyas, Greg Jenner, Adam Kay, Luke Kempner, Sarah Kendall, Nish Kumar, Dr Tomila Lankina, Mae Martin, Freya Parker, Rachel Parris, Lucy Porter, Kiri Pritchard-McLean, Jess Ransom, Suzi Ruffell, Vikki Stone, Ellie Taylor, Xenia Wickett, Andy Zaltzman
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4, 13 November-18 December 2015 (Series 47), 4 March-8 April 2016 (Series 48), 4 November-16 December 2016 (Series 49)
© 2023 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd (P) 2023 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd.
Calling all avid overthinkers, this funny and honest book is here to give you a break from the constant brain chatter.
—— StylistHilarious...I absolutely loved this book! I almost wet myself from laughing!
—— Dr Amir KhanHayley Morris's debut is a fresh, very funny take on 21st-century high-functioning anxiety... an insightful, intimate account of modern life that is a joy to read, with shades of Dolly Alderton's Everything I Know about Love
—— Scarlett Sangster , iNewsA fresh, laugh-out-loud take on 21st-century high-functioning anxiety, Hayley Morris's honest and easy-to-read debut is a joy. It's a zeitgeist novel for our times, exposing just how normal it is to feel abnormal... Morris' insightful narrative to modern life feels like confessing to a best friend. Hayley Morris is most definitely an author to watch.
—— Press AssociationTikTok's funniest comedian
—— Sunday Times (praise for online content)Genius. So great... Wonderful!
—— Jamie Laing , Private PartsThoughtful and very funny... terrific
—— The GuardianEngaging and evocative. He [Cocker] paints a vividly drab picture of the north of England under Thatcherism. And his book is beautiful to look at, too, set out like pop art.
—— Daily ExpressLike a pop culture Proust... a testament to just how rich this junk is that Cocker can weave such a compelling take.
—— Record CollectorInsightful and delightful.
—— Hi-Fi ChoiceGood Pop, Bad Pop... pulses with the thrilling energy of adolescence and early adulthood... Cocker uses his objects to tell real stories about the past, leaving in the dirt and disappointment around the moments of excitement.
—— ProspectWith laugh-out-loud passages of comedy and stylish illustrations... [this] is the story of how he [Cocker] made himself into who he is, his acquisition of a personal style and outlook... Hopefully we will not have to hang around long before his next trip to the loft.
—— Financial TimesLike little madeleines, each relic is offered up to the reader in the intimate, confiding voice familiar from Cocker's lyrics.
—— Sunday Times, *Summer Reads of 2022*Good Pop, Bad Pop is a joy.
—— ChoiceGood Pop, Bad Pop shows how he mapped out Pulp's path to glory at jumble sales and sparsely attended 1980s gigs... A winning formula on the page.
—— Uncut, *Book of the Year*Extremely funny and almost over-stuffed with insights about the state of pop and the nature of creativity.
—— Daily Telegraph, *Books of the Year*An entertaining quasi-memoir based on decluttering his loft.
—— Financial Times, *Books of the Year*[A] nostalgic, playful, and beautifully designed book.
—— Daily Mail, *Christmas Gift Guide 2022*A vibrant showcase of sharp writing, Abdurraqib's A Little Devil in America attests that Black performance at its root is not simply an outward show of talent but also a means of survival. Read carefully. Abdurraqib's book is a challenge not to accept the usual explanations for the performances we witness.
—— BookPageAbdurraqib's great strength is his ability to present broad, canny observations through the lens of his personal experience, and his intimate exploration of what these specific moments meant to him as a Black Muslim coming of age in the US is what lingers long after you've finished the book
—— BuzzfeedAbdurraqib has written a profound reflection on how Black performance is woven into the fabric of American culture... A Little Devil in America is a joyous ode to Black performance throughout history.
—— PureWowThroughout, Abdurraqib writes with urgency as he highlights what these performances mean, how they connect to his own feelings on grief, love and life,
and where they fit into American history.
From Josephine Baker to Soul Train to 'Sixteen Ways of Looking at Blackface,' Abdurraqib takes us on a wild ride through the history of Black performances, artists who crushed boundaries and carved out spaces for vigorous forms of African American expression. His is an intimate, conspiratorial voice, musically inflected, blending scholarship with anecdote, a 'waltz in a circular chamber of your homies and not-homies, shouting chants of excitement.'
—— Oprah MagazineAbdurraqib breathes new life into performers of significance in his life, both legendary and unsung
—— A.V. ClubAbdurraqib is one of our finest writers period. A brilliant poet, essayist and cultural critic, he handles nostalgia, pop culture, Blackness and friendship in ways few writers can. Here, he examines Black America's changing views of Whitney Houston, the death of Michael Jackson, the spiritual properties of dancing, Afrofuturism and more. The early chapter "Sixteen Ways of Looking at Blackface" is a deeply humane piece of virtuoso writing. Longer dispatches are broken up by lyric, stream-of-consciousness pieces that refresh the soul and remind readers that there's little Abdurraqib can't do
—— Aarik Danielsen , Columbia Star TribuneIn his new collection of essays, A Little Devil in America, the poet and critic Hanif Abdurraqib surveys this sprawl of expression. Here he charges himself with quite an ambitious task, pinning down and contextualizing the historic scale of such a globally significant cultural output, and it is one that would appear to call for an equally ambitious scope... Contemplations of legendary voices, sleights of hand, and charismatic choreographies are in dialogue with his own stories of grief, love, faith, and the search for freedom within the confinements of borders and a body...Abdurraqib expands the conception of "performance" to include the whole realm of behavior and culture...Playfulness, seduction, artistry, and reinvention: Abdurraqib wants us to know that these devilish gestures have their place, too, among the saints that line the corridors in this tiresome, captivating, and essential struggle
—— The NationIn A Little Devil in America, Abdurraqib walks readers through Black archives of dance, film, social struggle, and song as though these "intimate histories" of performance (as Saidiya Hartman calls them) could free us from anything that misses the beat. For this collection of essays, he does the work of a DJ: he digs through the crates, selects the most appropriately unexpected songs/topics/subjects, builds a collage between cuts and scratches, and presents his set. His books are soundscapes in print, and I was somehow listening to each sentence as if it were a breakbeat of personal narrative and socio-historical commentary...Hanif is one of the most exciting writers of his generation
—— Los Angeles Review of BooksAbdurraqib, known for his playful, intelligent sense of humor on Twitter, highlights amazing performances that shed light on societal constructions and moments of sheer joy his book about Black culture in America. Writing about joy is challenging; falling back on cliche is a constant temptation that Abdurraqib avoids in this insightful tome
—— ForbesThat sense of limitlessness wraps itself around every essay in Abdurraqib's newest book, A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance. In it, he writes about Black performance in America-from Great Depression-era dance marathons to the enduring cool of Don Cornelius to the art of Mike Tyson entering a boxing ring-with both great reverence and rigorous analysis. The book, in the way Abdurraqib's work so often does, erects monuments to our should-be legends and our unignorable icons alike, and paints an expansive, deeply felt portrait of the history of Black artistry
—— Leah Johnson , Electric LiteratureThis deft consideration of seemingly irreconcilable values, between the personal and private dimensions of performance, can be found throughout the essays in A Little Devil in America...Abdurraqib sees performance as a site of radical questioning, experimentation, and dream-making. This book is not a work of theory. It is sensual. We watch him watching his idols and we watch him dancing along with them, sometimes clumsily. If Brooks's goal is to make a case for performers' intellectualism, Abdurraqib's is to help us understand how they teach us to live richer, more embodied lives
—— Danielle A. Jackson , VultureEngrossing and moving ... A new, poetic take on essays that, I think, changes the game in many ways.
—— Roger Robinson , New Statesman Books of the YearAstonishing, impressive ... the connections he makes point to the enduring influence of Black art ... a book as bold as it is essential
—— TIME Book of the YearI absolutely love this book. It's incredible and so well written. I keep trying to find fault but so far no joy - It's so good
—— Matt Charman, writer Bridge of Spies (dir Stephen Spielberg); Black Work (ITV)[John Yorke's] writing book is arguably possibly almost as good as mine, all right it's loads better shut up
—— David Quantick, Author of HOW TO WRITE EVERYTHINGProbably, in the hackneyed phrase, "the last book on screenwriting you'll ever need." He is very good at debunking the claims of some screenwriting gurus, all of whom are busy trying to sell you their own particular brand of snake oil. It's truly excellent
—— Tim Adler , Daily TelegraphOf all the books I've read about story construction and the art of fiction, this one is the most comprehensive and concise
—— John Collee, writer on 'Master And Commander', 'Happy Feet', 'Creation', 'Walking With Dinosaurs'