So The Now Show becomes The Then Show after this next series as time is called on one of radio’s longest running comedy shows. Punt and Dennis have casting their eye over topical news stories for the last 26 years, a remarkable run. And when you take into account their work on Live on Arrival, The Mary Whitehouse Experience and It’s Been a Bad Week the duo have been on the radio pretty much consistently for 36 years.
Steve and Hugh are not disappearing from BBC Radio 4 however: a second series The Train at Platform 4 follows in July, Steve will be asking the questions on series 14 of The 3rd Degree also starting in July and together they’ll be working on a podcast (naturally) called RouteMasters which will also be broadcast in October.
I’ve written about The Now Show before back in 2015 – see That Was the Week – Part 6 – complete with a couple of editions of the programme from 1998 and 2012. This time I’m offering three more recordings.
Firstly, the series two opener from 3 April 1999. It’s worth pointing out that The Now Show wasn’t yet a Friday night comedy fixture, that happened from series four. This edition went out on Saturday at 6.15 pm, the old Week Ending repeat slot, with an in-week repeat on Tuesday at 11 pm. Early series tended to rely more on a regular team rather than a number of guest contributors. In this show the regulars are David Quantick, Emma Clarke, Dan Freedman, Nick Romero , Jane Bussmann and the guest is Kevin Day.
The Wikipedia entry for the show mentions the time in July 2005 when the show was recorded without an audience due to the London bombings on the day of recording. Of course that entry should probably be updated to mention the shows in 2020 for series 57 and 58 that had to be recorded remotely with no audience due to Covid-19 restrictions. Anyway here is that 22 July 2005 edition with Mitch Benn, Jon Holmes, Laura Shavin and guest Andy Zaltzman.
Back to 2016 and just two months before THAT referendum this show from the start of series 48 features Gemma Arrowsmith, Marcus Brigstocke (both appear in the first show tonight) and an early appearance by Mae Martin. It’s from the period when they had the bright idea of including a journalist or some expert talking about an issue of the day, a spot that often drained the comedy out of the programme, in this show its Felicity Spector from Channel 4 News on the impending US presidential election.
The 64th and final series of The Now Show starts tonight and runs for six weeks.
Richard Wiseman wrote abou the ending of The Now Show for the Radio Times (w/c 13 April 2024)
"And when you take into account their work on Live on Arrival, The Mary Whitehouse Experience and It’s Been a Bad Week the duo have been on the radio pretty much consistently for 36 years."
ReplyDeleteJust wondering - has anyone else been involved in comedy programmes on three different networks?
I shall miss The Now Show. It's had a good innings, though not quite as long as Week Ending (that lasted 28 years). I haven't heard any indication of what's going to replace it, although I'm hoping they'll be able to increase the number of episodes of Dead Ringers - at the moment it only gets one series per year plus two or three Christmas specials. Never seems enough to me.