Back in 2015 I wrote a series of posts about comedy shows that poked fun at the week’s news, from Listen to this Space and Week Ending to The News Quiz and The News Huddlines. I ended with The Now Show, which itself has ended in 2024 – see blog post The Not Now Show. Radio 4 had already commissioned pilot shows in 2023 as likely replacements and those that made it to full series are Too Long; Didn’t Read with Catherine Bohart and The Naked Week fronted by Andrew Hunter Murray. But another show I also mentioned in passing has also ended, this time in 2021, and that was Newsjack.
Newsjack was unusual in that it had an open
door policy and that anyone could submit jokes and sketches. It was also
unusual in that it aired only on BBC Radio 4 Extra (initially on BBC Radio 7),
normally a station packed full of archive material and narrative repeats.
In building the show it was up to the producers and a core of script editors and regular writers to sift through the submitted one-liners and sketches. In 2012 producer Lyndsay Fenner reported that they would receive around 500 emails a week, about half of them had 2 or 3 sketches and the other half could have anything up to 10 one-liners attached. Later a restriction was imposed of two sketches and/or six one-liners per week. All non-commissioned material that was used would bag the writer a fee; £22.75 for a one-liner or per 30 seconds for a sketch, or £45.50 per minute for a sketch. The Newsjack website gave advice on what sort of material the show was looking for as there were some recurring sequences such as Breaking News, Number Crunchers or the Newsjack App, as well as how to write sketches and even the mundane stuff like fonts, formatting and submission dates.
The series provided a rare chance for budding comedy writers to get their foot in the door or, at the very least, put a writing credit on their CV, when such opportunities are dwindling on radio and most definitely on television. Some writers went on to be script editors for the show or were offered other regular work or received the BBC Radio Comedy Writer's Bursary. Across the 24 series 1,476 writers were credited. Initially those credits were posted online on the relevant programme page, but from series eight they were all read out in the closing credits.
Each show
was performed by a cast of four (usually two men and two women), including the
presenter, with at least one of them expected to pull off some political
impressions. There were six presenters over the show’s 12 year run: Miles Jupp
(series 1-4), Justin Edwards (series 5-9), Romesh Ranganathan (series 10-11),
Nish Kumar (series 12-15), Angela Barnes (series 16-19) and Kiri
Pritchard-McLean (series 20-24).
Early series
tended to have the same cast across all episodes in each series. The performers
in those early series included Lewis Macleod, Jess Robinson, Asdi Osho, Pippa
Evans, Cariad Lloyd, Margaret Cabourn-Smith and Morgana Robinson. Later series
tended to have what they called ‘a revolving cast of sketch performers’ and
that in itself provided a great opportunity for national radio exposure for
many of the actors and comedians that appeared.
Some of
those appearing on Newsjack were, in no particular order and by no means a
complete list: Philip Fox, Kate Norris, Natasha Demetriou, Lolly Adefope, Jenny
Bede, Thomas Nelstrop, Luke Kempner, Jason Forbes, Mandheep Dillon, George
Fouracres, Mali Ann Rees, Kieron
Hodgson, Gemma Arrowsmith, Ed Kear, James Meehan, Jessica Ransom, Emma Sidi,
Paul G. Raymond, Alison Thea-Skot, Daniel Barker, Joe Barnes, Celeste Dring,
Freya Parker, Ellie White, Alice Levine, Nadia Kamil, Josh Berry, Jo Barnes,
Chiara Goldsmith, Mike Wozniak, Henry Perryment, London Hughes, Chris Kendall,
Lorna Shaw, Vivienne Acheampong, Dominique Moore, Camille Ucan, Kiell Smith
Bynoe, Damien Slash, Gabby Best, Colin Hoult, Emily Lloyd Saini, Jon Pointing, Raphael
Wakefield, Arnold Jorge, Róisín O'Mahony, Tayo Cousins, Kath Hughes, Tom
Burgess, Tayla Kovacevic-Ebong
The pilot
episode was broadcast on BBC Radio 7 on 4 June 2009 (no writers were credited
on-air) and the first series followed on 18 June (most series ran for six
episodes). Here is that first show with Miles Jupp, Lewis Macleod, Philip Fox,
Andi Osho and Jess Robinson. Where the writers are not credited at the end of
the show I have added them to the YouTube programme description but
unfortunately I’ve been unable to track them down for this show.
We move on
three years to the start of the seventh series. Justin Edwards is joined by Nadia
Kamil, Cariad Lloyd and Lewis MacLeod. A couple of years later Lewis would join
the cast of the revival of Dead Ringers
and perfect his impressions of Trump, Johnson and Jeremy Vine. This show was
broadcast on 20 September 2012.
In 2013
Justin voiced this promo ahead of the eighth series that started that night. Both
Miles and Justin would go on to star in the Radio 4 sitcom set in the world
politics, Party’s Over
(2019-22).
From 3 April
2014, and the tenth series, the cast is Romesh Ranganathan with Lewis MacLeod,
Morgana Robinson and Pippa Evans.
The start of
the thirteenth series and we join Nish Kumar, Lolly Adefope, Jenny Bede and
Thomas Nelstrop. This was broadcast on 10 September 2015. One of the script
editors at this point was Tom Neenan who had previously performed with Nish as
part of the double act Gentlemen of Leisure and would also write for The MASH Report. Newsjack was usually broadcast as part of 4 Extra’s Comedy Club strand, hence the
introduction here from Diane Morgan.
Over to
Angela Barnes for an episode from the seventeenth series broadcast on 21
September 2017. With Angela are Luke Kempner, Mandeep Dhillon and Jason Forbes.
In 2018 son
of Newsjack appeared in the form of Newsjack Unplugged. Clocking in at just
under 15 minutes these shorter shows were again composed of submitted sketches
and gags but this time all studio based, so no live audience. Over five series
they were hosted by Kiri Pritchard-McLean, Darren Harriott and Eshann Akbar.
They ended in 2019 and the final series is still on BBC Sounds. But here, from24
October 2019, is the first episode of the fourth series with Darren Harriott
and Katia Kvinge.
A final
audio selection from the start of the twenty-second series in February 2020
with Kiri Pritchard-McLean , Luke Kempner, Mali Ann Rees and George Fouracres.
By the end of this series COVID-19 restrictions meant the last episode was
performed without an audience. The next series was all recorded remotely
without an audience. The twenty-fourth and final series was also recorded
remotely in front of a Zoom audience. The four episodes from this series are
available on BBC Sounds as is the fifth and final series of Newsjack Unplugged.
The end of Newsjack in March 2021 wasn’t the end of
comedy sketch shows written by the public. In June 2022 came DMs are Open. Again there was an open
request for sketches and also voice notes, but the difference was, at least from
the second series, that the shows were non-topical and submissions had to be
based on a weekly theme. The hosts were Athene Kugblenu and Ali Official
(series 1 &2) and Stevie Martin (series 3&4).
DMs are Open started on Radio 4 Extra but the first series didn’t have a live studio audience so sounded a little flat. Subsequent series benefitted from being recorded with an audience with the second coming from various locations including Bush Hall in Shepherd’s Bush, the third performed at the Backyard Comedy Club in East London and the fourth at Greenwich’s Up the Creek.
