the
online encyclopaedia of contemporary british radio comedy
|
|
|
|
Radio 4
1994 (two programmes)
No, not another radio-to-television transfer. Some time after the television series A Bit of Fry and Laurie (starring Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie) finished its three-series run on BBC2, two half-hour compilations, made up of the soundtracks from selected previously-seen sketches, made their way to radio. The broadcast prompted a number of readers to complain, as it was perceived as a cheap way of filling up the schedules (the compilations were created for release as an audio tape on the BBC Canned Laughter label); the same tactic had, in fact, been used some years earlier with the self-explanatory Victoria Wood As Heard On TV. Some television shows — generally sitcoms — have, in fact, been specially adapted and re-recorded for radio, notably Dad’s Army (broadcast on Radio 4 in the 1970s and featuring the original cast) and Shelley (remade with a new cast for Radio 2, some twenty years after the first original broadcast).
