Radio Active (radio series)

Infobox Radio Show
show_name = Radio Active


imagesize = 250px
caption = Publicity shot of "Radio Active" cast (l-r): Michael Fenton Stevens, Philip Pope, Angus Deayton, Geoffrey Perkins and Helen Atkinson-Wood.
other_names =
format = Sketch show
runtime = 30 minutes
country =
language =
home_station = BBC Radio 4
syndicates =
television = "KYTV"
starring = Angus Deayton
Geoffrey Perkins
Michael Fenton Stevens
Helen Atkinson-Wood
Philip Pope
creator =
writer = Richard Curtis
Angus Deayton
Geoffrey Perkins
producer = Jimmy Mulville
executive_producer =
narrated =
record_location =
first_aired = April 8 1980
last_aired = October 17 1987
num_series = 7
num_episodes = 53
audio_format =
opentheme =
endtheme =
website =
podcast =

"Radio Active" was a radio comedy programme, broadcast on BBC Radio 4 during the 1980s. The first episode was broadcast in 1980, and it ran for seven series. The show starred, among others, Angus Deayton, Geoffrey Perkins, Michael Fenton Stevens, Helen Atkinson-Wood and Philip Pope.

Programme format

Characters

The show was based around a fictional radio station (described as "Britain's first national local radio station") and the programmes that it might transmit. Characters on the show were mostly named after pieces of sound equipment, including:

* rising star Mike Flex (Perkins),
* aged fading star Mike Channel (Deayton),
* "children's favourite" "Uncle" Mike Stand (Stevens) and
* the food-obsessed Anna Daptor (Atkinson-Wood).

Also on the station's staff were:
* the incomprehensible Nigel Pry (Pope),
* the incompetent hospital-radio trained Martin Brown (Stevens),
* the carefully enunciated "oh-so-daring" Mike Hunt (Deayton),
* brusque owner Sir Norman Tonsil (Deayton),
* Norwegian correspondent Oivind Vinstra (Perkins), whose command of English was negligible and
* Head of Religious Affairs The Right Reverend Reverend Wright (Deayton), who had a mail-order bride.

Other regular characters included:
* unsympathetic agony aunt Anna Rabies (Atkinson-Wood) and
* singing doctor Philip Percygo (Pope).

Writers

Angus Deayton and Geoffrey Perkins wrote most of the material, with significant additional contributions from, at various times, Jon Canter, Richard Curtis, Terence Dackombe, Michael Fenton Stevens, Jack (then John) Docherty and Moray Hunter, and the various musical elements provided by Philip Pope. Four producers worked on the series over the years (Jimmy Mulville, Jamie Rix, Paul Mayhew-Archer and David Tyler).

Recurring elements

The show had its origins in the University of Oxford student drama community, especially in the musical parodies of Philip Pope, which were regularly featured on "Radio Active". The best known of these is the Bee Gees parody "The Hee Bee Gee Bees", with their song "Meaningless Songs (In Very High Voices)", which became a moderate hit.

Each programme would start and end with a comical handover to the Radio 4 continuity announcer.

Other parodies included very long and very contemporary jingles presenting the station telephone number for phone ins (with a false ending) and introducing the commercials.

The "commercials" had many parodies of current TV adverts and other running jokes - "Hello Mary. (Door noise) Hello June"; "Honest Ron - the others are a con"; an unfortunately named throat lozenge ("Suck Quilly's, suck Quilly's, they make your mouth feel great") and a blindingly obvious patronising public service announcement ("Do not throw boiling water over a child").

Mike Flex presided over the rigged "Master Quiz" with ever changing rules and format, although the prize remained the same: a chateau in the Loire Valley, which curiously went un-won from week to week. The Radio Active Drama Repertory Company usually gave a performance with wild misreadings of the scripts ("She's seriously one hundred and eleven. (Pause). She's seriously ill.") and ("So what? Do we have to go on?" (pause) "So - what do we have to go on?") and miscued sound effects.

The programmes often pitch the "modern-media" regular characters against older stereotypes of foreigners and "establishment types" such as generals and politicians; however, the programme rarely strays into the "alternative comedy" vogue of contemporary political comment.

In the "Nuclear Debate" episode, Angus Deayton hosts a panel session (a "mass debating session") which was later to be the inspiration for his performance on "Have I Got News For You?".

Transmission

The show transferred to TV as "KYTV", which ran for three series in the 1990s.

Episodes from the series were repeated on Radio 4 in late 2002, and again on classic comedy radio station BBC 7 in 2003, late 2004, early 2005 and mid-2006 and again in 2007.

A new one-off episode of "Radio Active", the first for 15 years, was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2002.

Episode list

External links

* [http://www.mikefs.co.uk/r-active.html Michael Fenton Stevens Radio Active page]
* [http://www.radioandtelly.co.uk/radioactive.html Radio Active Remembered]