The Stage

Radio review - drama

Published Monday 11 August 2008 at 14:30 by Moira Petty

Throughout July, radio drama was so full of collective dark nights of the soul, that I thought we were going to limp into high summer, heads spinning with dire economic forecasts and wall-to-wall coverage of obscure sports, wanting only to slash our wrists.

But for the last six weeks, there has been one reason at least to put away the razor blade - a weekly appointment with Cabin Pressure, one of the funniest sitcoms ever to air on the radio.

It is always a puzzle to me as to why I sit through so much comedy with a ‘We are not amused’ expression when I find most of what goes on in real life belly-achingly diverting. Similarly, it is almost impossible to analyse the secret of good comic writing but John Finnemore’s script for the six-parter had it in spadefuls. His setting was a dodgy charter airline which, its owner announced in the opening episode, they were aiming to operate like a profitable business “not a charitable sanctuary for rubbish pilots”.

She was played by Stephanie Cole, perfectly cast with her exquisite comic timing and ability to convey the scathing derision or weary resignation which underpinned many of her lines. Ranged against her was her idiot son, played by the writer, who made sure the pilots had separate onboard meals, but of such questionable quality, he risked poisoning them each in different ways.

Benedict Cumberbatch’s bumbling pilot was the perfect partner to Roger Allam’s co-pilot, a world weary refugee from a large airline who thought the passengers would be interested that the pair of them had bet on who could fly the best after imbibing a litre of vodka through a straw.

So Finnemore, who has also written for Dead Ringers and Mitchell and Webb, had his characters with incompetence ranging against dry wit, and his landscape, that surreal world in the sky which is an airliner in transit. It could still have all gone wrong but his ear for a comic retort was equal to his instinct for a comical situation. The result was a six-week abdominal workout for listeners and, I hope, a recommission for Pozzitive Productions.

The best of the silly season drama came from the tried and tested, with three welcome recommissions to keep the comic hysteria engendered by Cabin Pressure on the boil. All were defined by high calibre performances. Michael Chaplin’s comedy-mysteries, Two-Pipe Problems, set in a home for retired actors, and featuring a pair who once played Holmes and Watson on television, returned in two consecutive afternoons.

The sprightly script fused a fond parody of the detective format which had kept the actors in work for so long, with a send-up of thespian traditions. But underlying that was a genuine fondness between the two principals - gloriously played by Richard Briers and Stanley Baxter - bickering interspersed by tender amity.

Dover and the Unkindest Cut of All saw Kenneth Cranham return as Joyce Porter’s seventies bluff and blustery Chief Detective Inspector, an exasperating, risible man made almost loveable by this performance. As Dover, Cranham slurped and burped and grunted his way through the case, the comedy reaching a high point in the scene in which his hapless sergeant (Stuart McQuarrie) was instructed to slather his ice cream-licking superior in suntan lotion.

A return to Christopher Lee’s monastic comedy Kicking The Habit did not disappoint. Martin Jarvis’ gently acerbic Prior and Roy Dotrice’s somewhat deranged Brother Martin allied comedy to philosophical commentary. That tells us, if nothing else, that producing successful comedy is a complex affair.

DETAILS

Cabin Pressure - R4, from Wednesday, July 2

Two-Pipe Problems - R4, from Monday, August 11

Dover and the Unkindest Cut of All - R4, Saturday, August 9

Kicking the Habit - R4, from Wednesday, August 13