...with Goldie Lookin Chain rapper Eggsy

Stand-up Mike Bubbins is to star alongside Goldie Looking Chain rapper Eggsy in a new radio series investigating mysterious phenomenon.

BBC Radio Wales has commissioned four half-hour episodes of The Unexplainers, which will air from the end of the month then released as a podcast.

Eggsy, who will be presenting the show under his real name John Rutledge, said: ‘Since as far back as I can remember the search for the paranormal has played a great part in my life, whilst most teens were putting posters of Transvision Vamp on their walls at night, I was leaving my window open in an attempt to get abducted by aliens.

‘Later on in life, while fellow GLC band members would use the tour bus for wild parties, I would often find myself scrambling to find a plug socket to power my laptop just so I could watch Arthur C Clarke’s World of Strange Powers while in my pants.’

Bobbins will be the voice of reason to Rutledge’s enthusiasm. He called his co-star ‘a naive, childlike, gullible fool, who thinks that if something can be imagined, by himself, or anybody else, no matter how far-fetched, then it must be real’.

In the first series the pair travel from Beddgelert to Pontypool, looking into the world of ghost-hunting, tracking big cats, digging up UFO crashes and tracing modern fairy sightings.

The Unexplainers is not the first collaboration between Bubbins and Rutledge.

The pair are also working on a planned radio sitcom, 2 Men 1 Job, in which they play two unemployed men who will have their benefits stopped unless they find a job

Bobbins is also working on a TV sitcom about his former life as an Elvis impersonator, provisionally titled The Best Welsh Elvis.

He has filmed a non-broadcast pilot alongside fellow Welsh comic and Crims star Elis James as a Shakin’ Stevens-obsessed psychopath who works and lives in a charity shop who become ‘Elvis’s’ minder. Nick Helm, Isy Suttie and Eggsy also appeared in the test episode, which was screened at the Machynlleth Comedy Festival last weekend.

All the shows are being produced by Zipline Creative, the Caerphilly-based company behind Rhod Gilbert’s TV show Work Experience.

The first episode of The Unexplainers, produced by Nathan Mackintosh and Rhys Waters, will air in BBC Radio Wales on Saturday May 30 at 1:30pm, then available on iPlayer and as a podcast.

Published: 11 May 2015