Victory for Jon Holmes’s trippy satire

Jon Holmes’s trippy satirical show The Skewer has won the gold comedy award at the Audio & Radio Industry Awards 2021.

The Radio 4 programme, set to return for a fourth series next Wednesday, splices together news footage, music, sounds effects and atmospheric soundscapes.

It also took home the silver in the best new show category of the awards, the leading accolade for radio and podcasts.

Responding to the victory on Twitter, producer Holmes initially tweeted just: ‘Jeez’ before adding: ‘I’m thrilled for all our contributors. Too many to thank, but special kudos to [sound designer]  @TonyChurnside for tolerating my stupid sound ideas and obscure #protools plugins’ – a reference to the sound-mixing software.

Fellow Radio 4 show Sketchtopia was awarded silver, with The Jason Manford Show on Absolute Radio collecting the bronze.

The other shows nominated in the comedy category of the Arias were the podcasts Alan Partridge: From The Oasthouse and Kim Noble: Futile Attempts (At Surviving Tomorrow) and  The Musical Life Of... from BBC Radio Wales.

Meanwhile, comics Elis James and John Robins collected bronze in the best speech presenter category for their Radio 5 Live show.

Published: 26 May 2021