Radio 4 announces a raft of new comedies with Matt Forde, Laura Smyth, Dara O'Briain, Ria Lina and more

Radio 4 has announced a raft of comedy programmes, including new shows from Matt Forde, Laura Smyth, Dara O'Briain and Ria Lina.

The broadcaster has also announced the return of other shows including  Frank Skinner’s panel show One Person Found This Helpful and Chris McCausland’s You Heard It Here First, with its rounds based only on audio cues. 

Among the shows are a new satirical programme, provisionally titled The Final Word With Matt Forde, which will see the topical comedian interviewing politicians and chatting to comedy guests. 

Laura Smyth – who won an Aira award for I Don’t Know What To Say  about her cancer diagnosis –  returns with the stand-up series, Your Mum, where the comic and her guests share anecdotes, advice and sayings from the mouths of mothers and examine why maternal relationships can drive us up the wall. 

In Ria Lina Gets Forensic, the stand-up and qualified forensic scientist investigates anti-aging treatments, scrutinising the lengths people will go to cheat age and stay young, using herself as a test subject.

What? Seriously?? is a new podcast which combines comedy with quirky history, hosted by Dara O'Briain and Isy Suttie, who will unravel a real-life tale each week with the help of a celebrity guest. 

Radio 4 has also confirmed the stand-up series The Lively Life of Lindsey Santoro, with the comic reading excerpts of her journal, as Chortle reported last month, and the commission of Travis Jay’s sitcom Rum Punch for a full series, as we have also previously revealed.

Dan Does Dating is a new sitcom from Michael Beck, following a man as he searches for love from one terrible date to another, while comedy trio Crybabies present a series of audio adventures in homage to the Hollywood staples such as Steven Seagal-inspired action flicks to Disney-esque fantasy. 

The new commissions also include a second series for the parody of women’s magazine shows, Time of The Week, starring Sian Clifford and co-created by co-created comedian Lorna Rose Treen – who was a former producer on the real Women’s Hour – and the sitcom Do Gooders, which is set in the offices of a fictional charity. Written by Garrett Millerick, the first series starred Fay Ripley, Ania Magliano and Frank Skinner. 

Icklewick FM, the series set in a dysfunctional Northern community radio station, created by Amy Gledhill and Chris Cantrill, also returns, as does Glenn Moore’s Almanac and Michael Spicer’s sketch show No Room.

Finally, stand-up Stuart Mitchell follows up his Cost of Living series with Stuart Mitchell’s Cost of Dying, which takes a look at the size of the bill after we pass away.

Published: 4 Nov 2024