Review of Radio 4's new sketch show

Radio 4 have admirable intentions in seeking out the best online comedy creators and giving them a mainstream platform. But by largely recreating their viral work, the new compilation programme POV lacks that crucial voice and personality of its own, however nice its sound design.

Individually, many of the skits are funny, but as a whole this feels like scrolling through a well-curated TikTok account. However, radio isn’t social media and probably shouldn’t try to be.

This first episode – following a pilot which aired last year – starts with one of the more formulaic ideas as Ed Night and Paddy Young apply modern sensibilities to a neolithic planning meeting discussing the erection of Stonehenge, using phrases like ‘blue-sky ideas’ and ‘kick the can down the road’ as they air talking points about the value of public art. It’s a solid enough bit, but lacking the brilliance both talented comics have displayed in their stand-ups.

In the first of a number of media parodies, The Exploding Heads present their most enduring online creation, the phone-in regular Colin From Portsmouth. Think Steve Wright’s Mr Angry but with a bit more political edge given the rise of the furious right via the likes of GB News. Applying Colin’s opprobrium to the Goldilocks story is a nice idea, with a wide-ranging rant that manages to claim nationalistic success in ‘the Brexit wars’ and rail against veganism before signing off with the catchphrase ‘love to the family’

Rachel Fairburn offers makes her aggression more passive in the well-rounded guise of hairdresser with ideas above her station, rocking up to a budget hotel on the day of the ceremony and being amusingly judgmental about the bride.

Equally cruel – if less keen on hiding it – is Matt Green’s blunt sports interviewer taunting a disappointed athlete about they might have  wasted their life in a bid to elicit those click-winning tears. In a later interview spoof, Rosie Holt offers a very accurate renditions of politicians’ real prevarications in an insightful mash-up, using clips of the actual Nick Robinson on the Today programme.

Sticking with the media parodies, Larry & Paul’s Broken News is one of the best. The direct, piercing satire they usually peddle online might fall foul of the BBC’s impartiality laws, so here their wonderfully named reporter ‘Tempo Vampire’, offers a deliciously harsh and entertainingly relentless attack on celebrities who become children’s authors.

In other skits, Charlene Kaye offers a accurate Ed Sheeran parody and Kelechi Okafor’s Sally In HR goes against the job’s stereotype of being oversensitive to instead be a thinly disguised racist. It’s quickly followed by another sketch based on workplace culture, this one set in a football club, though The Squid’s offering is on the slow side.

Bigger hits are  Kylie Brakeman’s parody of heavyweight journalism dramas like The Post, but set in a gossip website and so offering fun takedown of how a once-fine profession is diminished by vacuous clickbait. And the idea of babies reviewing books aimed at then, as played out by [Eleanor] Morton, [Sean] Burke and [Michael] Fry (pictured) is a solid one with a good gag rate.

POV therefore attracts that usual sketch show criticism of being a mixed bag, though there certainly acts here deserving extra airtime in which to forge a more distinctive voice than this mixed-bill format can allow.

• POV is on BBC Sounds now

Review date: 31 Jan 2025
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett