The BBC’s new comedy series brings together half-hour sets from Kiri Pritchard-McLean, Imran Yusuf and Joz Norris
Netflix, Amazon Prime … Radio 4? It’s not just global content platforms carving up the standup market. Radio 4 has broadcast sets in recent years from Geoff Norcott, Lucy Porter and Tom Allen – and is kicking off 2021 with a clutch of new recordings. Of the three so far released, none will blaze for the station a new rep for pulse-quickening comedy. But they all reward a listen – and, at 28 minutes a pop, can be digested in the time it takes to (not) travel to work or knock up a socially isolated dinner.
None are live standup sets in the classic, room-full-of-laughing-people sense. Kiri Pritchard-McLean’s Egg-sistential Crisis and Imran Yusuf’s Relabelled are both performed to a live Zoom audience, the former with an added laughter track. It wouldn’t struggle for laughs in the real world: it’s a pert half hour, jaunty with an edge, exploring her generation’s – and her own – resistance to having children.
