Well, Peter Capaldi, Nina Sosanya and John Finnemore. Music from Mitch Benn and the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain. “Recorded in front of an audience at the BBC Radio Theatre. Neil’s favourites include James Thurber’s The 13 Clocks, Caryl Brahms & SJ Simons’ Shakespeare spoof, Christmas in Wind in the Willows, Lucy Clifford’s spooky Victorian story, Charles Dickens’ gruesome ‘Captain Murderer’ character, Mary Poppins, poems by Terry Pratchett, Wendy Cope and Henry Treece and two delightfully funny short plays by AA Milne and Saki, performed by the whole cast. A clip of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and two ukulele songs round off the show.”
The 7 am show will be longer than the 10 pm show. They’ve cut a lot for time, even from the 7 am version, and I’m not sure you’ll hear the Terry Pratchett poem or the Henry Treece poem here. Maybe they can put them up as adverts for the show…
And yes, it will be on BBC iPlayer Radio aka BBC Sounds – the longer version of the show I hope – and you will be able to listen to it for free anywhere in the world with an Internet.
So the With Great Pleasure will go out on BBC Radio 4 on Christmas Day at 7 am and at 10 pm. And the BBC are looking at the possibility of having a part one show in the morning and a part two in the evening, because a) it went twice as long as we had expected and b) some of the pieces may be a bit too whatthefuck for 7 am on Christmas Day. I don’t know if they can pull it off, but I hope they can.
You will want to hear BBC Radio 4 programme With Great Pleasure on Christmas Day. in fact it may even be worth your while to listen to both versions of it, the morning one and the evening one, because they may have different stuff in them. And look Mitch Benn, John Finnemore, me, Nina Sosanya, and the inestimable Peter Capaldi.
We have our Anathema, our Sister Mary, our Hastur and our Ligur.