The Bleak Old Shop of Stuff (BBC4)

Words cannot describe how disappointed I was by this.
I love Bleak Expectations on the radio but it's transfer to TV was utterly dire and lost all humour it once had.
Only one small joke made me laugh and that's because I like Una Stubbs.

Bleak Expectations Series FOUR

Anna and I went to see two episodes of the new series of Bleak Expectations being recorded.

Bleak Expectations is ace. We watched episodes three and four being recorded, the second one was much much stronger than the first, what a relief, Mark Evans hasn't lost it. I won't go into detail but the Robinson Crusoe bits were hilarious.

The BBC Radio Theatre is gorgeous (and not in this picture of series two being recorded!) lovely art deco. And as we were on the guest list (yeah, that's right, guest list!) we got to sit very close to the front and appreciate the amount of facial expressions the actors did while in character. Anthony Head obviously has a brilliant time playing Gently Benevolent- ironically the cruelest and most horrid man in all of Victorian Britain.

HR, Series Two (Monday mornings BBC Radio4)

I say he has been providing it ever since, but in the second series of Nigel Williams' radio comedy HR Nick le Prevost is sort of the straight-man, well, gay, but still the straighter-ish-man to Jonathan Pryce's insane Peter.

I found out about this second series earlier in the month, I am now friends with Nigel Williams. Tell that to the me who eighteen months ago reviewed series one and praised his writing, I'd have a field day. I did have a field day. I'm still there- in the field.

Anyway, no longer in the office, Peter and Sam are living together and still getting on each other's tits but still clearly meant to be. I adore how ridiculous this show is. But it's all startlingly real! That's what's most ridiculous, Peter- the character that Jonathan plays- is appalling, but he is my father! My dad would do and say all the appalling things Peter does and says. Fuck sake!

So far the two of them have lost a boiler and gained a dog. Next week I think they're going on holiday. You'll never be rid of me now, Nigel, I'm sending you my Christmas Special script!

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck (BBC Radio 4)

I read Of Mice and Men for my English GCSE and completely loved it, I listened to this hour long dramatization ten years later and I remembered it all word for word. I totally loved it.

Seeing The Grapes of Wrath put on by the English Touring Theatre last year and listening to this excellent radio adaptation just makes me think Steinbeck was meant to be performed, it is such perfect simple truthful writing that I bet it took hardly any effort to turn the novels into scripts.

When I went on holiday to Nantucket last September the tiny tour bus stopped by a golf course and the ancient driver pointed to a house in the distance and said; "John Steinbeck used to live there." I automatically gasped and cried what I always cry when Steinbeck's name is uttered: "The richest author in the dust-bowl!"

Got to be rich, average cost of a house on Nantucket is two million dollars.

Murder in Samarkand by David Hare (Saturday Play Radio 4)

Dramatization of former Uzbekistan ambassador Craig Murray's memoirs.

Good stuff, depressing of course but no-nonsense and the occasional nervous giggle. Not the sort of thing to listen to while drawing children having a jolly time at the cinema, I had pen paused over paper for the full hour and a half unable to draw while listening to this play.

And I'm glad I did listen to it, it was a gripping piece and Tennant is good at proper acting, a nice performance of a passionate but flawed man, glad he's back on the radio.

I hope those at Dundee University now (I attended 2004-2007) understand how good they have it with a heroic human-rights activist as a Rector rather than Lorraine Kelly.

HR: A Roleplay (Friday Radio4)

So it's been three weeks since it began, two weeks since Peter and Sam accidentally killed their boss whilst drunk on a bonding trip, one week since Sam came out of the closet and now today Peter's wife has left him- not that he cares.

It is my belief (and deepest hope) that Peter is a chronic liar and has never had a wife- I hope he is also secretly gay. Next week's penultimate episode A Leaving Party is a bit of a clue to how this has to end I think. My boys have been horrifically incompetent, it's not going to end well for either of them, it's radio comedy so I don't think anyone's going to find out about the murder- one of the best bits about radio is that next week no one really cares that you killed your boss, I reckon this would be different if it was a television sitcom. Didn't Joanna and Alan end up walking naked into the sea in Green Wing after they killed a number of people? I hope Peter and Sam don't end up going the same way...

Anyway, I'm enjoying this series immensely, I mean, I know I mentioned before I'm the target audience, but some of my friends listen too, and they all love it without being weirdoes. It's so well written. Can you imagine how hard it is to write engaging and totally mad dialogues, six of them, it's hard. But these are good half hour shows, I'm also enjoying Andy Hamilton's Old Harry's Game on Radio 4 but after seven series we're beginning to hear the same jokes, and there are some bum-notes. HR is just what Radio 4 needs, new, inventive comedy. Role on series three of Fags, Mags and Bags! It is both amazing and great!

Listen again to episode four A Roleplay.

HR, Episode 1: An Apraisal (Friday Radio4)

So we knew I'd adore it. I'm the target audience, forget other frustrated office workers, the target audience is Amy, the girl who has for the last seven years listed Jonathan Pryce and Nicholas Le Prevost as her favourite actors and top two men of all time.

The first episode of Nigel Williams' HR was adapted from the original half hour TV script that the two boys performed a couple of years ago, it was almost word for word- except with that word being bleeped out many many times (It's 11.40 in the morning- as Sam says accurately). But there were some nice additions, tweaks, etc. I think it was even funnier on the radio, I was cracking up even though I knew the script already! The best tweak was that in the TV play we saw Peter fiddle with the recording while Sam was out of the office, on the radio you heard Sam ineptly attempting innocuous small-talk with his secretay/assistant/whatever... Then the punchline was a fab surprise for us (and a horrible surprise for poor old Sam) Also a nice bit of character development for Sam, as it's a series we need to see how incompetent and addled he is, I loved it.

It's so simple but so funny.

Please listen again folks, I promise you will like it.http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00hg6mz