Monday 11 September 2006

banter

one of our friends introduced us to tvrecordings.com, a website that lets you reserve free tickets to live television and radio recordings. so s and i went to be part of the first episode of season two of banter yesterday.

the show is hosted by andrew collins, and the panelists yesterday were richard herring, russell howard, lucy porter, and arthur smith. (is that enough hyperlinks for one sentence?) s had heard of everyone except russell howard; i hadn't heard of any of them, which just goes to show that either i don't listen to enough radio comedies, or i am still a kindergartner as far as my british pop culture education is concerned.

the show was funny - it is basically a list of "top 3's" - top three classical composers, top three sporting events, etc. (i can't give it all away before the broadcast!) each panelist selects their top three, and the others have to try to match them for points. of course, this means that the lists are either blatantly obvious (the olympics) or intentionally obscure (stockhausen). like i said, i can't give away all the jokes. you'll just have to tune in to hear it.

while it was fun to be part of the laugh track, it was also interesting to see how the recording process works. andrew collins was wearing a headset that allowed him to hear directions from the producer. occasionally they re-recorded a line that had been flubbed or mispronounced. "russell howard" came out as "rushell howard" several times and had to be fixed. "jesus christ, it's a naked man!" became "holy mackerel, it's a naked man!" they also had to change "they go mental" to "they go absolutely spare," and cancer became a mere "terminal illness." i wonder if the word "slag" was allowed to stay in or whether they simply deleted it right away...

in any event, it was a good laugh and we're looking forward to hearing it. you can tune in, too:

october 4 at 6:30 PM on bbc radio 4

***

on a completely different note, i thought i should mention september 11th somehow. usually i light a candle on 9/11 - just my own little vigil for the victims. last year we had reason to celebrate, since my sister and brother-in-law tied the knot on september 10th and we were still in party mode the next day. i'm glad they chose that date. i'm against waging a "war on terror" as a response to the wtc attacks, but i throw my full support behind any joyous occasion that can be celebrated with raspberry and lemon cake. that said, i'll light a candle today not just for those who died on 9/11, but also for everyone involved since then. peace out.

2 comments:

aedredhead said...

LOVE the link to Katrina Rozelle!

aedredhead said...

LOVE the link to Katrina Rozelle. So enjoying the cake again a year later!