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a roundup of Goodies news
10/12/2010 23:12 GMT
Posted by lisa The following is a collection of Goodies-related news items from the past week, in no particular order. I will call your attention to the podcast link in #2, as I don't know how long that will be available online.
1. An interview with Graeme from 10 December 2010 appears at http://www.eadt.co.uk/entertainment/radio_show_tickles_funny_bones_1_751149 Use the "click here for more" link at the bottom of this message to see a cut & paste of the text of the article.
2. Bill did an interview for Newstalk's "The Green Room" on 7 December 2010.
The interview can be heard as part of the pocdast available from http://www.newstalk.ie/programmes/all/the-green-room/podcasts/
3. Bill posted a new blog on his official website on 3 December; you can read it at http://www.billoddie.com/Bills_Blog.htm
4. Graeme has written the foreword for Hesperus Press's edition of the Russian comic novel "The Three Fat Men". Additional information can be found in the Hesperus Press Catalogue at http://www.hesperuspress.com/Catalogue2010.pdf
5. Bill Oddie is mentioned in an article on the Shropshire Star's website (at http://www.shropshirestar.com/news/2010/12/10/ryanair-fly-in-to-help-shropshire-mp/. Here's the relevant portion of the article:
"Mark Pritchard slipped away from Westminster on Monday evening to do some monkeying around in very good company.
The wildlife campaigning MP joined primate experts at the Lyceum Theatre for a Hope4Apes event hosted by Britain's best known conservationist, Sir David Attenborough. The evening was organised by the Ape Alliance, a combination of charities, to highlight the plight of primates around the world. It came at the beginning of a week when Mr Pritchard was due to raise questions with ministers in the Commons over his efforts to ban the trade in primates for keeping as pets.
The Wrekin MP got chatting at the Lyceum to Bill Oddie, and the conversation inevitably turned to birds and Mr Pritchard's Wild Birds (Protection) Bill, which seeks to give extra protection to British birds and their nests. "Bill said he knew The Wrekin quite well, and I invited him back to take another look at Shropshire's impressive bird life," said the Conservative MP. "We talked about the decline in songbirds and my concern about the disappearance of song thrushes and the effects of another hard winter on the bird population," Mr Pritchard added. The MP has joined Shropshire wildlife groups in urging the public to provide extra food and fresh water for garden birds during the freezing conditions"
6. According to BUAV's website, Bill Oddie joined their Parliamentary Reception on Primate trade. Here's an article which was posted on 7 December at http://www.buav.org/article/609/celebrities-dr-brian-may-and-bill-oddie-join-buav%E2%80%99s-parliamentary-reception-on-primate-trade: "Dr Brian May and Bill Oddie join BUAV's Parliamentary Reception on primate trade 07/12/2010 Stop the Baby Trade reception draws support from celebrities, MPs and primatologists.
Dr Brian May and Bill Oddie joined a host of MPs, primatologists and scientists at the BUAV's highly successful Stop the Baby Trade Reception at the House of Commons last week. The event was hosted by Caroline Lucas MP with guest speaker, Ian Redmond OBE. Ian is a field biologist and conservationist, renowned for his work with great apes, in particular his conservation efforts on behalf of the Mountain Gorillas in Rwanda and Uganda which he pioneered along with the late Dr Dian Fossey. Ian also served as Ambassador for the UN Year of the Gorilla in 2009. In addition to speeches from BUAV Chief Executive, Michele Thew, Caroline Lucas and Ian Redmond, guests also watched the first screening of the BUAV video, Stop the Baby Trade, a moving and poignant film highlighting the cruelties of the international trade in primates for research. Over 70 MPs have now signed EDM 957 calling for an end to the UK's involvement in the wild-caught trade.
If your MP has not already done so, please contact them to urge them to sign."
7. The Craven Herald & Pioneer reports that Tim & Graeme's BBC Radio 4 show "I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue" will be recording two episodes at the Grassington Festival next summer (on June 30, 2011). Here's an excerpt from the article (which is online at http://www.cravenherald.co.uk/news/8726587.Top_names_line_up_for_Grassington_Festival/), quoting the festival director Amelia Vyvyan: "Then we're especially delighted BBC Radio 4 has chosen Grassington Festival as a venue to record two episodes of the cult comedy panel game I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue on June 30. Now chaired by deadpan comedian Jack Dee and featuring the regular line-up of Graeme Garden, Tim Brooke Taylor and festival favourite Barry Cryer, this will be a very special evening for Grassington."
8. Clips from "The Truth About Killer Dinosaurs", presented by Bill, are available online from http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/life/Velociraptor I've been able to play them in the US so believe that, unlike television shows on the iPlayer, these are available for viewing outside the UK.
9. According to http://www.edp24.co.uk/what-s-on/celebrity_puppets_raise_funds_for_norwich_puppet_theatre_1_741999, Bill was one of the celebrities contributing a puppet for Norwich Puppet Theatre's 30th birthday celebrations | ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Graeme interview from
http://www.eadt.co.uk/entertainment/radio_show_tickles_funny_bones_1_751149
Radio show tickles funny bones
By WAYNE SAVAGE, entertainments writer
Friday, 10 December, 2010
16:22 PM
"NEVER try to tell a joke in a restaurant," advises Graeme Garden, "the waiter will come just before the punchline; I think they're trained to do it."
The former Goodie and I are chatting about this Sunday's visit of the multi-award winning antidote to panel games, I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue, to the Ipswich Regent.
For fans of the BBC radio show, the ease with which this odd diversion came about won't be out of the ordinary.
"I'm looking forward to one quite fun round, it's a sketch really where we play waiters in a restaurant who keep interrupting at the most inopportune moments like waiters do.
"There's another where we're adlibbing a letter one word at a time from, say, Prince Albert to Queen Victoria then the other team do Queen Victoria's letter in reply - but just doing alternate words between the two people so nobody quite knows where the letter's going," he laughs.
Graeme dreamed the idea up in the early Seventies. Following sell-out not for broadcast theatre tours in 2007, 2008 and last year it returns with a brand new Best Of; boasting the most successful rounds in the show's 38-year history - including Mornington Crescent and One Song to the Tune of Another.
Once again it will be hosted by Jack Dee.
"He's made the seat his own now; he's suitably grumpy about it all and dismissive. To be honest we thought nobody would agree to do it full-time immediately after Humphrey Lyttelton [who played the role of reluctant chairman since 1972 and died in 2008].
"We thought we'd let people have a go at it and see who bedded in most comfortably. Jack seemed very happy, we liked what he was doing and the others," he laughs, "were sort of more busy at the time. He brings an extra dimension to the show which is really good after 38 years or whatever it is.
"Me and Barry Cryer are on one side and on the other is Tim Brooke-Taylor and on the tour it's Jeremy Hardy who, as anyone who's heard him sing will know what a treat is in store for him."
I've caught Graeme Garden on a rare day off between tour dates and live recordings. Like the rest of us he's a bit pre-occupied with the weather.
"We're in the middle of the tour. It's going very well, we've had sold-out audiences and seem to have pleased them quite happily," he laughs. "The only drawback is the travelling at this time of the year."
He says the current tour is a good introduction to the show if you've never heard it.
You can only imagine what the BBC thought during that initial pitch.
'Okay everyone, here's the idea. A panel of comedians sit at a desk behind some microphones and we record them while they're given very silly games - thinking up silly Welsh film titles and what not - to play by the host.
Thoughts?'
Graeme's being doing it since the start and even he struggles to explain the show to newcomers.
"They [the audience] will be mystified, delighted and thoroughly entertained," Graeme promises. "That's all I can say, they will either not know what's going on or enjoy what's going on hugely - one or the other."
The thinking behind the tours was to share the fun had by the panel and the audience at the radio shows with those unable to make the live recordings.
"It looks like pretty much what a radio recording looks like, although we do actually get out and walk about a bit, do a couple of sketches, come out and sing at microphones at the front of the stage just to show that we can.
Essentially it is the radio show."
It's surreal nature obviously keeps the show fresh and their producer insists six new rounds are invented per series.
"We don't do them all, but everybody has to come in with their ideas otherwise you know they're on the naughty step," he laughs. "And the games we're given to do are just as silly as ever."
With two Goodies facing off against each other, is there extra competition.
"Jack was saying the other day, after a recording, it's not like a lot of panel games and shows where the comics are really competing - you know, Mock the Week where they're all trying to score points off each other. It's a supportive show.
"When somebody new comes on and they've not done the show before they're always quite surprised by how non-competitive it is in real life. Of course, on the stage you make it look as if you're competing. On the whole we share our jokes and things quite happily. We just want to make a good, funny show and please the audience."
I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue will be at the Ipswich Regent from 7.30pm on Sunday. |
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