Helen Keen has an interesting niche, crossing the borders of sociology, history and comedy. Her shows are partly documentaries, covering a range of interesting topics from a fairly approachable viewpoint, to an audience of laymen. Her first programme "It is Rocket Science", gave an impressive history of rocketry over three series, while still maintaining a comedic air, and her new programme "Big Problems" does similar but for a wider range of subjects.
In this second series, she's joined by Jon Culshaw and Susy Kane, who lend their voices to a range of silly sketchettes, covering such delights as corned beef, millennial ennui and gin. Lots of gin. She looks at how we feed ourselves, what goes wrong with our food production, and why it's a bit weird that we suddenly have a range of fad/specialist diets.
It's one of those shows that let's me get all snobby about Radio 4. They're very funny, but I can also pretend that I'm being educated. For another example, see here.
Though I will confess I was depressed to run into Trump again. I know, I know, he is pretty much guaranteed a laugh, but there's too much of him in real life. I actually would like to get away from him.
Still, they've got Culshaw in, so you can't really not use him for satire. Although he does prove an excellent documentary voiceover artist, adding the same silly gravitas Serafinowicz did. Something for him to consider as politics stops being run by white men and he becomes less necessary.
Any day now.
Highly recommended.
Tagged: Radio Comedy Cast Informative Philosophy