A pilot panel show about economics, this has the components of quite an entertaining programme hidden within it. We've had various themed panel shows over the years, such as Swots, Dilemma, Hot Gossip, but I think this is the first to have a go at the financial industries. (For more finance comedy, try Simon Evans Goes to Market, if/when it becomes available.
It's very obviously a pilot show, with significant roughness in both the format and the presenting. The style is a typical quiz about interesting facts, with the panel either being right or funny. Preferably both, but that's surprisingly hard to achieve. The responses are then interspersed with the correct answers with a hopefully fascinating bit of history or money matters.
Trouble is, finance doesn't necessarily break down into small enough snippets to fit as a short form quiz structure. Especially in a quick fire round. While some of the information could be quite fun to explore, the majority of it is already rather commonly known. I mean, I'm actually fairly interested in drug barons, black markets, lollipop ladies and ISIS, but not in a simple "who earns the most?" sort of way.
The other problem with the fairly easy questions is that when you've got a quiz specialist like Paul Sinha on the panel, he's going to dominate a bit. The easiest way to beat him is to start meta-gaming, eg working out what the answer is likely to be, based on which would be theoretically more surprising to a layman. The panel start doing this two questions in, which somewhat throws Frisby. (The presenter, first name Dominic. Sorry, couldn't resist that pun.)
Not terrible, not amazing. Accept it's going to be rough round the edges going in. Still, it's something a little different, and I can't fault them for trying. A more polished presenter, and a bit of a re-think of how the answers/background information are introduced (perhaps take a cue from Mitchell's Unbelievable Truth) and this could be a fully immersing half hour.
Recommended.
Tagged: Radio Comedy Cast Panel Economics