Jake Yapp has unwound

Yesterday was the final episode of the 20 long run of Jake Yapp's Unwinding on Radio 4Extra and, I have to say, I will miss it grievously. 

Since the beginning of January it has become part of my evening routine; like a cosy pair of slippers. Albeit, in this case, a cosy pair of slippers in bright colours, possibly held together by gaffer tape, with safety pins and all sorts of other gubbins attached.

I didn't blog about the wonderful innovation that was Friday Night Is Music Night in my previous post but, for me, this has been a strong highlight of the series run. Even threatening to overshadow the legendary Celebrity Soup Of The Day. Essentially it involved Harry The Piano taking up residence in the studio on Friday evenings with an assortment of singing and non singing guests, being challenged to recreate popular songs or pieces of music in an entirely different style. Toyah singing metal was a highlight, as was last nights suggestion of "'I Got Rhythm' in the style of someone who don't".

Some of my favourite moments across the 20 episodes would include, in no particular order:

• The jingle for the 'Higher, Lower' game.
• Samira Ahmed's spirited and geeky defence of the Cliff Richard film The Young Ones during Culture Wars.
• The night when someone won Dolly Parton on Celebrity Soup Of The Day (with, I think, Potato And Leek)
• The night when Jake, in his nonagenarian persona Dora Dale, was himself won by a contestant on Celebrity Soup Of The Day.
• Jake's final night jingle for producer Laura Grimshaw
• Toyah Willcox being quietly bemused by the premise of Celebrity Soup Of The Day
• Anton Du Bec phoning in to the show, after having being won on Celebrity Soup Of The Day, to talk about life with his new owner.
• The entire run of Where To Mate?, which I hadn't encountered before.
• Susie Blake's continuity announcement for Love Island.
• The Boring Talks episode about Model Villages
• Terry Wogan the show cat
• The Eastenders theme in the style of Beethoven

I've had a look at what's on between 7pm and 10pm Monday-Friday next week on Radio 4Extra and I must confess to a strong sense of disappointment. Mainly because it all seems so, well, random... and I haven't quite re-adjusted to the loss of the Crime and Thrillers slot yet.

February can be the cruellest of months.

Jake Yapp's Unwinding

Comedian, writer, regular presenter of Radio 4Extra's Comedy Club, surrealist... Celebrity Vegan (with a good line in Salted Beetroot)...

Jake Yapp is holed up in Scott Mill's BBC studio with a broken chair and microphones that still have tinsel wrapped around them. He has been given the somewhat daunting task of keeping Radio 4Extra's notoriously (and increasingly) vocal audience happy throughout January. It will not be an easy task.

Regular 4Extra listeners were already seriously narked, given the BBC's announcement in 2022 that it intends to bin the station off entirely at some point in the next three years. In the dying months of the year however this sense of frustration was amplified by a series of unexpected and radical changes to the existing Radio 4Extra schedule, which saw - amongst other things - the end of the Crime and Thrillers strand between 8pm and 9pm. The changes inflicted on the station in recent months might not be as extreme as those inflicted on Twitter by Elon Musk in the same period, but the level of reported unhappiness has been much the same. Jake Yapp's Unwinding will be going out every weekday evening between 7pm and 10pm, replacing the old Classic Comedy, Crime and Thrillers and 9pm documentary slots. It is, indeed, a gamble. Will it work? 

Yapp began well on Monday evening by launching into a polished and suitably misanthropic re-working of 'It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year', but the initial vibe of the show was confusing. On one level, he seemed to be working up an extension of the kind of material he would have delivered, between comedy shows, in The Comedy Club (which continues in the 10pm - Midnight slot seven days a week, albeit presented by continuity announcers instead of comedians as previously) but on the other hand the jingles particularly give it the feel of an afternoon show on Radio 2. Which is a little jarring at times. It's possible that Yapp or producer Laura Grimshaw have realised this as, by Wednesday night, said jingles were being much more sparingly used.

Essentially, Unwinding's format consists of Jake, his special guest of the evening (Monday was Jessica Fostekew, Tuesday was Isy Suttie, Wednesday Sara Baron) and producer Laura talking, inviting and reading out contributions from listeners, plus regular content such as the already legendary Celebrity Soup Of The Day, the more hit/miss Culture Wars and interviews with those of interest to the comedy world, such as former Muppets and Spitting Image puppeteer, Louise Gold. In-between all of this, he plays extracts or (in the case of shorter content) full episodes of comedy shows, podcasts and book serialisations and makes use of suitably self depreciating/withering anti-endorsements from his more serious BBC colleagues: The Huw Edwards disclaimer played at the end of each show is hilariously withering. As Yapp himself put it on Wednesday night, it's a bit like a Radio 2 show only playing comedy extracts instead of records. Though I'd say it's more like The Comedy Club as a magazine show.

Some comedy show extracts are integrated more easily into this three hour show than others, with 15 minute shows faring better than 30 minute ones on the whole. Some of the longer shows can bear being chopped up and interrupted, for example John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme, which is made up of self contained sketches, but some feel a bit less well integrated, such as the chopped up episode of Women Talking About Cars on Wednesday night, which didn't chunk as well.

This is a minor point though as the show clearly has legs and much to recommend it. This would include Yapp's interviews, particularly with Louse Gold who, in part 2 of her interview (broadcast during the Wednesday episode) talked to Jake about being the first person to operate the Queen's puppet and voice it for Spitting Image. She watched the Queen's funeral with the Queen's puppet next to her on the sofa.

Similarly good is the serialisation of Daisy Buchanan's eye opening satirical novel Careering, the fly-on-the-wall esque cabbie comedy Where To Mate? and episodes of The Boring Talks, which go out after 9pm when the show takes on a slightly less chaotic energy. Monday's Boring Talk was given by a teenage ice cream van driver, Wednesday's by a pencil enthusiast. 

In terms of the original content created by Yapp alongside Grimshaw and his guests and contributors, Celebrity Soup Of The Day has been the established star of the show since Monday, but some of the Culture Wars 'debates' also deserve a mention. I wasn't sure about The Culture Wars debate on Monday, but I was won over by Tuesday's during which Grimshaw earnestly tried to find a negative thing to say about custard as Suttie and Yapp chugged (and gargled) the supermarket own brand variety of the yellow stuff in the background. The custard chat, sandwiched as it was either side of an episode of Where To Mate?, was sublime. Somewhere in there things took an increasingly surreal turn, leading to discussion of a pudding inside a pudding inside a pudding, which was daft enough to remind me of the swiss army cake in Undone (Series 2, episode 2: "It's a cake but it also contains lots of little more useful cakes that come out the side")

The nightly re-cap of the previous nights episode of Celebrity Soup Of The Day is so hilarious meanwhile that it's in serious danger of eclipsing the (admittedly fine) feature itself, coming as it does with a suitably hoarse male Hollywood style voiceover, giving listeners the impression that they're listening to a more surreal episode of Dragon's Den. 

It would be easier to command you to listen to Celebrity Soup Of The Day than it would be to try and explain the concept or, indeed, the rules. At a basic level, it involves a member of the public trying to guess what the soup of the day is at a particular UK pub or restaurant, but there's an element of jeopardy as the caller must 'stake' a celebrity of their choice and the class of celebrity must represent how confident they feel in their guess. The delight on Wednesday night when Martin the listener correctly guessed that the soup on offer at a certain pub in Blackburn was indeed minestrone and that he hadn't sacrificed Clive Myrie, was palpable. I think this means Martin gets to 'keep' Myrie as a sort of talking point, perhaps in the living room. The madness is catching...

It was this moment, more than anything, on Wednesday that reflected the point when the show format started to feel more familiar and comfortable, like a pair of slightly angry, opinionated scruffy slippers. That listeners seemed incredibly exercised about bread bins on Wednesday also backs this up, surely providing Yapp with a future topic for Culture Wars. 

It was also nice, again on Wednesday, to have the people from BBC Upload on, talking about the new creative talent scheme and how you can submit stuff to it. You basically record it on your phone then upload it and it gets watched and shared across the BBC's socials. Plus there's a festival, workshops and other stuff. "This sounds disturbingly warm and supportive" commented Jake.

It has occurred to me that part of the reason why I'm loving this show so much is because it basically occupies the same slot that The Funster Show did on Signal Cheshire in the early 90s* Unwinding serves a similar function, albeit with more sophisticated but equally surreal content: They haven't had an exploding cuckoo clock that went off for three days straight yet, but the jingles and endorsements are in a similar territory. On Signal Cheshire the madness of The Funster Show was enhanced by the fact that the playlist was dominated by the likes of Utah Saints and Altern 8, whereas Unwinding has to work harder to create that energy. 

I suppose the big test, for me, will be whether the show format works once I've gone back to work. (If Jake and Laura are reading this: My excuse for not being back at work yet is that the students aren't back in yet, so neither am I. As to What Have You Been Doing To Justify This... Erm, writing this?) as I'll be getting up a lot earlier then and going to bed earlier as well.  That said, the gentler tone of The Boring Talks might be as soothing for me as an old episode of Wimsey or Cadfael would have been around the same time.

Jake Yapp's Unwinding is broadcast Monday-Friday, 7pm-10pm on Radio 4Extra throughout January

*A quick google reveals that there were several different versions of The Funster Show, all with the same presenter, broadcast at different times across the Potteries and Cheshire and Greater Manchester on different stations within the Signal Cheshire/Signal Stoke/Piccadilly Radio networks. I'm thinking of the version that was broadcast around about 1991 ish on what was then Signal Cheshire which used to be KFM and was broadcast from Regents House in Stockport.

Image one a screenshot of Jake Japp in the studio

Image two bowl of soup by Victoria Shes on Unsplash

Image three a pair of slippers and stripy socks by Philippe Jausions on Unsplash

Crimbo Limbo, part Two: Radio and Podcasts

I'm thinking that people might be a bit over the more sentimental aspects of Christmas by this point in crimbo limbo. So, if this is you, the most recent episode of Tim Harford's Cautionary Tales podcast may be of interest. It concerns itself with the collapse of the Christmas savings club Farepak. It's a bleak listen, but it is also a remorselessly forensic dissection of the economics of Christmas, and the consequences of the pressure to spend, spend, spend. As such, it is thought provoking as well as merely tragic.

Many, many, many podcasts and current affairs radio shows have done some kind of look back over the tumultuous, often farcical, frequently exasperating year that was 2022. As such, I'm deliberately omitting most of them as you will have your own preferences. One that I will mention is the Private Eye podcast, Page 94, and its annual Live at the National episode. Well, I say annual, but the last one was in 2019. You can hear this years episode, which is a kind of Best of Private Eye 2022 Live, here. 

Another one worth mentioning is the comparatively early 19th December episode of The New Statesman podcast, if only because it features Jonn Elledge talking about goats. If you subscribe to Jonn's newsletter, you'll appreciate the festive significance of... goats. Said newsletter is also worth bigging up if only because of this years elegant festive salute to the true spirit of Christmas via the figure of George Michael.

Jonn's tribute to George Michael also leads very nicely to the final episode of the current season of John O'Farrell and Angela Barnes' irreverent history podcast, We Are History, which deals with the history of the Christmas Number One. It's about as raucous and riveting as regular listeners have come to expect.

I've been listening to a lot of Radio 4 and Radio 4Extra over Christmas, starting with a festive episode of Soul Music on Christmas Eve that did a thoughtful deep dive on Greg Lake's 'I Believe In Father Christmas'. A song that I was aware of but wasn't particularly attached to. The beauty of Soul Music is that it can take a song that you're basically ambivalent about and bring it's origin story, influence and impact into such strong focus that you can't help but be utterly absorbed.

There was also what has been the standout of festive drama's for me this year: Neil Gaiman's The Sleeper and the Spindle, which takes the fairytale Sleeping Beauty and runs with it. The result is all absorbing, subtle, full of in jokes and fairytale subtext and subversion, and... just weird in a very charming and unexpected way. The Christmas Eve episode of You're Dead to Me, which did a deep, and unsentimental, dive into Charles Dickens' literary connections with Christmas, is also worth a listen.

Obituary shows are particularly big at this time of year and it's worth giving a salute to one of the more unusual ones: Toby Haydock's annual Absent Friends: the 7th Dimension for 4Extra. Split into two 15 minute episodes (the first was on Christmas Day), it simply and effectively pays tribute to all of those connected to the worlds of Sci Fi, Fantasy and Horror who have passed this year.

By contrast, Radio 4 repeated the BBC New Comedy Awards finalists show on the 28th December, and the sheer energy coming off the contestants during their sets makes for a really inspiring listen. 

An inspiring listen in a different way was the episode of The Untold that told the story of five year old Imogen the Chef from Leeds. 

And finally, on the 28th December, the excellent Best Pick podcast released their take on the 2021 Oscar winner CODA. Not only is this the last episode that the Best Pick gang will do on an Oscar winner for some time, it's also their last episode for some time in the more general sense. As such, it is worth savouring.

Image one by Pavel Anoshin on Unsplash

Image two by Eric Krull on Unsplash

Image three by Matt Seymour on Unsplash

Crimbo Limbo, part One: TV, Streaming and DVD's

Writing as someone who doesn't watch TV all year but who then gorges senselessly over the festive period when I'm at my mum and dad's house... now seems a good moment to write a slightly bemused take on the festive TV schedules.

Every year the critical reception that greets the festive TV announcements feels more and more brutal. I wonder sometimes if it's a two headed problem: On one hand, people want the opportunity to watch all of their personal checklist of festive favourites, from It's A Wonderful Life to The Muppet's Christmas Carol (and all points in-between...) but, on the other hand... They also want the opportunity to devour some new programmes and films that they can then add to that list. A few years ago we successfully added the DVD of Terry Pratchett's Hogfather to our personal family list but, having watched it to death for at least 4 years consecutively, we're currently having a break from it.

Regular, and increasingly desperate, daily study of the bumper edition Radio Times between Christmas Eve and the 28th December failed to turn up much that any of us felt like watching. It seemed like some channels were trying harder than others to be honest. BBC2 on (I think) Boxing Day had an afternoon/evening schedule which consisted entirely of Marilyn Monroe films and Tina Turner related programming. I mean, great if you like Monroe and Turner, but... weirdly un-festive.

As things turned out, we spent the evening of Christmas Eve (after much thought and deliberation) binge watching Belgravia on DVD, and stayed largely in period drama territory for much of the festive period. 

Belgravia is the sumptuous BBC adaptation of Julian Fellowes novel of the same name. Following the huge success of Downton Abbey, it's highly likely that Fellowes was basically given carte blanche to do whatever he wanted next, and that Belgravia was the result. 

This makes it sound like I didn't enjoy Belgravia, but I really did.

Never trust a man in a fancy waistcoat

Set in the aftermath of the battle of Waterloo and the end of the Peninsula Wars, Belgravia shares with its Edwardian/inter war period sibling the same servant/master/upstairs/downstairs structure and interest in the British class structure. In Belgravia, it would be fair to surmise that London gentrification is also a theme. In common with much 19th Century literature/TV dramas set in that period, there are certain character motifs that help it to feel comforting in a way it perhaps shouldn't be: The cad can be easily spotted by his elaborately embroidered waistcoats, for example. We also have two refreshingly independent spirited heroines, a number of conniving anti heroines, and a commanding but spiky duchess. Not to mention a graciously underplayed mother courtesy of Tamsin Greig and a man on the rise played by Phillip Glennister. 

After finishing Belgravia on Christmas Day, we found ourselves turning to Netflix and the second of the Enola Holmes films. Maybe it's the success of Sherlock that's done it, but there seems to have been a massive surge in new takes on Holmes in recent years, including new books and, now, these two films for Netflix. Who, if the runaway success of Wednesday is anything to go by, seem to be the streaming service for excellent teenage girl heroine's at the moment. Entirely concerned with the story of Sherlock and Mycroft's previously unmentioned younger sister, Enola, (played with irresistible charm by Millie Bobbie Brown) the films can't be regarded as canon, but that should in no way put anyone off watching them. Similarly, I haven't actually seen the first of the two films, but that didn't prevent me from enjoying the second one. 

The series is clearly aimed at a teenage/young adult audience, but it's sophisticated enough to work for adults as well. Marked by engaging central performances, particularly from Brown, Helena Bonham Carter (as Enola's eccentric suffragette mother) and Louis Partridge as Enola's friend and potential love interest, Tewkesbury. Threading historical fact with fiction, it's fast paced, with regular breaking of the fourth wall, and has ferociously energetic charm that makes it quite an exciting TV proposition. It's to be hoped that there will be further films.

Boxing Day had us tuning into BBC1 for The Repair Shop and Death In Paradise, both festive themed episodes of long running series. I have been sceptical about Death In Paradise for a while because - at face value - it always felt too much like a Midsummer Murders/Rosemary and Thyme/Bergerac type show. Having actually watched it now, I can see that I was largely wrong: It is at the quirkier end of crime drama, but it probably has more in common with a show like The Number 1 Ladies Detective Agency than with Midsummer Murders. There's humour there, but it's balanced well with the crime elements and never feels ridiculous or inappropriate.  The Repair Shop, meanwhile, was gentle feel good TV at it's best.

On the 27th I figured out how to use iplayer on the smart TV and watched Matthew Bourne's Nutcracker from a few days earlier. It had a very 1950s fun aesthetic that gave the ballet a different kind of energy and vitality, meaning it bounced along quite nicely. The costumes were fantastic, as was the dancing and characterisation. There wasn't really any pointe work but I think it's part of Bourne's style to make things look effortless and easy, rather than laboured and difficult so that might have been why.

We watched The African Queen on DVD after that, which I could write about, but which I'd need to write a highly defensive and carefully phrased essay about purely on the basis that it's set in the colonial era in East Africa, which was then part of the German empire, at the start of World War I. And the film was made in 1951. Personally, I will watch and often take a lot from old films that were made in very different eras than today, but I can't always be bothered to do a full on dissection of the pros and cons. 

In-keeping with the World War I theme, we then finished off the 27th with the film 1917 on BBC1, which is probably about as un-festive as you can get really. It's an incredibly tense, riveting, and above all necessary watch. One that contrasted sharply with The African Queen, not only in pace but in terms of how far filming techniques and storytelling techniques have travelled since 1951. It has the same relentless, unforgiving, visceral quality to that Dunkirk did. Which we watched last Christmas.

Having also watched (the original) All Quiet On The Western Front and re-watched The Wipers Times this year, maybe it's time to compile a film guide to World War I? (Before anyone points it out, I know Dunkirk is set during World War II. The other films I've mentioned are all set in World War I though) Or does one already exist?

On which un-festive note, I shall end for now.

Tomorrow I intend to take a look at radio and podcasts over the festive period.

First image by Bryony Elena on Unsplash

Second image screen grab of Belgravia

Third image publicity still for Enola Holmes 2

Fourth image by Illiya Vjestica on Unsplash

Songs of the year, Number 1: Florence + The Machine - King

The first of the five singles released from the Dance Fever album, 'King' was released in February and quickly established itself as both a calling card for the upcoming album, and a statement of intent. 

It opens with the lines

We argue in the kitchen about whether to have children

About the world ending and

The scale of my ambition

And how much is art really worth

In the press release to accompany the song, Welch spoke of finding herself at a kind of personal crossroads. Of having to reconcile her career as a musician with her life as a 35 year old woman who would like to have children one day. 

That to be a performer, but also to want a family might not be as simple for me as it is for my male counterparts. I had modelled myself almost exclusively on male performers, and for the first time I felt a wall come down between me and my idols as I have to make decisions they did not.

There is a real sense of anger when she sings:

I am no mother

I am no bride

I am King

The song also works on another - possibly unintended - level in that it provides a swaggering salute to other unmarried childless/child free women: A constituency rarely acknowledged by popular music, and one that tends only to be acknowledged in the negative sense. 

The ferocity of 'King' contrasts with the vulnerability of 'Morning Elvis', Dance Fever's closing song, but what both songs share is Welch's eye for detail and ability to laugh at herself. There's a wry honesty in both cases that is as revealing as it is liberating.

The usually indestructible and (on stage) inexhaustibly energetic Welch is emphatically off stage at the moment, having broken her foot (for the second time) on the opening night of Florence + The Machine's UK tour at London's O2 Arena. But 'King' serves as a reminder of her steely determination as a performer. That sense of rage wrapped in humour coupled with a persistent kind of stubbornness and will to succeed.

She will be back in late January for her second date at London's O2 Arena, and the rest of the UK tour.

Songs of the year, Number 2: Zola Jesus - Lost

In composing her sixth album as Zola Jesus, Nika Danilova did something she hadn't done before: She chose to work with collaborators, specifically from the ranks of Sun O))), Cloud Nothings and Perfume Genius. Apparently inspired by Danilova's increasingly socialist political views, and her desire for a more collectivist, collaborative society, this decision to collaborate musically has had a dramatic sonic impact on the album. The overall sound is more experimental and varied but it's still unmistakably a Zola Jesus record. 

'Lost' is an eerie, unsettlingly, echoing song that makes use of glitchy sampled breathing alongside the traditional dark synths and Danilova's hugely powerful, operatically trained voice. A brutal description of burnout, it's been suggested that the song relates to her distrust of the increased role of big tech within the music industry. 

"Everyone I know is lost" she sings, "Flare gone missing, turning dark" 

That the song feels so hopeful has a lot to do with the power of Danilova's vocal and the anthemic feel of the song. It's a real lament for a lost generation, as well as - presumably - a nod to any artist who's ever been leaned on to become their own social media manager alongside touring, performing and recording. 

In darkness there can also be strength, not to mention inspiration. 

Songs of the year, Number 3: The Regrettes - Anxieties (Out Of Time) [Official Music Video]

With their third album, Further Joy, LA punk band The Regrettes have taken their sound in an increasingly pop direction, leading to an album that feels more like Parallel Lines than Vacation and which has been very well received. 

The video to 'Anxieties (Out Of Time)' looks and feels like an homage to Atlanta, Georgia's finest the B52's, adding a sense of kitsch cheer that contrasts with the sense of awkwardness and tensions displayed by the band members throughout. For the band have created an incredibly catchy paen to the terrors of anxiety, imposter syndrome and self doubt.

"I can hear the sirens, and my visions blurry" begins Lydia Night against a background of almost harpsichord esque keyboard riffs. "Knock me down; I won't back down. Knock me down; I won't back down" she sings, mantra like, in the chorus against a rolling march of strident drums. 

The breathless style of singing Night deploys in the bridge evokes the physical sensation of anxiety equally as much as the lyrics do, and there is a constant plea to "Just. Let. Me. Breathe." With 'Anxieties (Out of Time)' the band are conveying a sense of strength through candid honesty and vulnerability, creating a powerful message wrapped up in an irresistibly catchy brightly coloured package. More power to their elbow.