The Blagger's Guide is a British series of comical documentaries on specific music genres, originally broadcast on BBC Radio 2. Not all the information presented in the programme are facts. [1] Some items have been exaggerated for comic effect. The series works on a monologue style, with clips of music inserted for illustrational purposes. [1]
BBC Radio 2 is one of the BBC's national radio stations and the most popular station in the United Kingdom with over 15 million weekly listeners. Much of its daytime playlist-based programming is adult contemporary or AOR, although the station also broadcasts other specialist musical genres. Radio 2 broadcasts throughout the UK on FM between 88.1 and 90.2 MHz from studios in Wogan House, adjacent to Broadcasting House in central London. Programmes are relayed on digital radio via DAB, Sky, Cable TV, IPTV, Freeview, Freesat and the Internet.
It is presented as a spoof documentary and therefore there is no laugh track. The series originally ran from 20 August 2005 – 24 April 2009. [1] The current series looked at the 2012 Olympics and in late 2012 there followed specials on The Beatles and James Bond.
A laugh track is a separate soundtrack for a recorded comedy show containing the sound of audience laughter. In some productions, the laughter is a live audience response instead; in the United States, where it is most commonly used, the term usually implies artificial laughter made to be inserted into the show. This was invented by American sound engineer Charles "Charley" Douglass.
The Beatles were an English rock band formed in Liverpool in 1960. With members John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, they became regarded as the foremost and most influential music band in history. Rooted in skiffle, beat and 1950s rock and roll, the group were integral to pop music's evolution into an art form and to the development of the counterculture of the 1960s. They often incorporated classical elements, older pop forms and unconventional recording techniques in innovative ways, and later experimented with several musical styles ranging from pop ballads and Indian music to psychedelia and hard rock. As the members continued to draw influences from a variety of cultural sources, their musical and lyrical sophistication grew, and they were seen as an embodiment of the era's sociocultural movements.
The James Bond series focuses on a fictional British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short-story collections. Since Fleming's death in 1964, eight other authors have written authorised Bond novels or novelizations: Kingsley Amis, Christopher Wood, John Gardner, Raymond Benson, Sebastian Faulks, Jeffery Deaver, William Boyd and Anthony Horowitz. The latest novel is Forever and a Day by Anthony Horowitz, published in May 2018. Additionally Charlie Higson wrote a series on a young James Bond, and Kate Westbrook wrote three novels based on the diaries of a recurring series character, Moneypenny.
The first two series focused on rock and pop music, and the third featured classical music. [1] A live jazz special was recorded in 2010.
The series is narrated by David Quantick, who co-wrote the series with Simon Poole. It also featured Lewis MacLeod and Kate O'Sullivan. [1]
David Quantick is an Emmy Award winning English journalist, radio and screen writer and critic who specialises in music and comedy. He has collaborated with comics and writers such as Chris Morris and Armando Iannucci and Harry Hill as a writer for TV Burp.
Euan Lewis MacLeod is a Scottish actor and voice actor
Kate O'Sullivan is a British actress, singer, voiceover artist and impressionist.
