Very Old Pretenders

Last updated

Very Old Pretenders
GenreMockumentary
Running time28 minutes
Country of originUnited Kingdom
Language(s)English
Home station BBC Radio 4
Starring David Haig
Rebecca Front
Jack Docherty
Gordon Kennedy
Moray Hunter
Morwenna Banks
Carl Gorham
Lucy Barter
Sinead Merron
Nicholas Burns
Created byCarl Gorham
Written byCarl Gorham
Produced by Gordon Kennedy
Original release15 September 2011 – 6 October 2011
No. of series1
No. of episodes4

Very Old Pretenders is a comedy mockumentary on BBC Radio 4 which was first broadcast between 15 September and 6 October 2011.

Contents

Plot

A fictional anthropologist discover two Jacobite soldiers, preserved alive in a cave since 1745, and introduces them to modern life.

Production

Very Old Pretenders was written by Carl Gorham, known to British audiences for his earlier Gorham and Swift radio sitcom and the television series Stressed Eric . It was produced by Absolutely Productions. [1]

Reception

Initial reviews (from advance copies sent to critics) were positive, Ron Hewit in the Radio Times calling it "terrific", [2] and Gillian Reynolds in the Telegraph suggested it was very funny if, along with her, one likes "Scotsmen plus a bustling conjunction of the real with the surreal". [3]

Episodes

Series 1

#TitleOriginal airdate
1–1"The Patriots"15 September 2011 (2011-09-15)
Fictional — but stressed — anthropologist Andrew Merron endeavours to induct two Jacobite soldiers, mysteriously preserved in a cave since 1745, into modern life. Introducing them to the Scotland of today starts with a trip to a tartan shop on Edinburgh's Royal Mile, and a football (soccer) World Cup qualifying match where Scotland takes on the Dickson Isles.
1–2"In Therapy"22 September 2011 (2011-09-22)
Tension between the superannuated soldiers leads to a bust-up with broadswords, and a solution is attempted through the modern concept of therapy.
1–3"The Dating Game"29 September 2011 (2011-09-29)
The anthropologist takes his eighteenth-century Romeos speed-dating, with predictably grotesque results.
1–4"On Television"6 October 2011 (2011-10-06)
Andrew gets the antique Scots into a pitch for a new television show — and one of them swaps his claymore for a Bafta.

Related Research Articles

Gillian Anderson American actress (born 1968)

Gillian Leigh Anderson is an American actress. Her credits include the roles of FBI Special Agent Dana Scully in the series The X-Files, ill-fated socialite Lily Bart in Terence Davies's film The House of Mirth (2000), DSU Stella Gibson in the BBC/RTÉ crime drama television series The Fall, sex therapist Jean Milburn in the Netflix comedy-drama Sex Education, and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the fourth season of Netflix drama series The Crown. Among other honors, she has won two Primetime Emmy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, and four Screen Actors Guild Awards.

<i>Brief Lives</i> late 17th-century collection of biographies by John Aubrey

Brief Lives is a collection of short biographies written by John Aubrey (1626–1697) in the last decades of the 17th century.

<i>The Railway Children</i> Book

The Railway Children is a children's book by Edith Nesbit, originally serialised in The London Magazine during 1905 and first published in book form in 1906. It has been adapted for the screen several times, of which the 1970 film version is the best known.

<i>Absolutely</i> (TV series)

Absolutely is a British comedy sketch show. The cast and crew are mainly Scottish; the principal writers and performers are Moray Hunter, Jack Docherty, Peter Baikie, Gordon Kennedy, Morwenna Banks (English) and John Sparkes (Welsh). The original television series, produced by Absolutely Productions, aired on Channel 4 for four series between May 1989 and February 1993. Following an award-winning one-off radio reunion special for BBC Radio 4 in 2013, the show returned for a new four-part radio series with most of the original cast in September 2015. A second Radio 4 series of four programmes was broadcast from 25 June 2017, and a third in July 2019.

Andrew McGibbon Musical artist

Andrew McGibbon, is an English comedian, actor, writer, musician and composer. He has also produced and directed extensively, chiefly for radio.

Gary Beadle British actor

Gary Beadle is a British actor, best known for playing Paul Trueman in EastEnders and Gary Barwick in Operation Good Guys.

Paul Reynolds is an English actor, well known for portraying Colin Mathews in Press Gang (1989–1993), Kelvin Raine in Maisie Raine (1998) and convicted police murderer Chris Craig in Let Him Have It (1991).

Gillian Jacobs American actress

Gillian MacLaren Jacobs is an American actress and director. She is best known for her roles as Britta Perry on the NBC comedy series Community (2009–2015), Mickey Dobbs on the Netflix romantic comedy series Love (2016–2018), and Atom Eve on the Amazon animated series Invincible (2021). She had a recurring role as Mimi-Rose Howard on the fourth season of the HBO comedy-drama series Girls (2012–2017) and has appeared in films such as Life Partners (2014), Hot Tub Time Machine 2 (2015), Don't Think Twice (2016), Brother Nature (2016), Life of the Party (2018), Ibiza (2018), I Used to Go Here (2020), and the Fear Street trilogy (2021).

Philip Walter Archer is a fictional character from the British BBC Radio 4 soap opera The Archers, played by Norman Painting. He made his first appearance on 29 May 1950, the show's pilot episode. The character later became the longest serving male character in the series. His longevity gave him something of the status of a 'patriarch' in Ambridge.

The Museum of Curiosity, formerly titled The Professor of Curiosity, is a comedy talk show on BBC Radio 4 that was first broadcast on 20 February 2008. It is hosted by John Lloyd. He acts as the head of the (fictional) titular museum, while a panel of three guests – typically a comedian, an author and an academic – each donate to the museum an 'object' that fascinates them. The radio medium ensures that the suggested exhibits can be absolutely anything, limited only by the guests' imaginations.

Last Word is an obituary BBC radio series broadcast weekly on Radio 4. Each week the lives of several famous people who have recently died are summarised with narration, and interviews with people who knew them. The programme is normally presented by Matthew Bannister, although on odd occasions it has been presented by other people such as Kate Silverton or Julian Worricker. The programme was first broadcast on 10 February 2006.

Absolutely Productions is a television production company formed in 1988 by Morwenna Banks, Jack Docherty, Moray Hunter, Pete Baikie, John Sparkes, and Gordon Kennedy, all of whom were the cast of British television comedy sketch show Absolutely.

Gillian Reynolds is an English radio critic, journalist and broadcaster.

Newfangle is a BBC Radio 4 sitcom written by Adam Rosenthal and Viv Ambrose, first broadcast on 1 June 2009. The series is set hundreds of thousands of years ago amongst a tribe of proto-humans. Newfangle, is a low status member of his tribe who tries to improve his status in the tribe by coming up with new inventions such as language, fire and money. However, all of his inventions are stolen by the tribe's alpha male, Alf.

<i>Cabin Pressure</i> (radio series) BBC Radio show

Cabin Pressure is a radio sitcom written and created by John Finnemore and directed and produced by David Tyler. It follows the exploits of the eccentric crew of the single aeroplane owned by "MJN Air" as they are chartered to take all manner of items, people or animals across the world. The show stars Finnemore, Stephanie Cole, Roger Allam and Benedict Cumberbatch.

<i>Bigipedia</i> Comedy sketch show broadcast on BBC Radio 4 between 23 July and 13 August 2009

Bigipedia is a comedy sketch show broadcast on BBC Radio 4 that first aired between 23 July and 13 August 2009. A second series of four episodes began on 12 July 2011. The show's storyline revolves around "Bigipedia", a fictional website broadcast on radio and parody of Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia. The series mocks Wikipedia and other aspects of the Internet. The BBC Press Office described the show as "a unique experiment in 'broadwebcasting'". The series was created by co-star Nick Doody, who also co-writes the show with Matt Kirshen and a wider team of writers. It is produced by Pozzitive Productions.

<i>David Attenboroughs Life Stories</i> Series of radio monologues on the subject of natural history

David Attenborough's Life Stories is a series of monologues written and spoken by British broadcaster David Attenborough on the subject of natural history. They were broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2009 as part of the station's "Point of View" strand, in the weekly timeslot formerly occupied by Alistair Cooke's Letter from America. In each of the 20 programmes, Attenborough discusses a particular subject of personal resonance, drawing on his experience of six decades filming the natural world. The series was produced by Julian Hector, head of radio at the BBC Natural History Unit.

<i>So Wrong Its Right</i>

So Wrong It's Right is a British radio programme presented by Charlie Brooker in which panelists aim to give the "most wrong" answer to a question. They describe stories from their lives, conceive of new ideas on a theme and criticise aspects of the modern world. It aired three series in May–June 2010, March–April 2011 and May–June 2012 on BBC Radio 4. The first series of five episodes played at 11 p.m. while the last two had six episodes premiering at 6:30 p.m.

Shirleymander is a radio comedy-drama written by Gregory Evans. It was inspired by Today journalist Andrew Hosken's book Nothing Like a Dame (2006). Shirleymander was first broadcast as the Friday Play by BBC Radio 4 on 27 November 2009. The play's title is a portmanteau referencing the gerrymandering policy adopted by Shirley Porter while leader of Westminster City Council in the 1980s which "forced homeless families to substandard housing in order to manipulate the borough's voting demographic."

<i>Dont Talk to Strange Men</i> 1962 British film

Don't Talk to Strange Men is a 1962 black and white British crime thriller film directed by Pat Jackson and produced at Marylebone Film Studios and on location in Buckinghamshire.

References

  1. "The Very Old Pretenders".
  2. Hewit, Ron. "Very Old Pretenders", Radio Times Retrieved on 2011-09-16.
  3. Reynolds , Gillian . "Today's radio highlights", The Telegraph Retrieved on 2011-09-16.