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THE REUNION - THE DAY TODAY (320kbs-m4a/94mb/41mins)
BBC Radio 4 broadcast: 15th August 2021
Kirsty Wark brings together the cast of comedy show The Day Today. First broadcast in 1994, this six-part series savaged the business of TV news.
Coming off the back of the hugely successful and award-winning Radio 4 comedy On the Hour, Armando Iannucci, Chris Morris and cast brought their characters into the living rooms of millions. There was hapless sports reporter Alan Partridge, Peter O'Hanraha-hanrahan, Rosy May and the eponymous newsreader and host Chris Morris.
Satirising the form of news presentation, with a groundbreaking use of comedic graphics and music that always went on slightly too long, the joke was always on the pomposity of news and how it was presented.
Armando Iannucci, co-creator (with Chris Morris) and series producer, came up with the concept while on a BBC training course.
Patrick Marber played hapless reporter Peter O'Hanraha-hanrahan among other characters.
David Schneider, who was in a double act at university with Armando, contrived the very first early demos and was a regular cast member throughout.
Steve Coogan was drafted in after the initial pilot for On The Hour to help create a realistic sports reporter, who later morphed into Alan Partridge.
Doon Mackichan played multiple characters in The Day Today, as well as shows that followed, such as Brass Eye and Alan Partridge.
Presenter: Kirsty Wark
Producer: Simon Jarvis
Series Producer: David Prest
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4
THIS CULTURAL LIFE - 28. ARMANDO IANNUCCI (320kbs-m4a/96mb/42mins)
BBC Radio 4 broadcast: 28th May 2022
Writer and director Armando Iannucci reveals the most important artistic influences and experiences that have shaped his own work. Armando was the creative force behind Radio 4's news satire series On The Hour, which moved to television as The Day Today and launched the career of Alan Partridge. He wrote and directed the political comedy series The Thick Of It, and the long-running American TV series Veep. His big screen credits include In The Loop, The Death Of Stalin and The Personal History Of David Copperfield.
Armando recalls his Italian-Scottish family upbringing in Glasgow, where his lifelong love of classical music was first forged in Hillhead Public Library. A fan of radio comedy from a young age, he talks about the impact of hearing the 1978 radio comedy The Hitchhikers Guide To the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, whose central character Arthur Dent is, like many of Iannucci's own comic creations, a man way out of his depth as events spin out of control.
The 2003 invasion of Iraq is chosen by Armando as an event that had a big influence on his decision to create political satires The Thick Of It and its big screen spin-off In The Loop, in which government ministers and their advisors struggle to navigate a political path littered with inconvenient facts and rules. Reflecting on his work as a director, Armando Iannucci cites the American filmmaker Sidney Lumet as another major inspiration, with movies including Network, Dog Day Afternoon, Twelve Angry Men and The Verdict.
Producer: Edwina Pitman
WHY TIME FLIES (AND HOW TO SLOW IT DOWN) (320kbs-m4a/64mb/28mins)
BBC Radio 4 podcast: 4th June 2021
Armando Iannucci travels through time - discovering why it seems to accelerate alarmingly as he gets older and what, if anything, can be done to slow it down.
How exactly does the human brain calculate the passing of time? Why are the results often so distorted, with time either dragging or flying by? Armando meets physicists, psychologists and philosophers who help him unravel the emotional, physical and cultural factors which affect our perception of time.
Along the way he finds out how time flies... for flies.
Neuroscientist David Eagleman explains how he attempted to simulate the experience of time slowing down during a road accident, by throwing participants off a 150 foot high platform. Would they be able to decipher flickering images which would normally flash by too quickly?
Physicist Adrian Bejan suggests that Armando's brain has simply worn out, generating temporal discrepancies. He argues that as people age, the rate at which their brain processes visual information slows down, making time speed up.
Can the phenomenon be explained by mathematics. Kit Yates explains that each moment of our lives, every hour, day or week, becomes a smaller and smaller fraction of our entire life.
Psychologist Ruth Ogden, has conducted experiments to test how people of all ages estimate the passage of time, including under lockdown conditions. She says the reason our perception of time varies so dramatically lies in the way we form memories. Children’s lives are filled with new experiences, creating rich memories which make time seem to pass slowly. As we age, we have fewer new experiences, fewer vivid memories, and time rushes by.
To slow down time we must inject new, exciting experiences into our lives... like listening to this programme for example.
Producer: Brian King
A 7digital production for BBC Radio 4
SOUND AND VISION - ARMANDO IANNUCCI (320kbs-m4a/129mb/56mins)
BBC Radio 6 Music broadcast: 26th January 2020
Armando Iannucci is acclaimed as one of the most influential comedy writers, directors and producers in Britain. He wrote and directed the BAFTA-winning shows I’m Alan Partridge (starring Steve Coogan) and The Thick Of It, as well as fronting his own satirical shows The Friday Night Armistice.
Armando will be joining Miranda Sawyer to talk about his new film The Personal History of David Copperfield starring Dev Patel as well as how he uses music in his work.
Glen Campbell - Wichita Lineman [Capitol]
Christopher Willis - My Own Story (The Personal History Of David Copperfield)
Christopher Willis - End Titles (The Death Of Stalin)
Radiohead - You And Whose Army? [Parlophone]
Rick James - Super Freak [Motown]
Public Enemy - Fight The Power [Polygram TV]
Junior Sisk & Ramblers Choice - Train Without A Track
Kate Bush - Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God) [EMI]
Björk - The Gate [One Little Indian]
Sparks - The Number One Song In Heaven [Island]
Lou Reed - Walk On The Wild Side [Global Television]
Adem Ilhan - Avenue 5 Soundtrack
Bernard Herrmann - Prelude (Vertigo Theme)