That Mitchell and Webb Sound
Encyclopedia
That Mitchell and Webb Sound is a comedy sketch show
on BBC Radio 4
which started on 28 August 2003. A second series was broadcast in 2005 with a third starting on 24 May 2007. The series became adapted for television as That Mitchell and Webb Look
in 2006. The series is seen in some ways a follow-up to The Mitchell and Webb Situation
, a sketch show shown on Play UK
in 2001. That Mitchell and Webb Sound returned to BBC Radio 4
for a fourth series in 2009, the first episode broadcasting on 25 August 2009.
The series stars David Mitchell
and Robert Webb
who also write a fair amount of the material. Also performing in the show are James Bachman
and regular Mitchell and Webb collaborator Olivia Colman
.
Apart from Mitchell and Webb, a fair proportion of the sketches are written by the other cast members and other writers. These include Jesse Armstrong
and Sam Bain
(the writers of Peep Show
, in which Mitchell and Webb star), Mark Evans
, David Quantick
, Jonathan Dryden Taylor, Toby Davies, Simon Kane
and John Finnemore. It is produced by Gareth Edwards
.
Sketch comedy
A sketch comedy consists of a series of short comedy scenes or vignettes, called "sketches," commonly between one and ten minutes long. Such sketches are performed by a group of comic actors or comedians, either on stage or through an audio and/or visual medium such as broadcasting...
on BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...
which started on 28 August 2003. A second series was broadcast in 2005 with a third starting on 24 May 2007. The series became adapted for television as That Mitchell and Webb Look
That Mitchell and Webb Look
That Mitchell and Webb Look is a British television sketch show starring David Mitchell and Robert Webb. Shown on BBC Two since 2006, its first two series were directed by David Kerr, who also directed Mitchell and Webb's previous television sketch show The Mitchell and Webb Situation, whereas...
in 2006. The series is seen in some ways a follow-up to The Mitchell and Webb Situation
The Mitchell and Webb Situation
The Mitchell and Webb Situation was a British television sketch show shown on Play UK in 2001. Written by and starring David Mitchell and Robert Webb, it lasted for one series of six episodes and was released on region 2 DVD in 2006 by Eureka Video...
, a sketch show shown on Play UK
Play UK
Play UK was a television channel broadcasting in the United Kingdom as part of the UKTV network of channels. The channel was launched on 10 October 1998...
in 2001. That Mitchell and Webb Sound returned to BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...
for a fourth series in 2009, the first episode broadcasting on 25 August 2009.
The series stars David Mitchell
David Mitchell (actor)
David James Stuart Mitchell is a British actor, comedian and writer. He is half of the comedy duo Mitchell and Webb, alongside Robert Webb, whom he met at Cambridge University. There they were both part of the Cambridge Footlights, of which Mitchell became President. Together the duo star in the...
and Robert Webb
Robert Webb (actor)
Robert Webb is an English actor, comedian and writer, and one half of the double act Mitchell and Webb, alongside David Mitchell.-Early life:...
who also write a fair amount of the material. Also performing in the show are James Bachman
James Bachman
James Bachman is an English comedian, actor and writer.He has written for many U.K. radio and television programmes, including That Mitchell and Webb Look , That Mitchell and Webb Sound , Popetown , and Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway...
and regular Mitchell and Webb collaborator Olivia Colman
Olivia Colman
Olivia Colman is an English actress, best known for her supporting roles in various comedy shows, such as Sophie Chapman in Peep Show and Harriet Schulenburg in Green Wing. She trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, and has appeared in radio, television and theatre.-Personal life:Colman...
.
Apart from Mitchell and Webb, a fair proportion of the sketches are written by the other cast members and other writers. These include Jesse Armstrong
Jesse Armstrong
Jesse Armstrong is one of the co-creators of Channel 4's Peep Show, along with Sam Bain. He also co-wrote the BBC Four comedy The Thick of It and was one of the writers on series 1 and 2 of the BBC Radio 4 sketch show That Mitchell and Webb Sound and the BBC Two sketch show That Mitchell and Webb...
and Sam Bain
Sam Bain
Sam Bain is one of the co-creators of Channel 4's Peep Show, which won a BAFTA for best Situation Comedy in 2008. He was also one of the writers of two series of the BBC Radio 4 sketch show That Mitchell and Webb Sound and the BBC Two sketch show That Mitchell and Webb Look...
(the writers of Peep Show
Peep Show (TV series)
Peep Show is a British sitcom starring David Mitchell and Robert Webb. The television programme is written by Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain, with additional material by Mitchell and Webb themselves, amongst others. It has been broadcast on Channel 4 since 2003. The show's seventh series makes it...
, in which Mitchell and Webb star), Mark Evans
Mark Evans (comedian/writer)
Mark Evans is a Welsh comedian, actor, and writer.He has written for many U.K. radio and television programmes, including That Mitchell and Webb Look , The Late Edition , That Mitchell and Webb Sound , Popetown , and Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway...
, David Quantick
David Quantick
David Quantick is a freelance journalist, writer and critic who specialises in music and comedy.-Career history:...
, Jonathan Dryden Taylor, Toby Davies, Simon Kane
Simon Kane
Simon Kane born 9 October 1967 in Sydney Australia best known as a race driver, but now works as a sound technician in television. He started in Formula Ford in the late 1980's and proceeded to Formula Holden in 1989. In 1990 he won the Australian Drivers' Championship and CAMS Gold Star...
and John Finnemore. It is produced by Gareth Edwards
Gareth Edwards (producer)
Gareth Edwards is a radio and television producer and writer. He is the great-grandson of Hollywood pioneer Albert E. Smith, founder of Vitagraph Studios.TV and Radio Career...
.
Recurring sketches
The series has no fixed format but there are a number of recurring scenarios and sketch formats. Most of the recurring characters appear in the first two series.- Ted and Peter - a parody of television snookerSnookerSnooker is a cue sport that is played on a green baize-covered table with pockets in each of the four corners and in the middle of each of the long side cushions. A regular table is . It is played using a cue and snooker balls: one white , 15 worth one point each, and six balls of different :...
commentary. Ted and Peter (Mitchell and Webb respectively) are a pair of jaded ex-players, whose voiceover trails off from describing the game, revealing more than they should about their personal lives and the murky behind-the-scenes, hard-drinking, hard-fighting, dog-eat-dog world of the sport and its commentators.
- The Party Planners - Mitchell and Webb prepare a party guest list, and realise that one of the guests will bring along a famous literary or historical figure (though the duo are unaware of the guest's fame in the context of the sketches). An extra twist is that positive figures are usually described as party wreckers and infamous figures are celebrated. The arrival of James BondJames BondJames Bond, code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. There have been a six other authors who wrote authorised Bond novels or novelizations after Fleming's death in 1964: Kingsley Amis,...
is dreaded ("So I say, 'Do you want a glass of wine, James, or there's beer in the fridge?' Prat asks for a martini!") while Hitler is welcomed ("Oh, I do love it when he goes off on one"). Other guests have included June SarpongJune SarpongJune Sarpong MBE is an English television presenter of Ghanaian descent.-Education:Sarpong was born in London to Ghanaian parents. She was educated at Connaught Girls School in Leytonstone and Sir George Monoux College in Walthamstow....
, Dr Jekyll and the Mystery Inc. gang of Scooby Doo.
- Imagine That - A parody of intelligent panel shows. A set of intellectuals are asked to conceive of various bizarre ideas, such as "the biggest jacket potato they can think of." One episode was mistakenly called "Imagine Hat", due to "a printing error in the Radio TimesRadio TimesRadio Times is a UK weekly television and radio programme listings magazine, owned by the BBC. It has been published since 1923 by BBC Magazines, which also provides an on-line listings service under the same title...
". The panellists therefore had to imagine a hat. Mitchell's character, Professor David Trussell, is slightly deranged. This is the only recurring sketch to appear in all three series.
- Big Talk - Host Raymond Terrific (Webb) shouts at his panel of "boffins," demanding they solve the world's problems.
- Adrian Locket - Adrian (Mitchell) is a weary late-night local radio DJDisc jockeyA disc jockey, also known as DJ, is a person who selects and plays recorded music for an audience. Originally, "disc" referred to phonograph records, not the later Compact Discs. Today, the term includes all forms of music playback, no matter the medium.There are several types of disc jockeys...
who harbours no illusions about his audience. His life is about as lonely and dark as the hours he works.
- The Lazy Film Writers - A parody of various film genres. The writers are reluctant to carry out research for their next film, and consequently make films with generic storylines, oversimplified dialogue and glaring inaccuracies. Members of the crew on a spaceship are at one point warned that "breathing space is incredibly bad for you".
- The Surprising Adventures of Sir Digby Caesar-Salad - Characters in Series 1 and 3. Sir Digby (Webb) and his sidekick Ginger (Mitchell) believe that they are detectives in the style of Dick BartonDick BartonDick Barton - Special Agent was a popular radio programme on the BBC Light Programme. Between 1946 to 1951 it aired at 6.45 each weekday evening and at its peak it had an audience of 15 million listeners. Despite popular belief, it was not actually the BBC's first daily serial...
when in fact they are drunken tramps. They are so poor that they have to hum their own theme tune (Devil's Galop), which is usually sung as the intrepid duo are escaping from a crime scene, and regularly fight each other for loose change. They believe that plots are constantly being hatched against them by their "nemesis" described as "some bastard who is presumably responsible". Henchmen of their nemesis turn up in the shape of the police or whoever stumbles in front of them. When the series transferred to television, Sir Digby was renamed Sir Digby Chicken Caesar, and he kept this name for the third radio series. In series three, Sir Digby thought his nemesis had contaminated a water supply, which led him to investigate a brewery.
- Jason, the New Presenter - A recurring character in Series 1, played by Webb. Jason originally appeared in a fly-on-the-wall documentary where he almost killed himself, as a result of which, he became the star of the show. As a result, he now presents a wide range of make-over shows. Jason tends to be rather insensitive, and concerned only with himself and his fame. As a result, he tends to insult his guests.
- Little Date - A series of sketches in Series 3. Webb plays a man who has a different job in every sketch, who encounters a woman (Colman) whom he verbally attacks, mocks and ridicules until she cries. When the woman is as crying, Webb then asks her out on a "little date," to which the woman always agrees, in the hope of feeling better.
- Stargate - A series of sketches in Series 4. Mitchell plays the manager of Brown's Orthopaedic Supplies, an office that just happens to have a StargateStargate (device)A Stargate is a portal device within the Stargate fictional universe that allows practical, rapid travel between two distant locations. The devices first appear in the 1994 Roland Emmerich film Stargate, and thereafter in the television series Stargate SG-1 and its spin-offs...
among its office equipment which the staff keep abusing.
- The Old Lady Job Justification Hearings - A series of sketches in Series 4. Set about 30 years into the future, these are recordings of meetings between people who have different jobs (such as cosmetic surgeon, wedding planner or comedy double-act) trying to justify what they do is a "proper" job (like a doctor, fireman or someone who runs a little shop) to a group of old women.
- Christopher Hitchens Hour - A series of sketches in Series 4 which satirised Christopher HitchensChristopher HitchensChristopher Eric Hitchens is an Anglo-American author and journalist whose books, essays, and journalistic career span more than four decades. He has been a columnist and literary critic at The Atlantic, Vanity Fair, Slate, World Affairs, The Nation, Free Inquiry, and became a media fellow at the...
by giving him his own television show on the children's TV network CbeebiesCBeebiesCBeebies is the brand used by the BBC for programming aimed at children 6 years and under. It is used as a themed strand in the UK on terrestrial television, as a separate free-to-air domestic British channel and used for international varients supported by advertising, subscription or both...
.
External links
- That Mitchell and Webb Sound at BBC Radio 4BBC Radio 4BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...