The News at Bedtime is a satirical

Satire

Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...

 comedy series 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...

 written by Ian Hislop

Ian Hislop

Ian David Hislop is a British journalist, satirist, comedian, writer, broadcaster and editor of the satirical magazine Private Eye...

 and Nick Newman

Nick Newman

Nick Newman is a satirical British cartoonist and comedy scriptwriter.The son of an RAF officer, Newman was born in Kuala Lumpur and schooled at Ardingly College where his satirical career began, working on revues with Ian Hislop...

, writers of the satirical Private Eye

Private Eye

Private Eye is a fortnightly British satirical and current affairs magazine, edited by Ian Hislop.Since its first publication in 1961, Private Eye has been a prominent critic and lampooner of public figures and entities that it deemed guilty of any of the sins of incompetence, inefficiency,...

magazine. The series is a spoof of news programmes, in particular shows such as The Today Programme, set in "Nurseryland", a place in which all nursery rhyme

Nursery rhyme

The term nursery rhyme is used for "traditional" poems for young children in Britain and many other countries, but usage only dates from the 19th century and in North America the older ‘Mother Goose Rhymes’ is still often used.-Lullabies:...

s and children's stories are real. The News at Bedtime stars Jack Dee

Jack Dee

James Andrew Innes "Jack" Dee is an English stand-up comedian, actor and writer known for his sardonic, curmudgeonly, and deadpan style.-Early life:...

 and Peter Capaldi

Peter Capaldi

Peter Dougan Capaldi is an Academy Award and BAFTA award winning Scottish actor and film director. In 1995, his short film Franz Kafka's It's a Wonderful Life won the Academy Award for Live Action Short Film...

 as the main newsreaders, John Tweedledum and Jim Tweedledee

Tweedledum and Tweedledee

Tweedledum and Tweedledee are fictional characters in an English language nursery rhyme and in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There. Their names may have originally come from an epigram written by poet John Byrom. The nursery rhyme has a Roud Folk Song Index number...

. The series was broadcast over the Christmas

Christmas

Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...

 period in 2009, from Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve refers to the evening or entire day preceding Christmas Day, a widely celebrated festival commemorating the birth of Jesus of Nazareth that takes place on December 25...

 2009 to New Year's Day

New Year's Day

New Year's Day is observed on January 1, the first day of the year on the modern Gregorian calendar as well as the Julian calendar used in ancient Rome...

 2010.

Plot

The News at Bedtime is a news programme broadcast from the magical world of Nurseryland, in which nursery rhymes and children's stories are real. The main news readers are John Tweedledum and Jim Tweedledee, who both make it clear that they dislike each other. Tweedledum sees himself as more professional, compared to Tweedledee who likes celebrity culture. Whenever Tweedledum gets annoyed by Tweedledee, he hits him with a toy rattle

Rattle (percussion)

A rattle is a percussion instrument. It consists of a hollow body filled with small uniform solid objects, like sand or nuts. Rhythmical shaking of this instrument produces repetitive, rather dry timbre noises. In some kinds of music, a rattle assumes the role of the metronome, as an alternative to...

. The other main contributors to the programme are Mary Mary, the Contrary Correspondent

Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary

"Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary" is a popular English nursery rhyme. The rhyme has been seen as having religious and historical significance, but its origins and meaning are disputed...

 who reports live from news stories; Peter Rabbi

Peter Rabbit

Peter Rabbit is a fictional anthropomorphic character in various children's stories by Beatrix Potter. He first appeared in The Tale of Peter Rabbit in 1902, and subsequently in five more books between 1904 and 1912. Spinoff merchandise includes dishes, wallpaper, and dolls...

 who presents the Thought for the Day

Thought for the Day

Thought for the Day is a daily scripted slot on the Today programme on BBC Radio 4 offering "reflections from a faith perspective on issues and people in the news", broadcast at around 7.45 each Monday to Saturday morning...

religious slot; and weather reporter Dilly Dilly

Lavender Blue

"Lavender Blue," also called "Lavender's Blue," is an English folk song and nursery rhyme dating to the seventeenth century, which has been recorded in various forms since the twentieth century. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 3483...

.

Production

The News at Bedtime is written by the editor of Private Eye and his close friend and sometime Privaye Eye contributor Nick Newman, and was inspired by a column they had written for the magazine. Newman said of the writing process that when writing for Private Eye, they find a news story and then a nursery rhyme to fit it. However, for the radio series the process was reversed, "because it's timeless, rather than topical (though there is an element of topicality about it)."

Newman also said: "It's such a mad word, nursery rhymes, when you think about it logically. There's actually quite an interesting story behind some of them. Like Humpty Dumpty - we all think it's about an egg falling off a wall. But really, Humpty Dumpty was a cannon in the English Civil War that one of the sides managed to blow up, and it fell down. So all the King's horses and all the King's men couldn't put Humpty together again - that's the origins of it. Some of these stories are true, and real news events. Part of the oral tradition of news!"

Reception

The show has been received well by critics. Tom Cole in the Radio Times

Radio Times

Radio 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...

wrote: "The News At Bedtime is an almost hypnologic take on the conventions of a modern radio news programme, which presents streams of dreamlike absurdity with a staunchly straight face. While the content is a little silly at times, comedy fans and news junkies will still find plenty to enjoy."

Jane Thynne said in The Independent

The Independent

The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...

: "you wouldn't need to be a Today aficionado to find this series a delight... All of it was pitch perfect, totally inventive and very funny."

Episodes

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