Radio Active (radio series)
| Genre | Sketch show |
|---|---|
| Running time | 30 minutes |
| Home station | BBC Radio 4 |
| TV adaptations | KYTV |
| Starring |
Angus Deayton Geoffrey Perkins Michael Fenton Stevens Helen Atkinson-Wood Philip Pope |
| Written by |
Angus Deayton Geoffrey Perkins Richard Curtis (first series only) |
| Produced by |
Jimmy Mulville David Tyler |
| Original release | 8 April 1980 – 17 October 1987 |
| No. of series | 7 |
| No. of episodes | 53 |
Radio Active was a radio comedy programme, broadcast on BBC Radio 4 during the 1980s. The series grew out of a 1979 Edinburgh Festival Fringe show presented by The Oxford Revue and starred Angus Deayton, Geoffrey Perkins, Michael Fenton Stevens, Helen Atkinson-Wood and Philip Pope. The first episode was broadcast in 1980, and it ran for seven series.
The show was based on a fictional radio station (described as "Britain's first national local radio station") and the programmes that it might transmit. Initially the radio station concept was used simply as a loose framing device for otherwise unlinked sketches and songs, but as the show developed, the episodes became more thematically focused, each one lampooning a different broadcasting genre and sometimes even a specific programme such as Down Your Way (parodied as "Round Your Parts"), In at the Deep End ("Out of Your Depth"), Ultra Quiz ("Gigantaquiz"), The Radio Programme ("The Radio Radio Programme") and Crimewatch ("Stop That Crime UK").
The programmes often pitch the "modern-media" regular characters against older stereotypes of foreigners and "establishment types" such as generals and politicians, though the programme rarely strays into the "alternative comedy" vogue of contemporary political comment. However some episodes in the final series made reference to real-life events: "Probe Round the Back" was a parody of investigative journalism which revolved around the Cambridge Five and contained allusions to Spycatcher and the Zircon affair, and "The Flu Special" satirised the then-current HIV/AIDS public awareness campaigns.
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