The Burkiss Way
| Genre | Sketch comedy |
|---|---|
| Running time | 30 minutes |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language(s) | English |
| Home station | BBC Radio 4 |
| Syndicates | BBC Radio 7 |
| Starring |
Denise Coffey (series 1) Jo Kendall (series 2–6) Chris Emmett Nigel Rees Fred Harris |
| Written by |
Andrew Marshall David Renwick |
| Produced by |
Simon Brett (series 1–2) John Lloyd (series 3–4) David Hatch (series 5–6) |
| Recording studio | BBC Paris Studio, Lower Regent Street, London |
| Original release | 27 August 1976 – 15 November 1980 |
| No. of series | 6 |
| No. of episodes | 47 |
| Audio format |
mono stereo (from Lesson 28) |
| Website | http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00c8x5n |
The Burkiss Way is a BBC Radio 4 sketch comedy series, originally broadcast between August 1976 and November 1980. It was written by Andrew Marshall and David Renwick, with additional material in early episodes by John Mason, , Douglas Adams, John Lloyd and others. The show starred Denise Coffey (series 1), Jo Kendall (series 2 onward), Chris Emmett, Nigel Rees and Fred Harris. The series had three producers, announced as "Simon Brett of Stepney", "John Lloyd of Europe", and "David 'Hatch of the BBC' Hatch".
The show's humour was based on surrealism and literary and media parodies, sprinkled with puns.
The series had its roots in two half-hour sketch shows entitled Half-Open University which Marshall and Renwick had written with Mason for Radio 3 as a parody of Open University programmes. The first, broadcast on 25 August 1975, spoofed science, the second, on 1 December 1975, history.
In a similar vein, The Burkiss Way was styled around fictional correspondence courses by "Professor Emil Burkiss" entitled The Burkiss Way to Dynamic Living, and each episode or "lesson" had a number and a title based on one of the course's subjects: "Lesson 1: Peel Bananas the Burkiss Way", "Lesson 2: Pass Examinations the Burkiss Way", and so on. Although the numbers and titles were maintained throughout the run, a significant change of style early in the second series saw the radio correspondence course become a hook rather than a narrative device, and it was mentioned only in passing.
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