Click me, then read on...
Hullo, there. Remember us?
[WAITS AS LONG AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE, THEN CONTINUES REGARDLESS.]
We used to offer a variety of
comedy podcasts on a regular basis up until 2013 and then stopped all of a
sudden, only for almost everyone else in the world to wise up to the podcasting
wheeze while our backs were turned. But
were we ever actually away? Well, no, not
really. Having said that, there may be one or two million of you out there who
are still totally unaware of what has been going on since then, so grab a cup of
Twitley Tea (...bags...make tea...bags...) and allow us to fill you in on the lurid details.
After publishing the second series of the
John Dredge Nothing to Do with Anything Show in 2013, we were approached by the
British
Comedy Guide with an offer to syndicate the show and reach a wider audience
than the 404 Funny feed could ever reasonably offer. (This has since proven itself several thousand times
over.) While recording the third series
(yes, there was a third series), we decided to offer it to them on an initial exclusive
basis, with a view to making it available on the
404 Funny feed a few months down the line. We subsequently forgot about that last bit – but with good reason.
Published in 2014, Series 3 was a bit of a game-changer, in
that it finally got us noticed. So much
so, in fact, that John was called in to see the comedy controllers at Radio 4,
who said they really liked what he did…before asking him whether he’d ever thought
of writing for Newsjack. We were approached
by a well-known TV production company that floated the concept of animating some
sketches from the series…before telling us to go off and do a couple of series
on radio first, which, in all fairness, we'd been trying to do since the Dark Ages (Newsjack was implied
but not directly mentioned). We were then approached by another production company who gave us a working title and asked us to write a treatment that turned out to be a completely different idea to the one they actually wanted. (Newsjack didn’t come up in conversation but did appear written in red
crayon on the back of John's bedroom door one morning, which was a little bit weird.)
We then wrote a few things for Newsjack on a sporadic basis
but none of them made it to air. But it
wasn’t all Newsjack. Oh, no.
We had already produced an insert for the pilot edition of
Lewis Macleod’s Wired News on BBC Radio Scotland the previous October, and when
we were approached to contribute to a further one-off edition timed to coincide
with the 2014 Commonwealth Games we jumped at the chance. In fact, we jumped so
high we set a new world record. This was
followed by further writing duties on a full series of four episodes, aired in
January 2016, to fill the gap vacated by Breaking the News, which was taking a
short winter break. Despite only being
available for a limited period on the iPlayer Radio (as was), we were told
it was one of the top-rated programmes across the whole of the BBC Radio network
on that platform during its run. Sadly,
this was not a good enough reason for the show to be recommissioned by BBC
Radio Scotland, who decided that there was simply not enough room for two
topical comedy shows on the station, even if one was effectively standing in
for the other. Lewis can now, of course, be heard on Radio 4’s Dead Ringers – and has also been heard on Breaking the
News. (And a lot more Newsjack too, as
it happens.) We here at 404 Funny particularly
enjoyed his turn as Stanley Kubrick on Toast of London.
In between all this wiring of the news agenda, there was a
Series 4 of the
Nothing to Do with Anything Show (yes, there was a fourth
series we didn’t tell you about as well), which the British Comedy Guide
unleashed on a largely unsuspecting and somewhat unprepared public in the
summer of 2015. We completely neglected
to upload this series to the 404 Funny feed as well, although we were
approached by several other online entities to syndicate all four series.
In addition, hour-long versions with music selections were
made available as radio programmes, first to
Resonance FM, who humbled us no end by including the
show in a list of the ten best programmes aired during its first decade, and later to other broadcasters including
Soundart in Totnes,
Miskin Radio in Dartford
and several other smaller online stations.
They remain available on Mixcloud.
However, despite Series 4 being a massive step up from the
previous three series and receiving much praise from the show’s loyal followers
(many of whom thankfully continue to elude the authorities), offers of work similar to
those received in the aftermath of the previous series failed to materialize
and we went away to scratch our collective heads.
SO WHAT THE HECK HAS JOHN DREDGE BEEN DOING SINCE THEN?
Loads, if we’re honest.
...or nearest offer
For a kick-off, there’s
DredgeLand, his comedy double act with
Andy Harland. Together they presented a live and largely incoherent radio show
on Riverside Radio (formerly Wandsworth Radio) for over three years, all of which
are collected at
http://dredgeland.com. They’ve
also appeared at the Brighton and Camden Fringes, and have just participated in
their second Southampton Superpod, raising money for Sport Relief.
Close friends get to call him JD, providing it's with dignity
Andy also plays drums in John’s latest music project,
John
Dredge and the Plinths, alongside guitarist MJ Hibbett and mystery man Bob
Burgons on bass. They’ve picked up much press and radio play for their two EPs (
Emergency
and
Plinthsmania) and single (
Pancake Day), as well as an obligatory festive compilation offering (
Christmas
Time Is Here), all of which can be downloaded from reputable sites including
iTunes and Amazon, as well as directly from the band at
http://johndredgetheplinths.bandcamp.com.
And to think it all started with a wrong number
John also contributed a distinctive cover version of
The Day
We Fall in Love to the Monkees tribute CD
Listen to the Bands – one of several
collaborations with award-winning broadcaster
Iain Lee, which have also included
a short film entitled
Car Trouble and an appearance at Iain’s live
Performance
Ring event, where he pushed a wheelbarrow across a stage for ten minutes. (This
experiment has not been repeated.) John continues to call up Iain’s
Late-Night
Alternative show on Talkradio on a regular basis and also contributed the preface to
Here’s the Thing…, a book of transcripts from the show’s first few
years. You can catch up with Iain here:
https://play.acast.com/s/latenightswithiainlee
Shirley Bassey theme tune not included
And, as if all that’s not enough to keep one man busy, John
has recently joined Rebecca Diez and Paul Creasy to form comedy sketch group The
Three People, making regular appearances at Sketch Off, Tryouts for the Human
Race and Do the Right Scene, as well as part of the Hoopla Theatre collective. Their next live appearance is on April 13th, 2020 at The Aeronaut in Acton.
AND WHAT IN THE NAME OF ERIC CLAPTON HAVE YOU BEEN DOING WITH YOURSELF IN THIS TIME,
DICK?
Comparatively very little, thanks for asking.
WHAT ABOUT EVERYONE ELSE ON 404 FUNNY? WHAT ARE THEY UP TO, EH? NO GOOD, I’LL BET.
Actually, you’ll be pleased to know that several of our contributors have enjoyed - and are enjoying - much success. (Subtitle: Curate a podcast channel and, who knows, within a decade you too could be a small rung on the ladder.) But in all seriousness, though, some of their achievements are mighty impressive.
Jake Yapp’s been all over the place.
His 2015 Camden Fringe show
One-derland, a
satirical and musical examination of a day in the life of BBC One, was followed
the next year by a return to the Edinburgh Fringe with his stand-up debut
One
in a Million.
His knack for summarizing
virtually anything into four minutes or less led to appearances on shows as
varied as
Charlie Brooker's Weekly Wipe,
Newsnight and
Brexitcast. He hosted the Sunday breakfast show on Talkradio
for just over a year and narrated the somewhat post-modern comedy clip show
The
Hurting for Dave. 2018 saw his acclaimed four-part satirical series
Jake Yapp’s
Media Circus interrupt regular programming on Radio 4, where he can still be heard occasionally contributing to
The Now Show. In addition, he regularly hosts Radio 4 Extra’s nightly
Comedy Club
strand. He still has time to fit in podcasts too, having
co-hosted the frankly filthy
Old Sex Podcast (with Lizzie Roper and Robin
Morgan) in 2018, and is currently boldly pushing out two podcasts a day:
Not Today, Thank You (an antidote to Radio Four’s
Today programme) and
Date Fight! (with
Natt Tapley).
Now firmly resident in the UK,
Will Franken regularly performs his
unique and visionary brand of absurdism at free-thinking clubs up and down the country, most notably at
Comedy Unleashed at the Backyard
Comedy Club in Bethnal Green.
He writes
opinion pieces for a variety of publications and occasionally gets invited to
appear on TV and radio to comment on current affairs - or just to spike the next day’s newspapers.
His acclaimed documentary film, a labour of love on the mythology of William Blake entitled
Red, White and Blake is available on Amazon Prime, and comes highly recommended by both us and the Blake Society.
Taylor Glenn has written for television and film, with a movie
screenplay currently in pre-production. She has continued to issue podcasts, including
the intriguingly-titled
Drunk Women Solving Crime (with Hannah George and Catie
Wilkins).
After a couple of years of regular gigging as a stand-up,
Doctor
Answers’
James Shakeshaft has returned to podcasting, co-hosting
The Loremen Podcast with Alasdair Beckett-King, which is now on its third series.
Simulacrum host
Chris Skinner is the producer of
the Bugle
and
Richie Firth: Travel Hacker podcasts, plus the odd radio show. Injury seems to have curtailed a promising
side career as a triathlete, though.
Maggie Gordon-Walker founded
Mothers Uncovered, a creative
support network for mothers, and co-edited a book,
The Secret Life of Mothers. Her 404 Funny character Mary Christmas still regularly stalks
the internet's darkest crannies, so consider yourselves forewarned.
Pegabovine’s Tom Wateracre continues to write for the stage
and drops the occasional song. (That’s “drops” as in the youth vernacular.)
After a brief period acting and manhandling firearms in
Strike Back, Blue Pepper’s Liam J Stratton became Head Writer on the SABC soap Isidingo. He then returned to Blighty to script edit Casualty
and Doctors for the BBC, before taking up his current role as a Senior
Script Editor at Lime Pictures, makers of Hollyoaks. (NOTE TO SELF: Dust off that fringe musical /
Muppet hybrid Rock Fozzies for future pitch asap.)
The other 50% of Blue Pepper, Miles Eady, has a proper job
but still lends his voice to the occasional audio project. Speaking of which…
GET TO THE BLOODY POINT!
After an abandoned Christmas Special in 2016, and two false
starts in the summers of 2017 and 2018, we are pleased to announce that
Series
5 of the
John Dredge Nothing to Do with Anything Show will be made available
via the
British Comedy Guide from
March 24th, 2020. If you don’t believe us, here’s Joseph
Champniss’ lovely artwork.
It's a-happenin'!
Appearing alongside John and I are regular cohorts Greg
Haiste (who, since the previous series, has appeared on stage in The 39 Steps,
Nell Gwynn and Quiz, and has just joined the RSC for its forthcoming production
of The Comedy of Errors), actor / comedian / impressionist Max Dowler (Line of
Duty, Alan Rickman Karaoke, Parris & Dowler) and actress Katy Slater (The
Milligan Papers, Dick Pickering's Cookery Show), plus the aforementioned James
Shakeshaft and Miles Eady. They are
joined by newbie Paul Creasy from John’s sketch trio The Three People. We thank them
for their time and effort, and wish them all a speedy recovery.
In case you’ve forgotten what to expect since your ears were
last assaulted, we’ve assembled a handy compilation of some of the best bits
from the first four series to whet your appetite, available exclusively on the
404 Funny feed. Either
download direct
or use the podcatcher of your choice.
(NOTE: Recently, we’ve observed that our feed – and that of
many other content providers, both featured and lesser-known – can become dormant on iTunes / Apple Podcasts, even if you’re still an active subscriber
and are regularly refreshing the feed. Having failed to get any sort of a
coherent answer from Apple ourselves as both providers and end users, our only
suggestion if this should happen to you is to delete our shows, unsubscribe,
then re-subscribe and download individual episodes / shows to your liking. Yes, we know we would suggest this because it
adds extra downloads to our stats – which are, of course, always handy – but it
seems to be the only efficient solution to this recurring problem, sadly.)
By way of a profuse apology for having kept you waiting for
nearly five years, we’re also in the process of editing a couple of “added-value”
shows, which we hope to make available on the 404 Funny feed after the final
episode of the series has premiered. One
is a writers’ commentary that may or may not answer your most burning questions
about the series; the other is a Making Of video, which will probably ruin all
your preconceptions about how professional our recording sessions are. They’re
both shaping up to be a hoot.
In addition, all four previous series of the
Nothing to Do
with Anything Show remain available to stream and download in full via the
British Comedy Guide, although the original 2011 Christmas pilot can only be
found on the
404 Funny feed at present. And it’s a very fine place to start.
We also hope to have transmission dates for five 60-minute
re-edited versions of this fifth series on Resonance FM very, very soon. Watch this space for further updates.
So, to recap, your tasks for the next couple of weeks,
should you wish to accept them, are:
3) Go bat-shit-ding-dong with anticipation.
4) Listen to the new series from March 24th.
5) Keep ‘em peeled here for updates and more information
about our end-of-series specials. (NOTE: Rewrite this bit later and make it
sound less like a DFS commercial.)
And thanks for still being there for us after all these
years. We hope the new series proves
worth the wait.
Yours,
Dick 'n' John
They live.
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