This won't mean much to people living outside of the UK, but the BBC have just announced that in a money-saving exercise they have decided to close Radio 4Extra. It mostly broadcasts archived repeats of comedy, drama and documentary programmes, and is the sister station of Radio 4, while it is also the principal broadcaster of the BBC's spoken-word archive. I must admit that I don't listen to it that much, but it was nice to know that it was there to dip into if I couldn't find any comedy to listen to on Radio 4, and as an example of the kind of programmes that you could find there, last week's schedule included episodes of 'The Goon Show' from 1954, 'Whacko!' with Jimmy Edwards, 'The Clitheroe Kid, and 'The Eric Morcambe and Ernie Wise Show' from the 1960's, 'The Inexplicable World of Lionel Nimrod' from 1992, which was an early outing from Stewart Lee and Richard Herring, and various panel shows and sitcoms from the 1980's. Tucked away in there was a programme that I fondly remembered from 2001, and this was 'Brian Appleton's History Of Rock 'n' Roll', which was a series of rock music lectures by the musicologist and part-time media studies tutor, Brian Appleton, written by and starring Graham Fellows.
If you're really into your music-based comedy, then you'll recognise that name as being the person behind the hit single 'Jilted John' in 1978, and then latterly the character John Shuttleworth, who has had his own Radio 4 comedy show since 1992. In the late 1990's, with John Shuttleworth's popularity still growing, Fellows decided to create a new character; Birmingham-born multi-media lecturer and embittered rock performer, Brian Appleton. In preparation, he began studying rock 'n' roll history books, and soon saw the dramatic possibilities of weaving Brian's own fictional history into the true life stories of famous rock musicians. 'Brian Appleton's History Of Rock 'n' Roll' made its debut at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival of 1999, and over the next decade led to three more UK tours, two Radio 4 series and a Christmas special. Despite full houses and encouraging press reviews, however, comparisons were inevitably made between the life affirming, fully rounded character of John Shuttleworth and Brian Appleton's bitter demeanour and less developed persona, and so Brian Appleton never reached the dizzy heights Fellows had hoped for, and the sheer time and effort involved in researching his shows made him decide to bring the experiment to an end. Having listened to a couple of the episodes and really enjoyed them, I sought out the whole of the two series so that I can share them here for any other aficionados of Fellows' work, or just for fans of a well-made spoof musical documentary.
Track listing
01 Eight Miles Low
02 Consider Yourself Dumped Upon
03 Come Up And See Me
04 Kajaboohoo
05 My Turn To Be Poorly
06 A Lot Of Knowledge
07 Christmas Single
08 From Cliff To Dale
09 Elvis Lives
10 Let's Look At Sound
11 Now Let's Listen To Light
12 King Steve
13 It's Not What You Know, It's The Who
