Cabin Pressure. Image shows from L to R: Arthur (John Finnemore), Douglas (Roger Allam), Carolyn (Stephanie Cole), Martin (Benedict Cumberbatch). Copyright: Pozzitive Productions
Cabin Pressure

Cabin Pressure

  • Radio sitcom
  • BBC Radio 4
  • 2008 - 2014
  • 27 episodes (4 series)

Radio sitcom based around a one-plane charter airline. No job is too small, but many jobs are too difficult for pilots Douglas and Martin. Stars Benedict Cumberbatch, Roger Allam, Stephanie Cole, John Finnemore and Anthony Head

Episode menu

Series 1, Episode 1 - Abu Dhabi

The town of Bristol, a cat and a thermostat combine to present Martin with a career-breaking crisis. A flight to the Middle East is complicated by Carolyn's new economy drive; Martin's insistence that Douglas call him 'Sir'; and Arthur's refusal to believe that anyone actually knows how a plane stays in the air.

Notes

Trivia from John Finnemore's blog

Broadcast details

Date
Wednesday 2nd July 2008
Time
11:30am
Channel
BBC Radio 4
Length
30 minutes

Repeats

Show past repeats

Date Time Channel
Tuesday 24th February 2009 6:30pm Radio 4
Friday 1st January 2010 5:30pm Radio 7
Sunday 3rd January 2010 3:30pm Radio 7
Thursday 27th January 2011 5:00pm Radio 7
Wednesday 28th December 2011 9:00am Radio 4 Extra
Thursday 29th December 2011 2:00am Radio 4 Extra
Monday 12th August 2013 9:30am Radio 4 Extra
Tuesday 13th August 2013 2:30am Radio 4 Extra
Thursday 8th January 2015 11:30pm Radio 4 Extra
Sunday 25th December 2016 11:00pm Radio 4 Extra
Sunday 17th May 2020 7:15pm Radio 4
Friday 22nd May 2020 7:30am Radio 4 Extra
Friday 22nd May 2020 5:30pm Radio 4 Extra
Friday 22nd May 2020 10:00pm Radio 4 Extra
Saturday 23rd May 2020 5:30am Radio 4 Extra
Tuesday 11th October 2022 10:30pm Radio 4 Extra
Saturday 15th October 2022 3:30pm Radio 4 Extra
Sunday 16th October 2022 3:30am Radio 4 Extra

Cast & crew

Cast
Benedict Cumberbatch Martin
Roger Allam Douglas
Stephanie Cole Carolyn
John Finnemore Arthur
Guest cast
Ewen MacIntosh Air Traffic Controller
Writing team
John Finnemore Writer
Production team
David Tyler Producer

Press

Well-defined characters, strong casting and great writing do a good sitcom make. Sounds easy, but few get it right. I am, therefore, delighted to announce that this new series is so funny that I listened to it three times in a row, laughing more loudly each time at the lines I now knew were coming.

It's set in a small airline company staffed by two pilots and run by a forbidding 60-something woman who, one of her staff suggests, sharpens rather than brushes her teeth in the morning. Roger Allam's character is on a par with Basil Fawlty as the embittered pilot on his way down.

Jane Anderson, Radio Times, 2nd July 2008

John Finnemore's new situation comedy has the benefit of a superb cast. Roger Allam, Stephanie Cole and Benedict Cumberbatch give their all to this story of a small charter airline whose single plane is flown by one blasé old know-it-all (Allam) and one fiercely competitive young thruster (Cumberbatch). The whole shebang is owned by a fearsome divorcée (Cole) who has come by the plane in a divorce settlement. Her other inheritance is a dim son (played by the author) whose meek optimism is amply reflected in the laughter from the studio audience.

Gillian Reynolds, The Telegraph, 2nd July 2008

The fear and joys of flying have been a comedy staple for decades, and every joke it is possible to make has probably been made. The challenge is to tell the old jokes in a new way. So step forward, experienced wordsmith (Dead Ringers, That Mitchell and Webb Sound) John Finnemore, with this new six-part sitcom about a one-plane outfit run by an autocratic divorcée (Stephanie Cole, doing her usual posh bully bit).

Her aircraft has two pilots, one a jaded cynic with a dodgy past who can, though, actually fly (played to worldweary perfection by Roger Allam) and one who seemed to have got his wings through a correspondence college (Benedict Cumberbatch, showing he can do situation comedy as well as he does everything else in the thesp game).

Chuck in Finnemore himself as Cole's keen but dim son-of-all work, plus an unusually high level of well-researched technical information about flying, and you have a half-hour that flies by (fnaarg fnaarg).

Chris Campling, The Times, 2nd July 2008

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