Rum Bunch preview

Rum Bunch is an unashamedly old-fashioned slice of gang-show radio comedy.

How the sitcom nailed British aspirations

Nowhere is Jonathan Freedland's observation that "TV comedy has an uncanny knack for capturing the spirit of its age" more pertinent than in comedy's attitudes to social aspiration.

The Penny Dreadfuls: Macbeth is a load of rubbish

David Reed from the troupe explains how The Scottish Play doesn't tell the full story and how his Radio 4 version is closer to the truth.

10 Edinburgh questions - David Reed

You may know him from The Penny Dreadfuls, you may know him from BBC1 improv show Fast and Loose. At least for the next 30 days, you must know him as character comedian David Reed.

This is a special hour-long comedy drama about the French Revolution, written by and featuring the usually Victorian-based sketch troupe consisting of David Reed, Thom Tuck and Humphrey Ker.

However they were not the main stars of this special. These were Richard E. Grant playing the role of Robespierre, leader of the Terror; and Sally Hawkins as Marie-Therese, daughter of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. The main story is an imagining of a conversation between the two that was never recorded.

The programme tells the story of the Revolution in a humorous way, although the history is very much a back drop to jokes and characters best described as daft. For example, Marie-Therese complains about the book she has been given to read while she has been in prison - an atlas so out of date that it does not include Spain. Also there are sketches featuring peasants having stone soup, because eating shoes is a luxury.

However, out of all the characters that appeared in the programme, my personal favourite was Marie-Therese's brother Louis-Charles (aka Louis XVII) who was portrayed as being rather dim and naïve. For example, he gets too excited about helping France's poor so he wants to donate all of his toys. In the end he gets a job making shoes, but gets beaten up by his master for making shoes which are too decedent.

There are other nice moments, like how the French revolutionary calendar would result in problems for Father Christmas; and also some nice quotes such as Robespierre's remark that: "You can't make a crème brûlée without burning some sugar."

It was an entertaining hour, although I would recommend that if you're looking for a comedy show which is more educational in its dealing of the French revolution, you may want to look at Mark Steel's Viva la Revolution.

An interview with David Reed

David Reed is a comedian, writer, and performer who is one third of The Penny Dreadfuls, a Victorian-era-based sketch comedy troupe who specialise in nonsensical tomfoolery.

The Penny Dreadfuls Present... Guy Fawkes (Radio 4, Thursday) is the sort of piece only a generation who understands little of war and persecution could produce. David Reed, Humphrey Ker and Thom Tuck, The Penny Dreadfuls themselves, wrote and acted it. They made the past into a comedy with an occasionally serious slant across a generally childlike address to bone crushing, the rack, the gallows and men in black hats with silly beards. The audience at the recording roared with laughter throughout. When you're too young to know about England's religious wars you think nothing about putting a Guy onto the bonfire. When you're old enough to play at being childish, hanging, drawing and quartering is surely no longer a joke.