British Comedy Guide
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7 Day Saturday. Al Murray. Copyright: Avalon Television
7 Day Saturday

7 Day Saturday

  • Radio panel show
  • BBC Radio 5 Live
  • 2010 - 2015
  • 99 episodes (7 series)

Topical radio comedy show on 5 Live discussing the past week in news events, hosted by Al Murray. Also features Chris Addison, Andy Zaltzman, Rebecca Front and Sarah Millican.

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Episode menu

Series 1, Episode 2

Chris Addison, Andy Zaltzman, Sarah Millican and Rob Rouse are in the studio in the week that Google left China and Lynsey Hipgrave's traffic & travel reports during the show were dominated by an escaped wallaby on the M55.

Broadcast details

Date
Sunday 17th January 2010
Time
11am
Channel
BBC Radio 5 Live
Length
60 minutes

Cast & crew

Cast
Chris Addison Host / Presenter
Andy Zaltzman Regular Panellist
Sarah Millican Regular Panellist
Guest cast
Rob Rouse Guest

Press

Chris Campling doesn't like 7 Day Sunday

The departure of the dismal, desperate The Christian O'Connell Solution (so good when he was running Fighting Talk; so bad when trying to raise a laugh about the week's news) on Radio 5 Live gave space to Chris Addison and 7 Day Sunday (11am). Things did not start well the first week, what with Kate Silverton, whose rather excellent news and politics-based programme precedes it, announcing it as The Christian O'Connell Solution, doubtless leading millions of potential listeners to switch off.

Then the programme came, and it seemed as though some genius had decided that the best way to better the Solution was to duplicate it. Addison and his primary guests, fellow comedians Sarah Millican and Andy Zaltzman, adopted a turgid pattern of one of them - usually Addison - talking and the others laughing. Always beware the comedy show in which the participants laugh; they're usually doing it so the listener doesn't have to.

But the diligent listener persevered - Addison is a funny man, Millican is a funny woman, and Zaltzman loves cricket, so one is predisposed to forgive him for being apparently unable to be funny on the hoof rather than off a prepared script. But episode two was just as dreary. The biggest laughs, in one quarter at least, came for the story about a hippo that floated out of a zoo during heavy rains. But there's no chemistry on display here, none of The News Quiz-esque scoring of laughter points, where clever people fall over each other in their desperation to be funnier than the last. I'd give it one more week and then find something else to do for an hour on Sunday morning. Go to church, maybe.

Chris Campling, The Times, 22nd January 2010

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