Laura Solon: Talking And Not Talking

Review: Laura Solon: Talking And Not Talking - Series 3, Episode 2

Last week Radio 4 only went and put on the latest series of Laura Solon - Talking and Not Talking on Wednesday (6.30pm). Contrast and compare? OK, then. Where Jo Caulfield and her writers - ten of them, including the star herself - do that horrible thing of telegraphing a joke so far ahead than any mirth is drained from the punch line by the time it arrives, Solon and her posse (six writers, again including the star) kept things fresh. If a situation didn't deserve a full sketch, it got a one-liner ("My mother's a cat person - she sits in front of the fire looking grumpy and washing her bum"). Favourite characters from previous series returned, such as the desperate woman who got divorced what must be ages ago now and is still "really, really fine about it", and spends her sad days thinking up pathetic ways to make money (jewellery made from human skin, for instance). And there are some new ones sure to become favourites: the 19th-century spinsters time-travelling in search of someone to marry; the deposed Eastern European tyrant who moves into English suburbia with her pet crocodiles; the wonderfully snotty French radio presenter.

Yes, of course they work in different areas of comedy. Caulfield talks about herself, Solon anything but. And it's also true that any sketch show - any comedy show, with the exception of the ever-brilliant Bleak Expectations, in fact - would struggle to compete against Solon. But separating them by a mere 24 hours, now, that's cruel. And all Caulfield has to cheer herself up with is the knowledge that her show's theme tune - the Cure's Boys Don't Cry - knocks spots off Solon's piece of synthesiser whimsy that achieves the trick of being both really annoying and difficult to dislodge from the mental jukebox.