Review of Cabin Pressure Series 1 (BBC Audio)

"Again I fear you flatter my knowledge of cat pathology."

Radio comedy has been hit and miss for years, its best shows soon departing for BBC while weaker ones seem to drag on for series after series because of the absence of anything better to replace it with. Cabin Pressure is unlikely to make the transition to the box because of a combination of the budget required for a series that follows a charter airline on its bargain basement travels across the globe and the commissioning of the Little Britain team's Come Fly With Me, but it certainly is one of the best comedies BBC Radio has come up with in years. It's a simple premise that's basically a four handed between Stephanie cole's authoritarian owner, trying to keep her one plane in the air and out of debt, her idiot son John Finnemore (clearly not so idiotic in real-life since he wrote the show), Benedict Cumberbatch's insecure upper class pilot and Roger Allam's gloriously deprecating co-pilot. Luckily the casting is inspired, with the four playing off each other perfectly and being blessed with great dialogue as they either ward off the boredom or deal with their far more difficult than they should be charters, whether it's obnoxious passenger who insist on smoking or obnoxious drunks who are spectacularly big tippers - but only if you grovel enough. as comedy it doesn't reinvent the wheel, but it certainly keeps it spinning with real panache and plenty of genuine laughs.