Puppet for destruction

Randy Feltface, sometime collaborator with Sammy J on shows like Sammy J & Randy in Ricketts Lane, has a new radio series on BBC Radio 4, Randy Feltface’s Destruction Manual (available in Australia on BBC Sounds). And while putting a puppet on the radio seems like a funny idea out of the blocks, the UK has plenty of form in that department already, so the laughs do not start and end there.

Randy, it seems, is a climate contrarian, and far from wanting to save the planet from global warming, he wants to speed up our inevitable destruction. So, he invites climate deniers and climate warriors onto the show to find out how he can get more carbon monoxide spewed into the atmosphere, so we can all stop worrying and be put out of our misery.

But as bleak as that the set-up sounds, this acerbic and ironic look at the discourse around climate change is actually pretty funny. When Randy starts digging into the views of climate deniers, he ends up kind of siding against them…not that the climate warriors get off lightly – they’re shown to be fairly ridiculous too.

Along the way, there are a few gags which we could probably do without – including a hoary old joke about how hoary and old Mick Jagger is (is there a comedian who hasn’t done one of those?) and some material about silly English town names (again, many comedians have trodden that path) – but overall, there’s enough fresh and original material in Randy Feltface’s Destruction Manual to keep you laughing throughout the four episodes.