Episode 1

Available for 101 days

With no live studio audience this year, John Finnemore has taken the opportunity to try something completely new. Every episode in this series of Souvenir Programme is made up of scenes from one person's life, played in reverse order. There's no narrative to the episode; it's still a sketch show, not a sitcom... but the sketches in each episode all happened to one person, played by one member of the cast, over the course of their lifetime. This episode is all about Russ, and takes place between a Christmas Day Zoom in 2020, and a funeral he attended as a five-year-old in 1990. Written and performed by John Finnemore. With: Lawry Lewin Margaret Cabourn-Smith Simon Kane Carrie Quinlan Music composed by Susannah Pearse Music arranged by Susannah Pearse and Tim Sutton Producer: Ed Morrish A BBC Studios Production for Radio 4, first broadcast in May 2021.