Jon Holmes on The Skewer

It’s run for 17 seasons and is BBC audio comedy at its finest and most inventive – but I have to admit that Jon Holmes’s Radio 4 show and podcast The Skewer had escaped me until very recently. 

After listening to (and ugly-laughing at) the back catalogue of hectically edited shows amalgamating pop-culture vignettes with news clips, I am now a convert, and have even submitted my first sketch idea. 

My binge-listening came before I spoke to Jon about the show – a conversation that began with me asking how he’d feel about my describing The Skewer as the ‘memeification’ of current affairs, a tad concerned he’d be offended by my clickbaity distillation of his critically acclaimed show. Thankfully he isn’t. ‘I think you're right. We accidentally hit upon memes, and certainly clippable social stuff before that was such a big thing.’

I caveat that I’m both a pop-culture and politics geek, and so possibly The Skewer’s ideal audience. Does Jon feel that the format makes politics particularly accessible to those who consider themselves apolitical or even apathetic? 

‘It's interesting. I think what we’ve found is that some people now get their news from [The Skewer], rather than being fed it by news outlets or doomscrolling.  The Skewer tells you what's going on with jokes, rather than listening to the horror of it all.'

I ask Jon if he thinks there is more to laugh at on the right or the left of politics. 

‘We try to be an equal opportunity offender, if I'm honest. We don't bring our personal politics into it at all. Our brief to contributors is that we need to target everyone equally here. We get such diversity of thought and opinion from the writers.  We’ll do something next week on Jason Arday, I'm sure. A lot of what The Skewer does is just hold a mirror up to what's going on. We’re not stand-up comedians shouting our opponents down. We let them hang themselves by their own petard.’

I admit to being surprised by the range of topics that the show addresses, such as the recent media furore targeting Arday, and his subsequent suicide. The juxtaposition of the truly silly and the devastating is a striking production choice, particularly within the time constraints of such short episodes.  I ask Jon if there are any subjects he wouldn’t cover. 

‘There isn't, no. We can flip from something very silly and childishly funny to something very dark in the space of 14 minutes because it's light and shade. And we often end the show with something quite poignant, something no other comedy show will touch but we can, because it's not a single voice. It's not stand-up; it is a collective. 

‘People have told me, "I cried on the Tube to this week's ending where you did X and Y." One of the most powerful sketches we ever did was about the kind of stuff primary kids are looking at online. Really, really bleak stuff. We mixed it in with the song from Matilda to say, are you aware of what your kids are looking at? They're not grown up at all, but it's making them grow up too fast."

A change to copyright law in 2013 made The Skewer possible, via an exemption that allows for parody, pastiche and caricature. As long as its intention is mockery, The Skewer can cannibalise clips from film, TV, podcasts and radio and not have to jump through legal hoops to use the audio. Which leads me to ask about the show’s relationship with the notoriously finicky BBC.   

‘I present the show as it’s made and then it’s listened-to by someone whose sole job it is to keep me out of prison. No one's ever censored anything. It's quite sweary at times, but you can justify that. In the early days, they used to repeat it after The Archers on a Sunday evening. That was a bold choice.’

When listening to previous episodes, I pictured an SNL or 30 Rock-style writers’ room, so I ask Jon what the creative process is actually like. The speed with which the show comes together before it’s aired on Radio 4 at 11.15pm on a Wednesday evening sounds both exhilarating and exhausting.

‘A few series ago now, before Andy Burnham was anywhere near the top job, there were rumblings about it. When they first started calling him King in the North, he did a speech on a Wednesday at about 4pm. By 6pm, it had been remixed into a Game of Thrones spectacular. 

‘Saturday is idea-pitching; I'll greenlight some and then Sunday to Wednesday is just full-on making the thing. Every time I finish a sketch I'll send it to (sound designer and Jon’s right hand on the show) Tony Churnside so he can start working some audio magic or fix my mistakes. And then we'll start bolting together a running order.’

Jon is enthusiastic about the diversity of opinion and experience that The Skewer contributors draw from to create their sketches. 

‘Several of our early contributors have now gone on and won awards for their dramas and sitcoms. People [are] involved [who] aren't even anything to do with comedy. They're just angry nurses, people who work in supermarkets. They've got a point to make and some insight. They’re all over the country which, again, is great because of that diversity of voice and region.'

If you’d like to send sketch ideas to Jon and his team at The Skewer, the contributor guide is here: https://weareunusual.net/skewer-contributor-guide – though you should definitely listen to the podcast first, ideally through headphones for what Jon describes as the richest listening experience. 

The London Podcast Festival 

The London Podcast Festival is currently on at King’s Place, running until September 13. Podcasts taking part include No Such Thing As A Fish, The Empire Film Podcast and Life After Prison. To highlight a few personal favourites, Cody Dahler will be hosting The Truth (In My Opinion) with comedian Jen Brister on Friday. Also on Friday, the absolute baller that is Jameela Jamil will host Wrong Turns. On Saturday, comedian Suchandrika Chakrabarti will be sharing her 7 Steps To Making a Comedy Podcast as part of the festival’s series of how-to podcasting sessions.  

Coming up:

Talking of festivals, the juggernaut that is Cheerful Earful returns to venues around the world (!) in October. Tickets are available here and I will be chatting with the hosts of some of the major comedy pods taking part in the festival in a future column. 

Published: 9 Sep 2026