Andy Zaltzman

Andy Zaltzman

An Oxford classics graduate, Andy Zaltzman emerged on to the stand-up scene in 1999, when he was a finalist in the So You Think You're Funny? talent contest.

The following year he was chosen to take part in the well-regarded Comedy Zone showcase at Edinburgh, and also made the finals of the Daily Telegraph Open Mic award. His solo Edinburgh debut, Andy Zaltzman versus The Dog Of Doom, was nominated for the Perrier Best Newcomer award in 2001.

Zaltzman has worked extensively with John Oliver. In 2004, they launched a satire night in London and Edinburgh, called Political Animal, which transferred to Radio 4, and since 2007 have hosted The Bugle, a topical podcast for Times Online. They also wrote and starred in three series of The Department, again for Radio 4.

He performed at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival for the first time in April 2007, where he won the coveted Piece of Wood Award for the comedians' comedian.

Zaltzman has also written for several series of Bremner, Bird and Fortune, and in November 2008 his first book, entitled Does Anything Eat Bankers? And 53 Other Indispensable Questions For The Credit Crunched, was published.

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News Quiz is the most in-demand comedy on BBC Sounds

And the No3 show overall

The News Quiz is the most popular comedy show on BBC Sounds, new figures have revealed.

Fronted by Andy Zaltzman, it is also the third most requested on-demand show overall on the platform, behind The Archers and Desert Island Discs.

David Mitchell’s panel show The Unbelievable Truth is the second most popular comedy, followed by Mark Steel’s In Town.

Among under 35s, The Unbelievable Truth is the most popular comedy show, followed by Elis James and John Robins’s Radio 5 Live show.

Perhaps surprisingly, rural soap opera The Archers is more popular than any comedy even in this age group.

The charts have been compiled from the BBC Sounds app, website and voice activated devices in the first three months of this year.

There were a total of 179million plays to on-demand radio and podcast content in this quarter.

Here are the top on-demand shows – all of which originally aired on Radio 4:

1 The Archers
2 Desert Island Discs
3 The News Quiz
4 In Our Time
5 Sherlock Holmes
6 The Unbelievable Truth
7 The Archers Omnibus
8 Mark Steel’s In Town
9  Radio 4 Drama
10 Woman’s Hour

And for under-35s:

1 Radio 1 Anthems
2 Radio 1’s Dance Anthems
3 The Archers
4 Football Daily (5 Live)
5 The Unbelievable Truth
6 Radio 1 Breakfast with Greg James
7 In Our Time
8 Elis James and John Robins  (5 Live)
9 Desert Island Discs
10 Radio 1 Happy

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Published: 18 May 2022

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Past Shows

Edinburgh Fringe 2003

Edinburgh and Beyond


Edinburgh Fringe 2016

Andy Zaltzman: Plan Z


Agent

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