Huge raft of new shows, pilots, stand-up specials and recommissions announced

Radio 4 has announced a new slate of comedy commissions from Omid Djalili, Kiri Pritchard-McLean, Alistair Green, Slim, Ayoade Bamgboye and Pierre Novellie and more.

Djalili will host Noise Pollution, a show which aims to cut through all the noise to confront complicated global issues and make sense of what is going on in the world, all while ‘calming your inner chakras’ with stand-up and conversations with fellow comics.

In Slim’s Guide to Life, the first black British comedian to sell out the London Palladium looks back over his eventful past – from taking himself out on a day trip around London aged three, to becoming a dad at 17 and a grandad in his 30s.

Alistair Green, whose online videos of tragicomic try-hard characters have been watched tens of millions of times, will host of a brand-new spoof podcast featuring a range of deluded guests from the world of business, wellness and influencing.

In Kiri’s Farm stand-up and farmer’s daughter Kiri Pritchard-McLean take on Jeremy Clarkson at his own game as she swaps her trademark sequins for wellies to get to grips with rewilding, soil fertility and more on her 51 acres in her native Ynys Môn (Anglesey).

Why In the Name Of Pierre Novellie is a series of stand-up routines on random subjects  such as ‘Why is 12th Century French poetry so rude?’, ‘Why is Wales where it is?’ and ‘Why does pasta taste so good?’ Radio 4 describe it as a  ‘comic In Our Time’ – the erudite discussion show which Melvyn Bragg is stepping down from.

Edinburgh Comedy Award best newcomer Ayoade Bamgboye will pilot a new idea called Matters of No Matter, where she plays an eccentric scholar on a mission to answer the questions nobody asked. Written off by academia but undeterred, she dives into pseudo-science, giving airtime to the discerningly unimportant matters and the maverick characters no one else would touch. The BBC call the show ‘esoteric, eccentric, and gloriously unserious’.

Other pilots include:

• Sikisa’s Border Control in which stand-up and immigration solicitor Sikisa walks the audience through different immigration cases that might not be as clear cut as they appear
• The Making of Colin Hoult sees acclaimed character actor Colin Hoult inhabit a range of his bizarre family members, showing how they made him the man he is today, based on his live s how Colin.
• Zoe Lyons asks Now What? as she pieces her life back together after things went belly-up in her 50s, with advice from celebrity guests
• Eleanor & Pals sees Scottish comedian Eleanor Morton showcase comedy characters along with guest and comedy pal Zara Gladman
• A sitcom pilot written by Rosie Holt and David Quantick charting the slippery path to power of Holt’s fictional MP  after defecting from the Conservatives to Labour just before the last election in Crossing The Floor.

Radio 4 has also announced a range of stand-up specials:

•  Emer Maguire: Patron Saint of Bad Luck is a heartfelt musical comedy about navigating a year of personal upheaval and self-discovery – as Maguire explains how her worst year led her to live her best life
• Amy Annette delves into the experiences of being a Y2K teenager - from girls’ mags to Trinny and Susannah - in her show I Survived the Noughties
• Finlay Christie offers his take on being one Gen Z and how he and his friends have grown into the adults they’re now expected to be in Finlay Christie Is Younger Than You
• Matt Hutchinson, a stand-up comic and NHS doctor, draws on  his experiences as a black medic during the pandemic and beyond in Are You Really the Doctor?
• Maria Shehata’s Leap of Faith unpacks the comedian’s romantic gamble moving from LA to London for love, echoing her parents’ own move from Cairo to Ohio when they embarked on an arranged marriage having known each other for just three days
• Ray Bradshaw Hears You explores Ray Bradshaw’s experience of growing up with two deaf parents and being their link to the hearing world
• Nina Gilligan explores the quirks and fragility of memories via middle-aged meltdowns and the unfiltered commentary of her inner voice in Goldfish.

Several other shows have also had second series confirmed, including sketch show P.O.V. which spotlights top online comedians, Ian Smith’s futile quest for calm in Ian Smith Is Stressed, the Regency rake sitcom The Many Wrongs of Lord Christian Brighty and Laura Smyth’s conversations on maverick mothering in Your Mum.

Broadcast dates are yet to be announced.

Published: 8 Sep 2025