Tim Key Delves Into Daniil Kharms and That’s All

Hello my little veggie cocktail sausages! I thought I’d share with you a BBC radio show of one of my favourite parody satirical poets (is that even a thing?) Tim Key looking into one of the most fascinatingly odd Russian absurdist writers, Daniil Kharms.

The BBC info reads:

“Daniil Kharms (1905-1942) is one of Russia’s great lost absurdists – a writer whose world still alarms, shocks and bewitches more than half a century after he died in prison during the siege of Leningrad.

In his short, almost vignette-like writings, nothing is sacred or as it seems. His narrators dip in and out of moments, describing curious, often disturbing events before getting bored and leaving his characters to their fates. Old ladies plummet from windows, townsfolk are bludgeoned to death with cucumbers, others wander around in search of glue, sausages or nothing. By turns pointless and harrowing, they are funny. Very funny. And they are funny now.

Comedian, Russophile and crumpled polymath Tim Key has been entranced by Kharms’ beautiful, horrible, hilarious world for years. But is there more to Kharms than a series of curious happenings cooked up by an eccentric mind in a troublesome world? Key suspects there is. And he’s prepared to delve.

As he delves, he encounters Noel Fielding, Alice Nakhimovsky, Matvei Yankelevich, Peter Scotto, Tony Anemone and Daniil Kharms.”

So, without further fannying about, here it is. Enjoy!

https://player.fm/series/seriously-1301233/tim-key-delves-into-daniil-kharms-and-thats-all

Monty Python – Almost the truth

I’ve been watching a series on Sky Arts called Monty Python, almost the truth. Its really good and I recommend it for any other obsessives out there. I don’t think anything else has made me so jolly as Monty Python has. If I feel unwell or a bit down I’ll watch that or Not Only but Also (even though there’s hardly any of it bloody left).

Although there are newer comedy series I love such as Spaced, anything Chris Morris does, the Office, the Ricky Gervais show, The League of Gentlemen, the first six series of Red Dwarf, Blackadder, South Park and the first couple of series of The Mighty Boosh, none of them quite seem to reduce me to the wibbly state of joy Monty Python does.

Therefore I shall include below some sketches of theirs I love. I couldn’t really say favourite because that would be impossible: