The 99p Challenge: Series 1-5 cover art

The 99p Challenge: Series 1-5

The Complete BBC Radio 4 Collection

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About this listen

Starring the cream of UK comedy talent over its lifetime, including Simon Pegg, Sue Perkins, Miranda Hart, Nick Frost, Bill Bailey, Sean Lock, Richard Herring and Armando Iannucci, this is the complete and utter award-winning silly panel game that's not about music, sport, advertising or hats.

"The laughter that's worth every penny" - Mail On Sunday

"Genuinely brilliant" - Night & Day

The show was written by the writers of Friday Night Armistice and Black Books and was described by The Guardian as "Good enough to be the successor to I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue".

PLUS bonus series King Stupid that launched the whole thing, starring Sue Perkins, Simon Pegg, Morwenna Banks and Peter Baynham, the brains behind "I'm Alan Partridge" and Sacha Baron-Cohen's co-writer.

Hear them as they spend a whole series trying to decide which stall they'd like to see at a village fete and decide it's a toss-up between Paint The Face Of A Child On A Tiger stall and a Get The Angry Bear Down From The Cross competition. Meanwhile, they'll be discussing such vital issues as how to beat crime, and how to sip coffee through a sausage and they'll also be pondering the question "If an apple a day keeps the doctor away, what does a watermelon a minute do?"

(C)2018 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd (P)2018 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

 Entertainment & Performing Arts Funny

Critic reviews

"The laughter that's worth every penny." (Mail on Sunday)

"Genuinely brilliant." (Night & Day)
All stars
Most relevant
I like Sue Perkins, Armando Iannucci, Simon Pegg, and most of the others in other works but this started put badly. I stuck with it and the latter half of the audio recorded was actually funny. There were more risqué jokes about priests and such that they probably wouldn't get away with today.

The 'King Stupid show was dire though. It ends with Chapter 6, I would skip it.

I originially quite disliked this but it improved.

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This series has some of my favourite jokes, and it is a lovely format, but this collection is missing two episodes

Very good, but not complete

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This started off as a different show and really comes into its own as Sue Perkins takes over the chair and it’s renamed the 99p Challenge (Some of the early shows really do seem to be finding their feet). Good panel show laughs, interesting to hear Nick Frost, Simon Pegg, Miranda Hart when they were still “just comedians”. Made me laugh and was a good listen.

Gets better and better

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The early series are embarrassingly bad. its amazing it got recommissioned
Enter Sue Perkins and the whole level of the show lifts massively.
Regular panelists such as Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Marcus Brigstocke and Armando Iannucci are brilliantly funny. Perkins shows her comedy roots with some wonderful ripostes.
Good anarchial fun and some great belly-laughs. Recommended (but not until Perkins' arrival).

Much Better with Sue

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Series 1 wasn’t great but series 2-5 had a change of format and seemingly a much tighter script and the end result was an entertaining listen.

A lot of the jokes would be seen as a little bit near the knuckle now - some very lad humour and like many panel shows of the era the only woman involved generally was the host.

Suitably stupid

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