Showing results by narrator "John Sergeant" in All Categories

John Sergeant's long career as a political journalist has been inextricably linked with Margaret Thatcher since the night he stood on the steps of the British Embassy in November 1990 and announced to 13 million viewers that the Prime Minister would not be coming out of the Embassy to speak to the massed ranks of the world's press. As his broadcast continued, it was plain to all 13 million that Mrs Thatcher was walking down the steps behind him.

For over 40 years The News Quiz has graced the Radio 4 airwaves with an irreverent sideways look at the headlines. Having first appeared in 1977, it boasts a tantalising archive of episodes to remind us of the news from yesteryear, refracted through the satirical gaze of regular panellists including Alan Coren, Andy Hamilton, Mark Steel, Francis Wheen and Jeremy Hardy. Among the many guest panellists featured here are Boris Johnson, Nigella Lawson, Jo Brand, Eddie Mair, John Sergeant, Linda Smith and Roy Hattersley. 

Produced by Sydney Lotterby of Yes Minister and Porridge fame. Each instalment featured a mixture of sketches (some foreshadowing Bennett's subsequent television dramas, others mocking television clichés, such as documentaries about working-class Northern writers and discussion programmes featuring pretentious critics). This is a never before broadcast compilation of sketches and extracts from the TV series before the tapes where wiped.

John Sergeant's acclaimed memoir takes us from his somewhat eccentric childhood to his 30 years' service with the BBC. Memorably hand-bagged by Margaret Thatcher on the steps of the Paris Embassy as she lost the leadership contest, and the man to whom Ron Davis confessed his midnight perambulations on Clapham Common, Sergeant has been the man on the spot in most of the major news stories of the last 20 years.