I’ve been re-listening to Nat Segnit’s BBC radio series of superb spoof documentaries, Beautiful Dreamers. Apart from being tightly scripted, packed with allusion and barbs, and richly imagined, it’s also technically excellent radio and audio. It is, for me, on a par with some of Chris Morris’ work. Heartily recommended, if you can access it.
The episode that’s currently on iPlayer, for example, The Whalemen of Musungenyi, keeps unfolding, layer upon ever richer layer, from an uncanny premise, even managing to weave in, for example, an extended joke on children conceived from donor eggs.
I enjoyed, but didn’t love, Segnit’s comic novel, Pub Walks In Underhill Country (and I am yet to read his ippr report on media coverage of climate change, part of his work with Linguistic Landscapes). This looks fun, though.
Segnit’s wife Niki (mentioned in this interview) is a celebrated author in her own right – of a widely acclaimed (and ingenious) culinary book: The Flavour Thesaurus (which I did unconditionally love, and gift). More on that another time…
Leave a reply