John Finnemore's Library Edition (1 August 2014)

Again my friend and I had the luck to be able to go to one of John Finnemore's try-outs, this time in the (slightly smelly) lecture hall of Kensington Central Library. As ever, it was brilliant. In contrast to last time, it was with the full cast, but sadly without any songs (well, John had us sing the Souvenir Programme intro). The audience was again pretty mixed, with about one half being typical Radio 4 listeners (whole families of them) and the other half being people who came to Finnemore via Cabin Pressure (there even was another German there – we were so surprised about her starting to talk to us in German that we had to ask her to repeat what she just said). Of course, the big advantage with the try-outs is that you've got a guaranteed seat (as opposed to a free ticket that may or may not get you in) and it's a cosier affair than at a recording, so I reckon that this won't be the last try-out I'll attend.

I'm afraid I don't remember all the sketches, but there was an extremely clever time-travel sketch, one sketch with Patsy Straightwoman, then of course an animal sketch (with fish), one with Harry Potter (which went right over my head), a sketch about dog-owners and their dogs and a 'well, since you ask me', which John did with a glass of red wine in his hand (and later over his shirt). The whole thing was over after an hour, but it actually felt more like 20 minutes. After the show, John came out again for autographs, and later Carrie and Simon joined him. I'm now very much looking forward to listening to this on radio.

As an aside, we were at Croydon Airport visitor centre on the Sunday after the recording. It only opens the first Sunday of every month but if you've got the chance to go there, do it. The old terminal building is now mainly offices, but the tower is kept as a small museum and there's lots of volunteers who explain the exhibits. (There's also a flight simulator. We crashed our planes.)