BY ROGER WATSON

I have no doubt that many readers of CSM will already be familiar with the BBC Radio 4 sitcom Ed Reardon’s Week. I write this in the hope that I can point some others towards this excellent programme, which began in 2005 and ran its 16th series this year.

The eponymous star, played by co-creator Christopher Douglas, is a grumpy, slightly misanthropic failed writer. He lives alone with his cat, Elgar, smokes a pipe, and could start an argument in an empty room. Co-creator Andrew Nickolds died in 2012.

Reardon, long ago kicked out by his wife, had some past writing glories. He frequently refers to these when meeting his agent, delivering writing workshops to the University of the Third Age, or chatting up women in the pub. Among his achievements was a 1982 episode of the female Japanese prisoner-of-war series Tenko and a well-received book, Who Would Fardels Bear?, in the 1970s.

The book—which takes its title from a line in Shakespeare’s Hamlet—should not be confused with a real title of the same name by Sam Armato. A film adaptation of Who Would Fardels Bear?, titled Sister Mom, was made by Ed’s nemesis, Jaz Milvane (Philip Jackson). Reardon hated the film, and his life is, in part, a running feud with Milvane, to whom he seems umbilically connected. The names of these two frenemies are based on the characters Edwin Reardon and Jasper Milvain from George Gissing’s novel New Grub Street.

Reardon’s circumstances are straitened, mainly by his inability to secure well-paying writing jobs or, when he does, to avoid letting them slip through his fingers. He falls out with everyone and endears himself to no one, due to his habit of correcting people’s grammar or fuming about misplaced apostrophes. His bugbear is the use by train operatives of ‘the next station stop’ and ‘arriving into’. I daresay these asinine (a word much used by Ed) inanities also irritate many CSM readers. Naturally, Ed has no truck with political correctness.

His relationship with his agent, Felix (played by John Fortune), is a study in ritual humiliation. Felix clearly cannot stand Ed—or ‘Reardon’, as he habitually refers to him—and fobs him off with his young assistant, Ping (Barunka O’Shaughnessy, who recently starred in Motherland and Amandaland). The interplay between the Sloane Ranger, trust-fund-supported Ping—who spends most weekends with friends in the country, skiing, or living it up at some château or other—and the struggling writer Ed is hilarious.

Ed, being perpetually ‘out of pocket’, dresses very poorly and always in sandals. He dodges train fares by sitting in the toilet, tries to get refunds for half-eaten packets of food at supermarkets, and always manages to avoid buying a round at the pub. He is occasionally reduced to taking home discarded Chinese takeaways in the hope of finding a spring roll. The writing is very clever in this respect, as when he is at home—where the rent is always overdue—he keeps up a constant dialogue with Elgar (the cat).

Jazz music features prominently in the series. Each episode opens with a specially recorded version of Am I Blue?, but Ed also plays ‘the jug’ in a Dixieland jazz band at weekends in a pub with Jaz Milvane, from whom he never seems to get a break. Most episodes feature the band concluding their signature tune—specially composed for the programme—to applause from the crowd, followed by some words from Jaz advertising his latest successful venture. The dialogue that follows inevitably ends with Ed being roasted by Jaz, to which he replies with witty and very bitter ripostes.

Humour is subjective. However, I find Ed Reardon’s Week relentlessly funny. It also shows the BBC at its best. Listening to it for the first time is hilarious enough, but as the series develops, a great many back-references add to the enjoyment of the seasoned listener. For an immediate taster, the episode titled The Intern, which is well into the series, is as good an introduction as any. The whole series is available on Fourble, and most episodes can be downloaded.

According to the writers, the series is based on the diaries of writer Simon Gray, who chronicled the murky world and dirty tricks of the publishing industry. I cannot help but place this fictional character high up on my list of literary heroes. After all, for those who are writers, there is a little bit of Ed Reardon in most of us.

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Roger Watson is a Registered Nurse and Editor-in-Chief of Nurse Education in Practice.