The News Quiz in Bristol

Last night I went to a recording of BBC Radio 4 stalwart The News Quiz at the Redgrave Theatre in Clifton, Bristol. An experience I can thoroughly recommend if you get the chance.

Tickets are free, but they allocate more tickets than there are seats in the theatre, to ensure that there is enough of an audience for the recording. I applied for my tickets as soon as I heard the announcement after the Friday broadcast of the show two weeks ago. I was listening via a Freeview box and a PVR, so it was slightly delayed (but I was able to rewind and listen to it again to check I'd heard what I thought I'd heard). But I immediately opened my PowerBook went to the ticket site and filled out the form, and was finished about 10 minutes after the initial broadcast. The tickets arrived in the post a few days later - we had 217 and 218.

The venue seats 343 (according to it's website), and I heard one of the theatre staff say that over 600 tickets had been sent out. The theatre was completely packed for the recording, and there were lots of people milling around outside trying to get in. Some of them had tickets, but you had to turn up before the doors opened and get a numbered sticker on your ticket to ensure a seat. We arrived about 30 minutes before the doors were due to open and we got stickers 165 and 166.

They also recorded around 90 minutes of material for a 28 minute broadcast. So it will be interesting to hear what makes it in (and also explains why the scoring on the broadcast show rarely makes any sense).

The show will be broadcast tonight (30th May 2008, BBC R4, 6:30pm) and tomorrow (31st May 2008, BBC R4, 12:30pm) or you should be able to download it from the website for a week after the Friday broadcast.

See if you can spot me laughing amongst all the other people laughing.

And, by the way, it was so funny I broke my glasses.