7 Day Sunday
Encyclopedia
7 Day Sunday is a British comedy radio
talk show
hosted by Chris Addison
on BBC Radio 5 Live
. Broadcast weekly on Sunday mornings, the show takes an irreverent look at the topical news stories of the past seven days. Addison is joined by regular guests Sarah Millican
and Andy Zaltzman
, and a fourth special guest each episode. It premièred in January 2010 to mixed reviews. It returned for a second series in September 2010. Al Murray
served as host for the last five episodes of the second series, joined by regular guests Rebecca Front
and Joe Wilkinson.
with Bob Mills
. The new show was to begin on 10 January 2010, as part of the wider re-organisation of 5 Live's schedule which had already begun to be announced in October 2009, the largest since controller Adrian Van Klaveren joined the station in April 2008.
The show is produced for 5 Live by Avalon Television. It was initially commissioned for a 20 week run. This first series duly ran from 10 January 2010 until 6 June 2010. After three months it resumed for a second series on 5 September 2010. The second series finished on 3 April 2011.
The regular host for the first and most of the second series was Chris Addison
, with Sarah Millican
and Andy Zaltzman
as the regular guests, joined by a fourth participant as a special guest each week. Up until 27 February, stand-ins used had included Chris Warburton and Al Murray
for Addison as host, and Joe Wilkinson, Henry Paker and Rebecca Front
for Millican or Zaltzman as the regular guests. For the last five episodes of the second series (6 March to 3 April 2011), Al Murray replaced Addison as host, with Front and Wilkinson replacing the regular guests Millican and Zaltzman. (Zaltzman was away reporting on the Cricket World Cup for Cricinfo
but continued to participate via a pre-recorded telephone segment.) (Nick Hancock appeared in Wilkinson's place for the first episode). The fourth guest continued to be different each week.
In press interviews during March 2010 while promoting his upcoming stand-up tour, Addison explained that doing a radio show was a childhood ambition, and that as a "current affairs junkie", hosting 7 Day Sunday was ideal, more relaxed than television and good fun, with the weekly deadline being a good motivation.
For the first and second series, the show aired on Sundays from 11 am to 12 noon. The show is occasionally not broadcast, including for the 2010/11 Christmas & New Year period, and it has once been broadcast at 7 pm instead of 11 am (31 January 2010).
The show is made available on the BBC's iPlayer
service.
The show is also podcast
ed, featuring additional material.
questioned the show's lack of variety, covering as it did mainly the heavy snowfall
with little political content, which given Addison had made his name in a political satire, she found odd. She ultimately reserved judgement on the show, calling Addison witty but recommending he slow down the pace and stop his "nervous giggling".
Chris Campling of The Times
criticised the first episode as being a duplicate of the "dismal, desperate" The Christian O'Connell Solution it replaced, with a turgid format. Persevering, he described the second episode as just as dreary with no chemistry and "none of the News Quiz
-esque scoring of laughter points, where clever people fall over each other in their desperation to be funnier than the last."
After the third episode, Elisabeth Mahoney of The Guardian
said the show was "really quite funny" but the listener needed to stay focussed on the content as the four way dialogue was quite involved as it covered a comprehensive sweep of topics. For listeners who might want to multi-task on a Sunday morning, she recommended Dave Gorman
's show on Absolute Radio.
Radio comedy
Radio comedy, or comedic radio programming, is a radio broadcast that may involve sitcom elements, sketches and various types of comedy found on other media. It may also include more surreal or fantastic elements, as these can be conveyed on a small budget with just a few sound effects or some...
talk show
Talk radio
Talk radio is a radio format containing discussion about topical issues. Most shows are regularly hosted by a single individual, and often feature interviews with a number of different guests. Talk radio typically includes an element of listener participation, usually by broadcasting live...
hosted by Chris Addison
Chris Addison
Chris Addison is an English stand-up comedian, writer and actor. He is known for his lecture-style comedy shows, two of which he later adapted for BBC Radio 4...
on BBC Radio 5 Live
BBC Radio 5 Live
BBC Radio 5 Live is the BBC's national radio service that specialises in live BBC News, phone-ins, and sports commentaries...
. Broadcast weekly on Sunday mornings, the show takes an irreverent look at the topical news stories of the past seven days. Addison is joined by regular guests Sarah Millican
Sarah Millican
Sarah Millican is an English stand-up comedian. Millican won the if.comedy award for Best Newcomer at the 2008 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.-Career:...
and Andy Zaltzman
Andy Zaltzman
Andrew "Andy" Zaltzman is a British comedian and author who largely focuses on political material. He has worked extensively with John Oliver; their work together includes Political Animal, The Department and The Bugle.-Early life:...
, and a fourth special guest each episode. It premièred in January 2010 to mixed reviews. It returned for a second series in September 2010. Al Murray
Al Murray
Alastair James Hay "Al" Murray , is a British comedian best known for his stand-up persona, The Pub Landlord, a stereotypical xenophobic public house licensee. In 2003, he was listed in The Observer as one of the 50 funniest acts in British comedy...
served as host for the last five episodes of the second series, joined by regular guests Rebecca Front
Rebecca Front
Rebecca Front is a BAFTA Award–winning English comedian and actress best known for her performances in The Thick of It in the late 2000s, and series of critically acclaimed satirical comedies in the early 1990s: On The Hour, The Day Today and Knowing Me, Knowing You...with Alan Partridge...
and Joe Wilkinson.
History
7 Day Sunday was announced as a new show on 11 December 2009, to be hosted by Addison and broadcast for an hour in the 11 am to 12 noon slot. The guests for the opening episode were to be Zaltzman, Millican, and a special guest. It was to replace another comedy show The Christian O'Connell Solution, hosted by Christian O'ConnellChristian O'Connell
Christian O'Connell is an English radio DJ who presents the Absolute Radio weekday breakfast show.He has formerly hosted BBC Radio Five Live's weekend sports game show Fighting Talk alongside the weekday breakfast show on indie music station Xfm London...
with Bob Mills
Bob Mills (comedian)
Robert Edward "Bob" Mills is a British comedian, notable for his appearances in cult TV series such as In Bed with Medinner and The Show, the latter an attempt to do a non-fictional British version of The Larry Sanders Show.Born in Chester, after a very short spell training for the Merchant Navy,...
. The new show was to begin on 10 January 2010, as part of the wider re-organisation of 5 Live's schedule which had already begun to be announced in October 2009, the largest since controller Adrian Van Klaveren joined the station in April 2008.
The show is produced for 5 Live by Avalon Television. It was initially commissioned for a 20 week run. This first series duly ran from 10 January 2010 until 6 June 2010. After three months it resumed for a second series on 5 September 2010. The second series finished on 3 April 2011.
Format
When the show was announced, it was cast as a topical news series aiming to "pull apart the week's big news stories and see what makes them tick", with Addison describing it as "four relatively ill-informed idiots fail to take the news seriously for an hour".The regular host for the first and most of the second series was Chris Addison
Chris Addison
Chris Addison is an English stand-up comedian, writer and actor. He is known for his lecture-style comedy shows, two of which he later adapted for BBC Radio 4...
, with Sarah Millican
Sarah Millican
Sarah Millican is an English stand-up comedian. Millican won the if.comedy award for Best Newcomer at the 2008 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.-Career:...
and Andy Zaltzman
Andy Zaltzman
Andrew "Andy" Zaltzman is a British comedian and author who largely focuses on political material. He has worked extensively with John Oliver; their work together includes Political Animal, The Department and The Bugle.-Early life:...
as the regular guests, joined by a fourth participant as a special guest each week. Up until 27 February, stand-ins used had included Chris Warburton and Al Murray
Al Murray
Alastair James Hay "Al" Murray , is a British comedian best known for his stand-up persona, The Pub Landlord, a stereotypical xenophobic public house licensee. In 2003, he was listed in The Observer as one of the 50 funniest acts in British comedy...
for Addison as host, and Joe Wilkinson, Henry Paker and Rebecca Front
Rebecca Front
Rebecca Front is a BAFTA Award–winning English comedian and actress best known for her performances in The Thick of It in the late 2000s, and series of critically acclaimed satirical comedies in the early 1990s: On The Hour, The Day Today and Knowing Me, Knowing You...with Alan Partridge...
for Millican or Zaltzman as the regular guests. For the last five episodes of the second series (6 March to 3 April 2011), Al Murray replaced Addison as host, with Front and Wilkinson replacing the regular guests Millican and Zaltzman. (Zaltzman was away reporting on the Cricket World Cup for Cricinfo
Cricinfo
ESPNcricinfo is believed to be the largest cricket-related website on the World Wide Web. Content includes news,articles, live scorecards,live text commentary and a comprehensive and searchable database called 'StatsGuru', of historical matches and players from the 18th century to the present...
but continued to participate via a pre-recorded telephone segment.) (Nick Hancock appeared in Wilkinson's place for the first episode). The fourth guest continued to be different each week.
In press interviews during March 2010 while promoting his upcoming stand-up tour, Addison explained that doing a radio show was a childhood ambition, and that as a "current affairs junkie", hosting 7 Day Sunday was ideal, more relaxed than television and good fun, with the weekly deadline being a good motivation.
Broadcasts
- Last updated 3 April 2011
For the first and second series, the show aired on Sundays from 11 am to 12 noon. The show is occasionally not broadcast, including for the 2010/11 Christmas & New Year period, and it has once been broadcast at 7 pm instead of 11 am (31 January 2010).
The show is made available on the BBC's iPlayer
BBC iPlayer
BBC iPlayer, commonly shortened to iPlayer, is an internet television and radio service, developed by the BBC to extend its former RealPlayer-based and other streamed video clip content to include whole TV shows....
service.
The show is also podcast
Podcast
A podcast is a series of digital media files that are released episodically and often downloaded through web syndication...
ed, featuring additional material.
Reception
After the first show, Jane Thynne of The IndependentThe Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
questioned the show's lack of variety, covering as it did mainly the heavy snowfall
Winter of 2010–2011 in Great Britain and Ireland
The winter of 2010–2011 was a weather event which brought heavy snowfalls, record low temperatures, travel chaos and school disruption to Great Britain and Ireland...
with little political content, which given Addison had made his name in a political satire, she found odd. She ultimately reserved judgement on the show, calling Addison witty but recommending he slow down the pace and stop his "nervous giggling".
Chris Campling of The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
criticised the first episode as being a duplicate of the "dismal, desperate" The Christian O'Connell Solution it replaced, with a turgid format. Persevering, he described the second episode as just as dreary with no chemistry and "none of the News Quiz
The News Quiz
The News Quiz is a topical panel game broadcast on British radio BBC Radio 4.-History:It was first broadcast in 1977 with Barry Norman as chairman. Subsequently it was chaired by Simon Hoggart, Barry Took , and then again by Simon Hoggart until March 2006. Hoggart was replaced by Sandi Toksvig in...
-esque scoring of laughter points, where clever people fall over each other in their desperation to be funnier than the last."
After the third episode, Elisabeth Mahoney of The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
said the show was "really quite funny" but the listener needed to stay focussed on the content as the four way dialogue was quite involved as it covered a comprehensive sweep of topics. For listeners who might want to multi-task on a Sunday morning, she recommended Dave Gorman
Dave Gorman
David James Gorman is an English author, stand-up comedian and presenter. He has performed comedy shows on stage in which he tells stories of extreme adventures and presents the evidence to the audience in order to prove to them that they are true stories...
's show on Absolute Radio.