Nineteen Ninety-four

I've been listening to Nineteen Ninety-four, the dystopian Radio 4 comedy from 1985. Pitched somewhere between HHG, Brave New World and The Prisoner.

What stops it being just another laboured string of Week Ending style 'Sellingfield' gags is Robert Lindsay as the everyman hero Edward Wilson. There's a sequel, Nineteen Ninety-eight, which has David Threlfall instead, and it's not nearly as good. Both Edward Wilsons are complicit in their own exploitation but at least RL's version makes a token resistance.

It's interesting how different NNF (broadcast 1985) and NNE (broadcast 1987) are in tone. They make a fine example of the cultural atmosphere in the two halves of the Eighties. Later 80s concerns about US imperialism and early 80s concerns about riots and everything just falling apart.

Btw I do wonder if Lance Parkin was thinking of NNF when he wrote the scenes with Colin Baker and the personal organiser device in Davros.