John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme

John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme is a sketch comedy series broadcast on BBC Radio 4. John Finnemore is the sole writer and performs with Margaret Cabourn-Smith, Simon Kane, Lawry Lewin and Carrie Quinlan. The first series was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2011, and further series have followed annually. A special edition recorded at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe was broadcast in 2012. All five series to date have also been released on CD.

Contents

• Awards
• Multimedia
• References

The series contains sketches and character monologues, with only one major recurring character, a storyteller who narrates a tall tale in the last five minutes of most programmes, and who also provides the show's only recurring catchphrase, opening each story with "Well, since you ask me for...". The only other recurring character between episodes is an interviewer played by Carrie Quinlan named Patsy Straightwoman who is deliberately given no significant characteristics except for an awareness of her role as a "feed", which she sardonically remarks upon at the beginning of each sketch. All episodes from the fourth onwards include a comic song with words by Finnemore and music by Susannah Pearse. Each series has one sketch parodying the BBC Radio 4 series The Archers, portraying the show as it supposedly sounds to people who do not regularly listen to it.

A pilot programme with a different supporting cast, titled John Finnemore, Apparently, was broadcast in 2008. Many of the sketches in the pilot were subsequently remade for the series.

The sixth series started broadcasting on 27 December 2016.