Radio9

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Radio9 is a surreal comedy sketch show set in a fictional radio station. Broadcast on BBC Radio 4 between 2003 and 2006, it was written by Hils Barker and Johnny Daukes. The show included taglines:

"Round the clock radio... 24 hours a day" and

'"Real radio, for real people. With real radios."

The show targets some of the traditional radio formats, including plays, interviews, adverts and documentaries, as well as trailing programmes that are never heard and advertising activities which are "coming soon" to Radio9, such as Contract Bridge.

• News Creation, Radio9 creates road accidents, power failures or "acts of civil obedience" such as the patriots' demo, and reports it live.

• The Big Debate, in which the host attempts to incite her guests to violence by relaying inflammatory and incorrect information: "Well, this is a tragedy that reasoned debate should descend so quickly to mud-slinging.... He just called you a poof, what's your response to that?"

• The Great Pretender, a reality show where ordinary people attempt to fool a panel of experts in tasks such as piloting an aircraft, downhill skiing or heart surgery. Relayed by a sports commentary team.

• AdvertsEverything from Pro-Celebrity Bee Keeping, The Modern Army or becoming a nun, to well-known magazines such as Reckless Parenting Magazine and NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard).

• The Afternoon PlayThe post-war diaries of feminist academic Millicent Proctor, pseudo-informative cultural plays set in Italy or Africa, or a play in which the millionaire Sir Michael Heath will get his sons or mistresses to speak as a sitcom character, celebrity or historical person at an important event to gain their inheritance.

• Sport... and Talk, all the talk on all the sport, from the Board Game Olympics to premiership football as commentated on by Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath."

• Chasing Rainbows, Ordinary People in Extraordinary Circumstances.

• New Movements - Quentin Montreal investigates the Accidentalist Art Movement, Randy Mann the country singer and the Urban fox hunt, conducted in Range Rovers and, once inside the congestion charging zone, on the 23 bus.

Radio9 was adapted for TV on BBC3, changing its name to The Message.