Rob Grant’s Nether Regions News Posted by Ian Symes on 31st January 2019, 19:54 In somewhat unexpected news, Rob Grant and Andrew Marshall are doing another radio series, one that isn’t The Quanderhorn Xperimentations. Tickets have just been made available for The Nether Regions, along with a description that frankly defies neatly summarising: Welcome to … The Nether Regions: a place where the laws of physics and even time itself take a day off, put their feet up and watch daytime television in their underpants. This is our world, today, though not quite the today we know. And not entirely the world we live in. But nearly. Your guides through this madness, fresh from their success creating The Quanderhorn Xperimentations: Rob Grant (Red Dwarf) and Andrew Marshall (2point4children), together with young performers, new to radio but familiar to the Job Centre. Come with us to a land of Bastards, Boobs and Bottoms, where nobody wears any underwear, even though it’s permanently winter. No, not Newcastle: it’s Throne of Forks. Join old men talking Sh*t – the call-in hosts of Impotent Rage FM – London’s premier station for exasperated seniors. Meet the permanently angry chef, who vents his foul-mouthed invective on diners with the temerity to question his serving Chicken on an Electric Fence with a side of Gasping Fish. Recoil in disgust as you witness the appalling conditions in backstreet emoji farms. Let Rob and Andrew and their callow young carers take you on a whistle stop tour of uncannity and strangeositude. Performed before a live studio audience and a dead wasp. So from that we’re deducing that it’s some sort of spoof current affairs/phone-in show, and that Rob and Andrew are performers as well as writers. This is obviously somewhat of a departure for our Rob, save for a brief foray into stand-up a few years ago, but anyone who attended last year’s Dimension Jump will have little doubt in his ability to do the job. This will be an absolutely fascinating listen; I spoke about what a rare treat it is to hear new words from the mind of our favourite show’s co-creator, so it’s even more special to hear them in his own voice too. As for the content of the show, it certainly sounds rather barmy. Certain parts elicited certain reactions when I read them, but I’ll reserve judgement for the final product. One thing that stands out (although admittedly, it had to be pointed out to me) is the foul-mouthed angry chef character, which is reminiscent of Grenville, one of the three main characters from Rob’s novel Fat. And “a land of Bastards, Boobs and Bottoms” could describe much of his solo output, to be fair.
Rob spoke about this in the coffee lounge at DJ. I take it to be a sketch show and the title a parody of the twilight zone outer limits etc. It’s surely then a return to Robs son of cliche roots with a game of thrones parody regular thread, Gordon Ramsey and shock jocks and other themes presented as within some alternative reality not quite our own.
That synopsis is some of the worst shite I have ever heard, but I’m sure the show will be of a slightly higher quality
That synopsis is some of the worst shite I have ever heard It felt a bit like reading the back of an Innocent smoothie.
> I take it to be a sketch show and the title a parody of the twilight zone outer limits etc. It reminds me of “The Ooo-eee-Ooo Dimension”, a Twilight Zone-esque anthology series Grant Naylor were meant to be developing for ITV that was mentioned in one of the Smegazines.
I mentioned that the other day in the books thread – it was Rob’s big takeaway from the Grant Naylor divorce. It’s alluded to on Six On The Best as well as “The Y Files”. If it’s incorporated into this then that’s one hell of a gestation period! The chef definitely sounds like Grenville, but wasn’t he partially conceived as a performing vehicle for Rob at book events etc anyway? I love ‘Fat’ anyway, I think it’s his best book, so this is a positive for me. Anyone worried by that synopsis, don’t be – it’s almost impossible to write a descriptive summary of a sketch show that isn’t embarrassing to read. These two are sketch show royalty, like virtuoso rock stars returning to do a roots album on analogue tape. Expectations are up high for this.
On the subject of ‘Old men talking shit’, it’s been a while since I commented on anything! ( I have of course kept an eye on things from the side lines) To be honest, when I read the headline ‘Rob Grants’ ‘nether regions’ I assumed it was either regarding an ailment he’d recently suffered or the title of a new book, I now realise I was wrong on both counts. The thing is, I thoroughly enjoyed ‘FAT’, I found it very clever and funny, I’ve also enjoyed his other books and was a huge fan of ‘The Strangerers’ on TV, Red Dwarf of course, speaks for itself. On the subject of stand-up however, I still grimace at the very thought of the time he turned up in my home town. It may be coincidence of course, but I dragged along a friend of mine (a fellow Red Dwarf fan) who hasn’t spoken to me in real life since!. In truth, the funniest part of the evening was provided by a rather drunk person trying to retrieve the maltesers he had dropped, these had subsequently rolled down the aisle and a couple of steps (a literal showstopper). In all honesty, this has to be the worst stand-up I’ve ever seen (and I,ve seen a lot of stand-up), half the crowd never returned after the interval. I guess it will be interesting to see which Rob we will get to hear in this project.
Wow. Rob has suddenly turned into a workaholic. ;) Very good to hear about new stuff from him and I hope this will continue for some time to come.
Well… (if your all done talking about cock’s now !!! hehe) I’m off to the recording of The Nether Regions Tomorrow (as of this post) So I see how go’s and get back to you lot laters…
Ok, saw it and here’s a non-spoiler recount and thoughts on what happen… I’ll start off with some of the stuff that happens on stage (since you won’t be able to see it anyway) Gordon Kennedy (the producer) comes up on stage to introduce the cast and acted as a short warm-up act in-between the two recordings they did. One joke he did was “I’m now going to head off stage, to become a disembody voice, coming out of that little box on the right.” To call out errors and re-takes. Cast and Writers On come the actors (I can not remember their names sorry, but if anybody else here, who was there that night and do please in the replies, that aside they where great) along with Rob Grant and Andrew Marshall, to which the two did abit on walking on stage with a colourful outfit, looking like as Rob describe “A deranged cross between Fred Astaire and Lady GaGa”. Recordings In terms of how it was done, (compare to a TV recording like Red Dwarf) they ran through 2-20 mins episodes each with a 10 minutes break. Any fubs they did on a take, they quickly run through the line again, unless Gordon pipes up with an error in the mics or recordings. After each run, Gordon comes back on stage to do any pickup lines they need. The Show For the show itself (again no spoilers) if your at all familiar with Rob and Doug’s work Cliché and Son of Cliché series. This is the newly formed child of those shows. It does have one or two contemporary sketches along with its own oddball ideas, somewhere good, one of them was great and a few others not so much to my liking, but might get more of a giggle once it’s finally been broadcasted. Last thing, by the time it was all done Gordon confirm to the audience they had no idea when it will be airing at the point. Well, that was everything I can say for now. Might come back and talk more about each sketches when it does pop up on Radio 4. Hope this was some use to those who did/didn’t come to the show. See ya next time Niki
Just noticed Andrew Marshall tweeted that this has been put back til 11pm Thursday Oct 24th. They should have called it The Never Regions or something.
Radio 4, this Thursday, 11pm (so probably Friday for most people). Sounds about as rooted in The Twilight Zone as Quanderhorn was in Quatermass. Shame it’s only a pilot and not a full series to build some momentum.
Here’s is a Full ‘unlisted’ Upload of “The Nether Regions” for you fellow Ganymede folks… Who wish to hear again the oddball sketch’s of Rob Grant and Andrew Marshall. Enjoy. https://youtu.be/PR1yx2oYAzI
