Radio 4 comedy dramas I can take or leave (usually leave, by preference), but I do enjoy the comedy quizzes. Particularly I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue, and occasionally Just a Minute, although after his behaviour at our awards a few years back I’m gone off Nicholas Parsons.

The News Quiz, though, is a particular gem, so I was glad to get some free tickets for an episode last night.

They record it in The Drill Hall, just off Tottenham Court Road, so it’s an easy walk from the office. Rich met me there, and we headed across together, to be poured into a sparse hall with 200 other Radio 4 listeners for the hour and a bit recording.

It was very primitive set-up. The cast and contestants sat at cloth-draped tables onto which someone had tacked a Radio 4 logo. It was all done in one take that lasted an hour and a quarter, and then hacked down to be broadcast tonight. I listened to it again, and you have to give the editors credit: they did a very good job of representing the whole thing in a 27 minute programme.

The verdict: excellent. Most fun, and somehow through the magic of judicious cutting you get all the best bits on the radio, so the broadcast version is like a greatest hits of the live performance, which is only fair for those listeners who can’t make it down to London.

BBC tickets are free. You can apply for them here, although where this programme is concerned I’ll know in the future that listening at home is just as good as the real thing.

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