Herald Arts sits down with the cast of Radio 4’s iconic show of satire and mimicry, Dead Ringers, as they head out on tour, including bringing the laughs to Birmingham Symphony Hall on 28th January.
THERE are a lot of familiar people gathered around this table. Paul McCartney, Keir Starmer, Theresa May, Kirsty Wark, Tom Baker, Boris Johnson and Donald Trump barging his way in. It’s hard for me to get a word in edgeways.
Except that these people are not really here. It just sounds like they are. I’m actually sitting with impressionists Jan Ravens, Jon Culshaw, Lewis MacLeod and Duncan Wisbey, collectively BBC Radio’s Dead Ringers team. They are all flexing their vocal muscles. And with good reason. After 25 years they are about to embark on the first ever UK tour.
Needless to say they are excited. And although Duncan Wisbey’s Paul McCartney might make an appearance onstage during the audience Q&A it’s not exactly an Oasis-style rock and roll road trip. On the subject of dressing room demands, there is no cigarettes and alcohol, just “throat lozenges, vitamins and a comfy sofa”.
The show will be a greatest hits package, revisiting much loved sketches and characters. Jon Culshaw is pretty sure Tom Baker will be popping up. Fans would not forgive him if he didn’t. Jan Ravens will be reviving Theresa May. Lewis MacLeod will be Trump and Duncan Wisbey will bring things up to date with Keir Starmer.
Dead Ringers. Photo: Steve Ullathorne
But this is just the tip of the impersonation iceberg. After a quarter of a century, including seven BBC TV series, they have a lot to cherry pick from. And there were also be up to the minute material too. “We will be stitching in some topical lines where we can,” says Jan Ravens.
While the core members of the team are present, there is somebody just as important, maybe even more important, sadly missing. Producer Bill Dare had the original idea for Dead Ringers and took it to the BBC. Plans were just coming together for the tour when in March he tragically died in a car crash, aged 64. The tour is very much a tribute to Dare.
“He was just starting to put together the continental plates of this show, working out the format, how it should guide people through the last 25 years of history via the Dead Ringers lens,” says Jon Culshaw, who is remarkably soft spoken offstage. All four performers agree that Dare was unique. Creative, inspired, encouraging. “His editing skills were phenomenal,” adds Duncan Wisbey.
“It was just the worst start to the year really,” continues Lewis MacLeod. “This was a call that you don’t expect to hear, but there was a show-must-go-on approach. We had a lovely WhatsApp group sharing thoughts. It felt very raw for a couple of months, and then slowly we started getting back to working together.”
Dare wasn’t just the man behind Dead Ringers, he was the show’s biggest fan, recalls MacLeod: “He loved impressions. It was almost like a childlike thing. A good impression is like a sort of necromancy. It’s a weird thing to see somebody seem to be somebody you know perfectly well that they’re not. And Bill just took such delight in that.”
With Dare gone it has been down to the quartet, plus producer Jon Holmes and main writers Laurence Howarth. Tom Jamieson and Nev Fountain to pull things together. “There was something very poignant in our first read-through back after losing Bill,” says Culshaw. “Just seeing Jon, Laurence, Tom and Nev. It was as if the four of them were carrying this responsibility, this collective wisdom reassuring us it will be alright.”
It is a show that has always been evolving. When it started it created a comedic alternative Radio 4 universe featuring send-ups of presenters such as James Naughtie alongside parodies of TV programmes such as Watercolour Challenge. When it came back in 2014 though, the landscape had changed and the programme changed with it. Like Tom Baker’s Doctor Who it regenerated.
“One thing that we really noticed in 2014 was that we were surrounded by 24-hour social media, which had really changed the pace of news and had changed the appetite of the audience. Listeners wanted more politics, less of the gentle micky taking of shows such as Location, Location, Location,” says Ravens.
Dead Ringers. Photo: Steve Ullathorne
A changing landscape meant changing voices. One of the new stand-outs was Brexit Secretary David Davis, courtesy of Duncan Wisbey: “In the read through I did the thing about him being very vague and saying ‘of course there’s a plan for Brexit, well, we think there is, well, there might be one somewhere, well, we might find one down the back of the sofa’, and Bill loved that.”
When Wisbey says this it’s as if David Davis has popped into the room. They all agree that there is an art to getting a voice right. Wisbey finally got Paul McCartney spot-on when he imagined the ex-Beatle having “a face like a barn owl with a little beak and those big eyes.” Jeremy Hunt is vampiric, Jacob Rees-Mogg talks like Noel Coward.
The foursome each have their favourites. Jon Culshaw has a soft spot for Countryfile presenter John Craven: “And here we are. I’m standing by a barn door. Today, we’re going to be talking about ospreys and a special new variety of bullock.”
Jan Ravens is hoping to dust off her Anne Robinson and there may well be some Liz Truss. “It’s satire,” says Ravens. “You’re pricking pomposity. With Liz it’s obviously a very broad caricature. But it’s just such fun and it captures something. I love it when she just comes on and the whole audience explodes.”
The programme keeps morphing with the times. They now find that podcasts are fertile ground for send-ups – doing Rory Stewart and Alistair Campbell on The Rest is Politics for example. There will always be new stories.
“Every week I’m constantly astonished at how the writers manage to come up with a funny angle on what you think is a completely untouchable subject,” says MacLeod.
The show is a true phenomenon. Clips regularly pop up on social media and ping around the world, notching up followers who weren’t even born when the show first started. And now there is a chance to see these great performers doing what they do so well in the flesh.
I have one final question. With AI threatening to take us over do they ever wonder whether they could be replaced by computers? Ravens certainly doesn’t think so and the others nod in agreement. “AI has no expression, no warmth, no humour, no irony. I don’t think we’re out of a job just yet.”
The Dead Ringers Tour at https://fieryentertainment.com