Lionel Nimrod's Inexplicable World, currently being repeated on BBC7, was Stewart Lee & Richard Herring's first fully fledged radio series as a double-act. Similar in presentation to the more famous Fist Of Fun but with a weekly remit to send up Arthur C. Clarke-style 'mysterious things' TV shows and magazines typified by The Unexplained and Fortean Times.
Playing themselves - or at least versions thereof (Lee the grumpy cynic; Herring the chirpy innocent), the duo would draw on research from an ever-expanding library of academic tomes (each reference meticulously footnoted) to either prove or disprove the theoretical, the outlandish or the historically silly. Recurring characters such as reporter Wendy Leafly; cleric Father Raymond Van Halen; Hammond organ 'Believe It Or Not File' expert Peter Fenn and the ever-watchful Lionel Nimrod assisted the set-up in a series of sketches, banter and staged 'experiments' purportedly involving the audience. Produced by Sarah Smith, and recorded live at The Paris studios, London, the show co-starred Armando Iannucci and Rebecca Front (with Carla Mendonca stepping into the latter's shoes for Series 2, Show 4 (05/08/93)). Peter Baynham also made one uncredited appearence (in 'Love' - Series 1, Show 6 (12/11/92)) as an audience member in love with spaghetti - a sketch which was later rewritten for TV with the fake Rod Hull and jelly.
Lionel Nimrod himself was portrayed, in a series of eerie pre-recorded inserts topping and tailing each show, by Tom Baker, who also made an in-person appearance - to the absolute delight of the audience - in the final show. Richard Herring recalls: 'We tried to get Leonard Nimoy (hence the name of the hero) and William Shatner first, but with no luck. Then we got more realistic and
realised that Baker would be brilliant. I didn't meet him 'til he did the last show. Sarah taped all his bits just with him. I think he made a comment to her about recognising that the character was a bit of a washed up old fart, like himself. And he laughed at this. He was extremely good value at the recording. As we all sat in the green room, Sarah Smith came in, holding herself a little proudly and he said "Look at her with her tits all sticking out!" The look on the face of the austere Sarah Smith was, as they say, a picture.'
There were two series, broadcast on Radio 4, running from 08/10/92 to 12/11/92, and 15/07/93 to 19/08/93 respectively. Several shows were also repeated on Radio 1 as a taster for the forthcoming Fist Of Fun.
As is the norm, prior to the series came a couple of pilot shows, the first of which, Lionel Nimrod's Spooky World is reproduced in full below.
There are some notable differences - the most obvious being that, instead of appearing as themselves, the duo adopted 'characters'. Herring played "European editor of the Annual Science Pamphlet, Francis Sousa", while Lee contended with a Terry Christian-type persona - "popular northern youth TV celebrity Barry Crustings". Herring: 'It was much more of a kind of Word parody thing to begin with - there was a character called Amanda Decadent I remember.'
The reasoning behind choosing such an obvious bit of reference comedy for the format was probably one of practicality: 'Maybe we went for the Word thing in the hope that that would help the PDG (the BBC's Programme Development Group) understand it and commission it. I wonder how much Sarah was actually second guessing the PDG rather than reporting back from them over this. I know we worked very hard trying to create a format that would be acceptable to them though. And I have a feeling that both me
and Stew felt restricted by this and wanted just to do a load of sketches that loosely fitted the theme with a framework where this led somewhere (which is what we eventually got) and that Sarah was pushing us more into format etc - possibly realising that once we had the green light we could do what we want.'
'It appears that we probably convinced the PDG by the pilot not really working and probably sounding a bit uncomfortable as fictional characters.'
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| Bryonie Pritchard |
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Spooky World was recorded at The Paris on 3rd July 1991. The format isn't too far removed from the actual series - the only other real difference is the inclusion of 'ZX81', a weather satellite gone awry who acts as a convenient reference tool for the team's research. The satellite, and various other girl-parts, were voiced by Bryonie Pritchard who is best known to telefantasy fans as 'Dr Sally Arnold' in the Doctor Who spin-off 'Auton Trilogy' adventures (apparently), and to comedy fans as part of the acting team of Radio 4's The Harpoon (the first series of which was being recorded around the time of the Nimrod pilot). She also appeared at least one Alan Parker - Urban Warrior show on Radio 1. Both the latter and The Harpoon were produced by Sarah Smith. Coincidence? Or something more sinister...
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| Philip Whitchurch |
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The fourth member of the pilot team was Philip Whitchurch, who's currently best known to comedy fans as 'Tyler' in BBC1's My Hero. Richard Herring: 'I can't remember why we changed the cast. Possibly we'd wanted Rebecca all along and she wasn't available for the pilot. I don't know why we didn't have Phillip in the series. Maybe it didn't quite feel right. It took us a while to think of having Armando in it (at Sarah's suggestion I think. She certainly cast Phillip and Bryonie who she had both worked with before).'
After the pilot was recorded the duo had to wait until September to hear whether all their work had been apreciated. On the 29th of that month they were asked to make a second pilot and were given the opportunity to drop the ZX81 weather satellite and yoof-show leanings completely. The duo and their producer were much happier with the results of this revamped outing.
The PDG however weren't quite so pleased and rejected the series. All would have been lost were it not for Sarah Smith refusing to accept no for an answer and, according to Herring, insisting that it was 'the most original thing she'd worked on and that she'd resign if it didn't get a series. And they relented'. It seems that, sometimes, sticking your tits out can yield the right results!
This new-improved pilot most probably became the third transmitted show of Series 1 ('Death & The After Life' - 22/10/92). The set-up of both the Spooky World pilot and the latter show are similar, and much of the script was re-used - including the montage of death-related pop songs, the trainee Grim Reapers ("You're all crap!"), the Philip Griffis sections (with the character renamed 'Ralph Griffis' for some reason) and, interestingly, the Jesus Christ / Scoobey Doo (sic) sketch - with an additional exchange in which the duo denounce the "Gospel According To St Shaggy" as a fraud (upon the insistance of the BBC to avoid listener complaints!). Other sections and lines from the pilot script featured in subsequent programmes, while the Rasputin section was also reworked for Herring's solo show Ra Ra Rasputin which played to audiences at the Edinburgh Fringe in 1993, along with an Inexplicable World show which featured the duo plus Alistair McGowan and Ronnie Ancona (with Lionel Nimrod's pre-recorded contributions relayed to the audience on videotape via a TV set). Herring: 'Tom Baker made us change a cruel reference to the death of Dick
Emery in the stage version of the show (in the bit he pre-recorded), saying he expected better of us. We were chastened and did change it. I think he did the Edinburgh
bit for nothing. I like him.'
