Dirk Maggs

The award-winning master of spoken word audio, this week's guest is the endlessly entertaining Dirk Maggs. Dirk has been overseeing the production of The Sandman: Act III, the latest in a long line of collaborations with Neil Gaiman. He was first introduced to Neil via a mutual friend at DC Comics, as Dirk had been involved in audio productions of The Adventures of Superman, Batman: The Lazarus Syndrome and other projects and it was also due to the DC connection that Dirk met Douglas Adams and so began the protracted process of bringing The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy 'back home to BBC Radio' as Adams put it. Dirk has also produced adaptations of Agatha Christie, Stephen King and Arthur C Clarke works. But it is for his work in comedy that we are focusing on this week - Dirk devised and produced At Last The Go On Show in 1991 to mark the 40th anniversary of The Goon Show; he later was the brains behind Goon Again in 2001, a special one-off restaging of The Goon Show starring Jeffrey Holland, Andrew Secombe, Jon Glover and Christopher Timothy ('a genetically-engineered tribute band' was how he described it). We also talk about his early break in BBC Radio comedy producing The News Huddlines and shows such as The Long Hot Satsuma starring Graeme Garden and Barry Cryer, and later programmes like Inside Sasha and Flywheel, Shyster & Flywheel which introduced The Marx Brothers to new generations. It's a terrific conversation about a wide-ranging and never-dull career. More on Dirk here: www.dirkmaggs.com