BRING BACK THE RDA!!!
The RDA, hosted by writer and comedian John Gordillo was probably the best programme ever to appear on BBC Choice, bar possibly Liquid News in the Christopher Price days.
What made it stand out was the shear
ingenuity and writing of the team, trying to produce a daily show with a very
limited budget, no guests and barely an audience. It therefore gained cult
status, the sort of which programmes like TFI Friday had in the early days
before they went downhill. With no (or not much material) the show would often
go on about itself, and always made a point that it was recorded live from
Studio 2 at television centre - the smallest of the main 7 studios. There were
features such as "When Monuments Swear", and the ever popular follow-up - When
Tube Stations Swear" - e.g. Arsenal, Shepherd's Bush, Cockfosters,
Farringdon, West Brompton, etc, "The Weathercam challenge",
involving four rooftop BBC weathercams and their operators, as well as regular
guests such as robot "Cosmos Transmutoid" and comedian Paul Foot who often
appeared as "Mr Picnic".
It is at this point that I must state my own bias for wishing the show to return.
John always had a stuffed dog on stage during the show, which he was very fond off and would never let anyone take the piss of. So I thought it would be fun to send an e-mail to the show suggesting that they should team up the dog with Dom Jolley's similarly stuffed Alsatian on Trigger Happy TV. Thus sparking one of the funniest sketches ever to appear on the programme.....
I
e-mailed Stuart Murphy, the controller of BBC Three, asking if he would consider
bringing The RDA back, and he wouldn't commit to a new series, but he did say
that many viewers were enthusiastic about John on the telly, and he couldn't
rule out working with John again, maybe in another show. Well, as yet we'll just
have to wait and see, but a third series (complete with promised OB from BBC
Leeds) does still seem unlikely.