The Department was a BBC Radio 4 (R4) comedy satire series that had 14 x 30-minute episodes between 2004 and 2006 (Comedy.co.uk). The mythical Department of the show is a secret organisation (Research Team 32). This is a three man think tank with a brief to brainstorm ideas for solving society’s problems.

Episode guide list – here.

The main stars and writers were:

• Andy Zaltzman
• Chris Addison
• John Oliver

S3 Ep1 was broadcast on August 2^nd 2006 and featured a 2-minute cameo appearance from Jimmy Carr. Amusingly the title of the show was: Tax and Public Spending.

If you don’t want to listen to all of the audio only episode, below, Jimmy’s appearance is around 21 minutes. He plays a gameshow host and a couple (Margaret and Rico) are offered the chance to open the Box of Destiny. Jimmy tells them that they can gamble their Basic State Pension – by opening the box. The box “could” contain:

• A Jimmy Carr quadruple pension for two
• A Jimmy Carr hot water bottle and signed good luck photo

“Mr Carr” (as they refer to him) asks for a decision and they choose to open the box…and are told “bad luck, it’s absolutely nothing”. He wraps up by saying they will be back after the break with 2 more “desperate 65-year-olds”.

In the end credits we are told:

“Jimmy Carr rode into the studio on a horse and rode out on a Rhino. Enough said”

How did this collaboration happen?

How did Jimmy end up working with these 3 people? When did they all first meet?

Pondering this because this surrealist radio show is so far removed from Jimmy’s style.

Chris Addison was on David Baddiel’s Heresy with Jimmy in June 2006 (here) and also 8oo10c S4 (here) but this Cats episode was after this radio show, so looks more like that was a “return fixture”.

John Oliver and Andy Zaltzman could have met Jimmy several times at Edinburgh. The 2 of them worked on shows together at the Fringe 2004 and 2006. And John had been there solo in 2002 and 2003.

Andy would probably have met Jimmy as far back as 1999 as they were both finalists in So You Think You’re Funny? (here). He didn’t appear on 8oo10c until 2008 (here).

Despite all the research that I’ve done (on Mr Carr’s career) if you’d asked me what the “seven degrees of separation” were, for these people, I couldn’t have begun to guess. Until I searched this blog and my notes.

Chris Addison, for example, appeared on Cats in 2006, 2007 & 2008 but never really registered with me. I considered him a Mock The Week man. Funny how some comics make more of an impression on you than others.