Having long been a fan of John Finnemore in general and of Souvenir Programme in particular, and having listened to every episode ad infinitum to help fall asleep (not the damning with faint praise that that might convey!), it’s a genuine thrill to sit in a horrifically unconditioned old church hall(?) amongst maybe, I don’t know, 60 other people to watch almost all of the cast (minus an absent Laurie Lewin) run through this year’s JFSP special. The first surprise was whether this would take the form of the 2023 special - a standard collection of sketches as per the first 8 series - or the 2024 special - a more experimental piece, a la series 9. In the event, it turns out to be the former. We get a slightly updated and topical sketch from a few series back for this room only, and then into the rest of the new sketches. As it’s effectively a WIP, it seems unfair to dig into the details too much, other than to say they are exactly what you’d hope for from this style of JFSP. Fun premises, actual punchlines, the usual hangups and recurring underlying obsessions that clearly fuel Finnemore. Whether it was because it was yet to be written or merely to not spoil every sketch for us, for the Since You Ask Me… we were treated to the classic Treasure Island (“Polly wants a bison!”) edition from the first series, which is impeccable on the radio and even more fun live. My primary thought as we headed back to Paddington was mostly that it was very weird putting faces to the voices to which I’ve been listening for 10 years on the radio. And that’s a hard one to explain with my aphantasia. It’s not like I can see them when I listen to it now, but there is a difference somehow between the old state of not knowing what they look like and the new state of, well, knowing what they look like. This isn’t even a complaint about how they look, they are all very handsome. Just… a new familiar to find.