Radio and Television
He features on BBC Radio 4 where he has been a regular contributor to The Now Show since 1999, and BBC Radio 2's It's Been a Bad Week (since 2000). He is also an occasional contributor to Jammin' on BBC Radio 2. In 2004 he created his own aptly named series, Mitch Benn's Crimes Against Music on Radio 4, featuring Robin Ince and Alfie Joey; this has now run to three series. In 2005 he started a series for BBC7 called The Mitch Benn Music Show where he plays records of comic songs and invites musical comedians into the studio to perform. He took a small role as Pseudopodic Creature in the Quintessential Phase of Radio 4's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in 2005. He regularly appears on BBC Radio 2's Steve Wright Show as the voice of Elvis in the "Ask Elvis" feature.
On television Mitch Benn appears on a semi-regular basis singing a song about the PlayStation 3's yellow light of death on BBC One's consumer affairs programme Watchdog.
Mitch has performed stand-up on Live At Jongleurs and The Comedy Store for the Paramount Comedy Channel, as well as two appearances with his band The Distractions (see below) for The World Stands Up (Paramount/Comedy Central). He appeared as "King Wonderful" in the CBBC comedy show Stupid! and has contributed to a couple of "talking head" nostalgia shows; X-Rated; The Videos They Tried To Ban (Channel 4) and Fifty Greatest Comedy Characters (Five). He also contributes occasional songs to Channel 4's Bremner, Bird and Fortune.
Benn regularly plays live shows at clubs and festivals in the United Kingdom, and has toured extensively overseas, including South Africa, Hong Kong and Singapore. In August 2007 he completed a successful run at the Edinburgh Fringe, performing a two hour show, The Mitch Benn Music Club, with The Distractions. He completed his most recent national UK tour in December 2008, the Sing Like an Angel tour, which coincided with the release of his sixth album, of the same name. Mitch Benn tours the UK again during October and November 2009.
In November 2010 he released "I'm Proud of the BBC", a song listing many of the corporation's achievements. The track was available for download-only and made it to 11th in the Independent Singles Chart.
Read more about this topic: Mitch Benn
Famous quotes containing the words radio and/or television:
“All radio is dead. Which means that these tape recordings I’m making are for the sake of future history. If any.”
—Barré Lyndon (1896–1972)
“Television ... helps blur the distinction between framed and unframed reality. Whereas going to the movies necessarily entails leaving one’s ordinary surroundings, soap operas are in fact spatially inseparable from the rest of one’s life. In homes where television is on most of the time, they are also temporally integrated into one’s “real” life and, unlike the experience of going out in the evening to see a show, may not even interrupt its regular flow.”
—Eviatar Zerubavel, U.S. sociologist, educator. The Fine Line: Making Distinctions in Everyday Life, ch. 5, University of Chicago Press (1991)