PANTO SEASON: BEHIND THE SCENES - Radio Gaga

Remember that old saying about never working with children or animals? Well, this week Cubbington Players learned a new adage - never work with radio presenters who think they are cleverer than they actually are.

On Wednesday, the group was invited onto the breakfast programme of BBC Coventry and Warwickshire Radio. Unfortunately for them, the region's airport had suddenly closed the day before, whilst Coventry Rugby Club had almost simultaneously announced that it was going into administration. They were, therefore, destined to be the only light relief among the doom and gloom of the rest of the programme whilst, at the same time, being squeezed for time due to the nature of the other news.

This wasn't the problem, though. The problem was with the radio presenter sent along to work with them - or against them, as it turned out. Named Fran, she seemed intent on turning the whole event into The Fran Show, to the total exclusion of everyone else. Given three three-minute segments to showcase their show in, all that the assembled cast managed was two short excerpts, both of which had to feature the ubiquitous Fran.

Now, some elements of this were understandable. It was a good day for bad news and no-one could blame her for playing this segment for laughs, especially as pantomime itself is supposed to be funny. And I suppose you can't really complain that she went slightly gooey whilst thinking of the 6' 8" Jim Suther wearing tights - although taking 2/3 of the time slot doing it was a bit much.

The problem was her complete and utter failure to appreciate that (a) in order to play something for laughs, you have to know what is and isn't funny and (b) Cubbington Players were there to publicise their own show, not help her publicise herself.

For example, continually getting people's names wrong isn't funny. Especially when you do it deliberately. The similarities between Barry White and Barry West start and end with their gender. The fact that the latter is neither black nor dead should have been a giveaway that there were no laughs in this particular trick. And then, having got his name wrong - and that of just about everyone else present, from the producer downwards, too - she allowed so little time for him to give out the dates and ticketing details that even I couldn't catch them, and I know what they are!

There may be no such thing as bad publicity (although I suspect that Tiger Woods would disagree), but this was a case of a lot of effort for no publicity. Except for Fran, of course.