April News

Ooooh. It's been a while, hasn't it? And that's mainly because CBBC's My Almost Famous Family has been keeping my alternately busy/awake at night. There's lots to do - we're in the middle of filming at the moment - and with three or four songs per episode plus lots of other musical sequences there's not a lot of time for much else to be honest.

The fruits of our recent labours can currently be seen on screen: Horrible Histories and Ed and Oucho; Bear Behaving Badly and The Fluffy Club; they're all on various channels at various times so, you know, tune in. And the third series of That Mitchell and Webb Look should hit the airwaves soon - there's been a best of series 2 repackaging preceding it - so look out for that. We did some funny harpsichord music if I remember rightly.

February News

I've just begun work as Musical Director on a big project for CBBC that'll keep me out of trouble till the summer. Currently called 'My Almost Famous Family', it's a 12 part sit-com about a family that all play together as the house band on a chat show. I'm quite excited by it.

That means that my all-new radio series -The Music Teacher -that I've had commissioned through our Production Company, Top Dog, will now probably be written and recorded later in the year for delivery to Radio 4 for January 2010. I'm quite excited by that, as well.

Other bits and bobs that myself and Mr Katz have been up to include music and songs for a comedy pilot for CBBC stars Sam and Mark, a slightly random arrangement of the 1982 ITV World Cup Theme for a BBC4 panel game 'We Need Answers'  - I don't really know why - and a backing track for the 'Two Pints of Lager' crowd to sing along to for Comic Relief on March 13th. It's very rude. Not my fault, your honour.

January News

... and a happy new year.

I'm currently in the middle of writing songs for and appearing in David Quantick's Radio 4 show, Broken Arts - which starts going out in the highly sought-after 6.30 slot from Tuesday 13th January. Tune in if you're keen to hear Gilbert and Sullivan's triumphant return from the dead. And tune in if you're not.

I've also just written and recorded a song for a fantastic new BBC3 pilot called 'We Are Mongrels' - a show billed as the world's first urban, multi-species, adult puppet comedy. Oh yes. I wrote a R n B love song for a cat to sing to his recently removed testicles. It's a must see.

15 Minute Musical - series 5

The fifth series of my radio show 15 Minute Musical starts going out on Radio 4 on Wednesdays at 11pm from the 5th November. For six - count them - weeks. Obviously I don't expect anyone to stay up that late but should you feel the need to hear music and jokes - OFTEN AT THE SAME TIME - then please seek out the show via the BBC iplayer.

The Observer said the series 'kicks off in fine style' - which leaves only one way to go, clearly, and The Sunday Times said it was 'rather clever'. I'd have preferred 'funny' but there you go. Other previews can be found here and here.

This series features various combinations of me, Dave Lamb, Vicki Pepperdine, Mel Hudson and Jess Robinson and includes the following episodes:

5/11 - 'Washington High School Musical' - Barack Obama competes to become President of Washington High

12/11 - 'Sweary Todd' - Gordon Ramsay stars as The Demon Carver of Meat Street.

19/11 - 'We're All Going On An Olympic Odyssey' - with Boris Johnson at the wheel of a Routemaster bus.

26/11 - 'Cleggerella' - Nick Clegg's (who?) dreams come true in a makeover fairytale.

3/12 - 'Pappa Pia' - Piers Morgan searches for his real father. Turns out he's a bastard.

10/12 - 'A Christmas Gordon' - the ghosts of Prime Ministers past, present and future come knocking at Ebenezer Brown's door.

There. I've finished. If you're still reading, thank you.

October News

Series 5 of '15 Minute Musical' is all recorded - many thanks to all of you who attended the recordings, they were an awful lot of fun. We're in the process of editing them, and they're sounding great. They go to air from Wednesday 5th November at 11.00pm on Radio 4.

The Fluffy Club also started going out this month - early mornings at the weekend simultaneously on GMTV and CITV from 25th October. If you have children of a certain age I'm sure you'll come to love my delirious 'Wake Up' song blasting into your living room at 6.00am.

We're in the middle of songs and stuff for Ed and Oucho's CBBC Science-based comedy at the moment and I'm about to embark on some comedy songs for David Quantick's new Radio 4 show, Broken Arts - which will be recording in December.

15 Minute Musical on CD again

If two year old musical satire is your thing - and for God's sake why wouldn't it be? - then you'll be delighted to know the BBC have tardily released series three of my radio series 15 Minute Musical.

Buy it here. It'll perfectly complement series four that you'll have clearly already bought.

Look out for series 2 release three years late next year. I'm not joking.

September news

It's quite busy here at Webbkatz Towers. Here's what we're currently up to:

Putting the finishing touches to the backing tracks for series 5 of my radio 4 show 15 Minute Musical, which I'm recording at The Drill Hall on the 24th Sept and the 8th and 22nd Oct. Remarkably, all the tickets have gone for the first recording but you can still get them for the other two here.

We're also working on music for a number of new children's shows which will see the light of day over the coming months, including a theme tune package and 12 songs for Horrible Histories for Lion TV, more of the same for Ed and Oucho's Excellent Inventions for CBBC, and having just finished work on the second series of Bear Behaving Badly for Darrall MacQueen, we're working with them once more on GMTV's new pre-school strand The Fluffy Club, which if nothing else is a great title.

And once again we're doing some odd bits and bobs for series 3 of That Mitchell and Webb Look. No relation, by the way. Although if I had a pound for everytime someone rings me up to offer me a job thinking I'm Robert Webb I'd be three pounds better off.