Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4 - The News Quiz: Ep1. Messiah or Doctor?

Episode Date: April 24, 2026

After six weeks off air Andy Zaltzman is back. Helping him kick off the series are Andrew Maxwell, Zoe Lyons, Stephen Bush and Kiri Pritchard-McLean. They’ll be tackling the big questions - how is the country feeling ahead of the potentially seismic elections on 7th May? Why is Donald Trump feuding with the Pope and why are mini-gherkins now harder to find than ever?Written by Andy Zaltzman.With additional material by: Mike Shephard, Ruth Husko, Dee Allum and Angela Channell Producer: Georgia Keating Executive Producer: Pete Strauss Production Coordinator: Asha Osborne-Grinter Sound Editor: Marc WillcoxA BBC Studios Production for Radio 4.

Welcome to another series of the news quiz. I'm Zaltzman. As you'll have heard, the BBC are making... To be precise, they're making cuts of ten per... This means that every tenth word in this week's won't be said. So some jokes may not have... And those that do still have punchlines won't be... Funny.

Anyway, on we go. This is the news. Let's meet this week's teams. We have Team Messiah against Team... No, sorry, not Messiah. I meant Doctor. On Team Messiah, we have Stephen Bush and Kiri Pritchard McLean. On Team Doctor, Zoe Lyons, and Andrew Maxwell. Kiri and Stephen, you can take our first question.

There are now less than three weeks to go until what potentially seismic, transformational event? The Devil wears Prada, too. I'm not joking. Look, as a millennial, right, obviously a lot has gone wrong since the mid-naughties for my generation. And it's an exciting reminder of a time when, you know, we had economic growth, we were in the EU. It's also a terrifying journey back to a time when we had an ill-advised war in the Middle East. But, you know, not everything's perfect.

So, yeah, I've got big hopes for the devil where's brother to you. All right, you're resting quite a lot of hopes on one film, though. I would put it to you than that is a much more well-thought-out-through plan than, say, Donald Trump. How long have you got? Kiri, we're less than three weeks away from what? Big news in my home country because we're electing a new Senate. Yes, the Senate elections, Scottish Parliament elections and local elections in England are happening in three weeks' time on the 7th of May.

So we're going to have a new parliament. We've all been put into a super constituency. Terrible superhero, just in charge of the Bindays. But these elections for us, so it's going to be a big change. So the Senate was established in 1999, since then, Labour have been in control. and it looks like they're going to lose power in the government. In fact, that they might be down to single fingers. Down to single fingers.

That's what we do. We punish people. They lose a finger. They lose a see, they'll lose a finger. Not my rules. Labor's down to single figures, potentially, in terms of MSs, which is huge news. Also, I think, keep your eyes on what's happening politically in Wales because we are seen to be sort of a canary in the coal mine.

Coal mines, by the way, one of the things reform has pitched to bring back in Wales. I know, yeah, because that's what we want in Wales is the gentle hum of a nebulizer in the corner of the living room. We've really missed those. Reform as well, they've released the manifesto. It's 18 pages

long, so a little light on detail. The main thing that they want to do is to scrap the 20 miles per hour. Now, since the 20 per hour limit has been introduced in Wales, the stats have come back and said that about 100 lives have been saved. So reform are running on the idea that should be more dead Welsh people.

That's their big policy. Ply to Cumberary are probably going to form the next government. They're sort of centre-left. Also, probably in a coalition with the Green Party, maybe some Labour members. The Lib Dems are like, we might form the next government. There's one of them, and she's set to lose a seat, so we can do what we do in England, ignore the Lib Dems.

Yeah, it's a really sort of exciting time for politics in Wales. So reform in the polling is sort of the neck and neck with replied CUMRI. Despite Reform UK misspelling two of the three Welsh language words on the cover of their manifesto. Yes.

Yeah, not bad. And those were the only Welsh words in the manifesto as well. So not great odds. So is it possible then having misspelled two of those three words that many voters will tell Reform to no duck themselves?

Andrew, how excited are you about all these elections on the 7th of May? I am very excited. I strongly oppose the 20 miles an hour. I think that's outrageous. I stand with reform on that. Only because all my points have totted up

and I'm on the verge of losing me licence. Politically at the moment, the whole of the United Kingdom is in a really weird position, isn't it? Stephen, no one's really doing that well in the polls. I think reform are generally leading the national polls around about 24, 25%. So basically all the parties are going to get at least 75%

of the electorate not voting for them, which is quite an impressively broad display of political antipathy, isn't it? Yeah, I mean, it's really hard to fathom, isn't it? I mean, when you think about them, they're all so appealing, right? I could vote for

reform who are kind of on the fence about whether or I should be in this country. You could vote for the conservatives who basically have the thing that everything was going brilliantly in the United Kingdom until the summer of 2024 when inexplicably the British public rejected them in a landslide. Who can say why it happened, but we'll come to our senses really soon. You can vote for the Greens who basically, I think, think all of our problems can be solved

through communing with crystals. Or you can vote for the Labour Party, who I don't seem to believe in anything. Or you can vote for the Lib Dems who, well, I guess the great thing about the Lib Dems is when you suddenly don't have a punchline, you can just go, the Lib Dems, everybody. But, yeah, I think people are just very dissatisfied with everything, but the good news is our electoral system

is really well set up to deal with that. It absolutely won't guarantee a really extreme government winning a landslide majority on a quarter of a vote. So don't worry, guys. Sleep well. You live in Brighton, Zoe. I do.

So, I mean, the green surge, you've experienced that. You've had green envies down there We've had Greens, you've had labour, we've had all sorts, we've had, I'll tell you what we do still have, though, pot holes. That's what we've got, we've still got pot holes, still got potholes and bin issues, and it's, you know, this is what these elections are about.

They're about sort of communal things that affect people at sort of grassroots. They've all bins, libraries, potholes. And it's got to the point in this country where our potholes are so big, you could actually build your sodding library in the potholes. If you let all the potholes join up, then we just have a rowed, but a little bit lower. I think that's there.

I think that's actually a bloody brilliant idea. Thanks. Both for me. 50 mile an hour in a 20s hour. We start the old potholes. Do we know? Nobody else seems to have them. The other countries don't seem to have potholds. It's our defence mechanism now.

That is what it is. If we ever get invaded, the only thing that will save us are potholes. That is it. They'll charge up the beaches. They go, we've got them. We've invaded. Bum, oh, sod it.

Call the AA. That's shattered me, Axel. The Greens are offering people in Scotland free what? Anyone? Anorex? Not anorex? Oh, is it free bus travel? It is, yes.

Is that going to be enough? Do you think? What, to make a Green Parliament in Scotland? I don't think so, because I think Scotland's a bus system is a little bit like Wales's bus system where it's just two very troubled middle-aged men who have a bus route that is about 18 hours long.

It does mean that more people can be inconvenienced by a pothole at once, though. So it's quite clever. I've never seen a bus driver under 70. Miles an hour? Companies feel then about free buses for everybody then. How is this going to work? I think it's free bus travel

rather than a free bus for everyone. Imagine the traffic through Edinburgh at the moment. Oh my God, it's just end to end, buses. So bus travel for everyone? Yeah. And this is going to be financed. Just is. Oh, right, fine, fair enough.

Crystal. Yeah, Chris. Well, you mentioned the Labour and Conservatives struggling with another electoral debacle, seemingly inevitable. Who this week has been trying to take the writing off the wall? Finally, the Conservative Party are taking on graffiti. It's an absolute abomination. Nobody needs graffiti.

It's appalling. And thank God. Finally, Kemi's stepping up to the plate. Which you'd never expect because the Tories are incredibly hip party. So they're very big into the world of street art. So they're actually going against their own side. So you know they mean it. I always

weird when the Tories get involved in anything trendy it's always weird I did Latitude one year in the music festival and the big scandal was that Damien Green who was at the time was a

Tory government minister was there and he was Instagramming his trip to latitude and all the sandal wearing types of latitude were outraged that there was a Tory government

minister there amongst them and I was like I couldn't agree more a Tory shouldn't be at a music festival a Tory should own the farm the music festival is off. It's actually quite a clever campaign in some way, so their big message is that if the people who've made the graffiti should have to clean it off, either people who are responsible for the mess should be the ones put in charge of cleaning it up, which in a sneak preview of their campaign in the next general election will actually be the message. It was so ineffectual though, wouldn't they? There's this awful video going around to Kerry just sort of, we're just sort of,

with a sponge on graffiti, which is notoriously hard to get off. It's not a bit of jam, you know. So they just sort of spread it around a bit and then buggered off, leaving it slightly worse. But what a bizarre thing. What a bizarre stunt to pull off now. Like Andrew said,

they can't imagine people waking up in Britain at the moment going, oh God, I just, I couldn't sleep last night. Just thinking about the state of the world and all of that graffiti. Well, do I blame for it all, Michael Angelo, East Parliament. You ruined that, C, Lou. Really did. I can't see only the Brit work now. It was lovely.

The pointing on that was gorgeous. Yes, the countdown is on just under three weeks until national parliamentary elections in Scotland and Wales, as well as voters in England joyously skipping to the polling stations in 5,000-odd council seats across England. Who's looking forward to voting in the local elections? Yes. That sounds almost enthusiastic.

Overall, the election seems set to give a very clear idea of a nation that doesn't have any clear idea of what it is politically anymore. Latest polling chose Labour on a heroically unimpressive 17%, behind the Greens' apposantly non-earth-shattering 18%. The Conservatives, phenomenally mediocre 19%, with the Liberal Democrats honour, don't write home about it, 13%, and reform on a flatlined, not really winning over a wider public, 24%. In other words, factoring in the now traditional low turnout, we're looking at all the parties not being voted for by 85% of the electorate, which is frankly spect-that. We have a record number of floating voters now, and by floating, I mean bobbing face-down in a reservoir of disillusion.

Right, at the end of our UK politics round, it's four point all. Moving on now to the story that has dominated global headlines over the past month and a half, Andrew and Zoe. by the time people listen to this, what will be going on in the Iran war? Well, number one, it'll all be sorted. Right. And then it'll be unsorted, and then it'll be sorted again,

and then unsorted before lunch, sorted again after dinner, unsorted when you go to bed, you'll have nightmares about it, you'll wake up, it'll be sorted. By the following lunchtime, it'll be unsorted again, and then sorted again. I think what we're saying is we have no idea what is going on, because there is a bat flying around in that man's head.

To see the sort of global reaction, and I think a reaction of people personally in that the people around did want liberation. You know, it's an unpopular regime there. But I'm not sure that America led by Trump is necessarily the best option to sort it out. It really does put the bad in bad faith actor. But I think there's an uncomfortable thing here

where we need to accept that people who have perceived as evil can possibly do a good thing. You know, Ricky Jervais gave 2.5 million pounds to animal charities. It's exactly the same thing, as far as that concerned. I mean, the whole thing was to take nuclear power away from a lunatic in charge of a regime. And now when I hear that, I'm like, which one are we talking about?

There was no way of knowing that the straight of her moves could be shut down, though. I mean, who could have seen that coming? Do you know what I mean? Who knew that if you eat a load of things? for Jaffa cakes, one day he'll need a poo. Who do what goes in here needs to come out somewhere else?

There's no way of know. You know what I mean? And it's like, it's not only a really narrow straight, it's also you've got to do a big bend as well to get around it. You've actually got to slow down. Are you talking about the toilet? What do you guys think will be happening by the time people listen to this in Iran in the war stroke piece? Well, I think it's an interesting time, is it? Because this is a war

that America started. And they haven't seemed to have thought anything through, whereas Iran had stored, you know, they've got oil that's outside of the stroke of humus that's been stored. They were kind of vaguely prepped for this. So I think the answer is diplomacy is what will hopefully have broken out.

Right. Boo. If this was a ship, you'd be over the side now. I mean, that is not nautical talk. If you're the captain, I think I'd be safer on the side. I'm taking my chances with the water. I mean, I'm no expert in international diplomacy, but then again, nobody is running the states, seems to be either. But the whole point was like Iran put a restriction on the strait of Hormuz, of boats going through.

So to counter that, the USA put a restriction on the boats going through the strait of Hormuz. I don't, I'm confused. It's like trying to solve a headache by punching yourself in the face. But apparently, one of the... As Secretary of States, the States said, you know, these short-term pain will be much better than having to suffer a nuclear attack on London. And they weren't even bad for a nuclear attack on London.

And anyway, I grew up in the 80s when we had a proper threat of nuclear attack from Russia. You know, a proper one. And all we had to defend ourselves then was a pamphlet called Protect and Survive. That was properly terrifying. One of the things we were told to do as a kid if you wanted to survive a nuclear attack,

was take the door off the hinges and put it at 45 degrees. After the three-minute warning, siren has gone off. Can you, have you ever tried to take a door off? It's hinges. Because mostly they've been painted over as well, and then you've got some poor bloke in the hall going,

oh Christ, Margo, it's a Phillips head screw driver. Nuclear attack, because you didn't have a flat head. It's just... On the subject of diplomacy, who posted, then deleted what he claimed was a doctored image of himself? Oh, this is incredible. We've all seen this picture, right?

Donald Trump. I think we can all agree a Christ-like imagery where he's kind of got glowing stigmata and he's laying his hand on the head of what looks to be a deceased Jeffrey Epstein. And there's sort of like, you know,

they've got all these, they've got like the White House in the background and eagles and just lots of American things. So he posted this and loads of people got very upset. and said, are you saying that you're Jesus? And then he said, no, I am saying I am a doctor. And I know we have socialised medicine over here

and they're terrified of it. But if that is the standard of care that they're receiving them there, because I was in A&E recently with a young person who was staying with me, and I didn't see people with glowing, stigmatic, curing people in a very sort of beautiful heavenly way. Saw loads of tired women in crocs vaping outside. And that's what I saw.

But yeah, he claimed that it's not. nothing to do with Jesus. He said it is just I was being depicted as a doctor. That's how I saw it, you know, because I heal people is what he said. So I assume he got his medical degree from Trump University. Yeah, he claims he's a healer and that's where he shared the picture. Can you imagine turning up and that's

the locum who's seeing you? I'll do this to me and myself. Give it again. Have you seen Iran going back and forth though? They took that image and they sort of animated it where Jesus came down from the heavens

and punched Trump's head off his shoulders and then booted it into a pool of lap so that's where we are now I always thought when I was warned about proxy wars when we were growing up I thought it would be drones and robots not memes that's the war we're doing at 2 o'clock in the morning

sending out these images anyway we're having loads of talk up at the moment about taking teenagers off social media keep them on it they're fine they're sensible they know what they're doing take these old bastards run in the world of social media old Donald he's having a row with the Pope He is, yeah. He's gotten a big fight with the Pope.

Who knew an orange man wouldn't like the Pope? Did you hear what he accused the Pope? He said, to the Pope, he said, you're weak on crime. I mean, yeah, you can accuse the Catholic Church of not being very robust when it comes to crimes being committed on their watch, but probably not if you're in the Epstein files. I think that's... Vance then plowed in, didn't he?

He was at the Turning Point Conference and the States recently, poorly attended. poorly attended. And he was talking about the Pope and the Pope getting involved with this whole debacle. And he actually said, I think the Pope should be very careful

when he's talking about things about theology. What? He's the Pope. That is his thing. In fact, if he was on mastermind, it would be named Pope, especially subject, theology. Well, on the subject of,

these uh trumps's excuse of saying claiming it was a doctor what we've done here at the news quiz is create similar AI pictures of our panelists in controversial situations and i want a more implausible excuse from our panelists than trump's honestly i thought i was a doctor so we've got these AI pictures that could be interpreted as being offensive the first one i've got here is Andrew Maxwell and Zoe Lyons turning water into absinth at someone's wedding. Ah yes.

That doesn't look like you at all. You're like Baldrick. I mean... You look like hot Jesus. I look like, I don't know what that. You're like, hey, I can save you one at a time, by the way. Or altogether. That is not a flattering image. That is terrible.

I don't know. I look pretty good in that. But can you explain what you're doing in that without offending an entire religion? No, of course you can. We see, me and Zoe are performing a miracle. We're on the lash in Prague and we don't have that much money for Staropraman so we're just leaning into our miracle ways

and we're just turning water into absent. It's just a much more efficient way of getting 3,000 people slightly pissed. Right. For Stephen and Kiri, here's the picture of you two. It's Stephen Bush and Kiri, Pritchard McLean, about to feed beloved national treasure David Attenborough to a hungry crocodile.

So can you explain yourselves from that picture? Without offending Attenborough-loving country? Right, so in this, we're kind of coaxing Attenborough into the mouth of the crocodile. Okay, well, what this is actually David Attenborough is a big fan of the assisted death, Bill. But he thinks you should be able to choose the way that you want to go. And this is a Siamese crocodile which are endangered. So this is literally what he would have wanted, is to be hurled into the mouth of a crocodile to help it survive a little bit longer. Is that fair, Stephen?

So I think I'm going to go for a different excuse, which is, this is clearly Lenny Henry. Even by the start, I mean, the fun thing about being an ethnic minority. and AI's you literally never know what you're going to get. So my excuse is you fed him to the alligator in the company of either Lenny Henry or James Cleverly. I had nothing to do with it, and I'm disgusted with you for murdering a national treasure. I was trying to raise money for comic relief.

I'm not the enemy here. This is run out of sketches to do, so now we're feeding David Attenborough to Crocodiles live on television. Yeah, the president of the USA came up with an interesting twist on the class. classic doctor-doctor joke format this week. Doctor, doctor, I think I'm a Messiah. Well, you're not a Messiah.

Okay, then, I'm a doctor. Alongside this, Trump has been slagging off the Pope, the universe's least Christian man against someone whose job it is to be the world's most Christian man, the biggest Pope versus divorced dad spat since the English Reformation. One other sort of related story, and there's been a lot of talk about

the impact of the Iran War on the UK, and this very worrying stories concerns about global agriculture in crisis aviation fuel running out but why is Britain simultaneously in a pickle and out of a pickle anyone?

This is the story that's been keeping me up at night. There is a shortage of cognitions. There is. And you can't have a club sandwich without a cornicheon. What is it? It's a tiny,

tiny, tiny little cucumber that's been pickled. It's a pickle. It's a gurkin. It's a mini pickle. It's a mini pickle. It's a gurkin. There's a shortages of connoisseons. And it's wreaking havoc in the club sandwich world. I don't think it's been talked about enough, quite frankly. So thank you. And if you're bringing it up in the news quiz. I think particularly this week, it's been really overlooked by, I would say, other minor issues. And if you do like a pickle, and I do love a pickle, I really enjoy a pickle. I like getting my fingers in the pickle juice and just sort of pickling myself. sometimes, just sprinkling it liberally on my cheese and ham sandwich, then if there's a

shortage of them, then maybe all of the joy of my life has gone. So it's a very sad week for me. Yeah. It's a very sad week for me. You know, it's a cucumber. It is a cucumber, but it's more than a cucumber. It's a cucumber that's said, I'm not just a cucumber. I'm not just going to be for salads. I'm going to be in all sorts of different things. I could possibly even turn up in a Bloody Mary unexpectedly. That is what a cornicheon is. It's a surprise. of a vegetable stroke fruit. It is... This is like Billy Elliot.

This is so moving. I have four open jars of cornishons in my fridge at the moment because they never, ever, ever go off. One's from 1964, I believe. And I still visit them every now and again because they're now my winter cornucons because they have grown their own little jumpers.

You can either peel it out of the jumper or eat it within the jumper. I don't care. I don't care what you do with them. But if there is a shortage of them, that it is a very sad day for this country. Or you're a millionaire now. If the shortage carries on, you've got four jars. I've got four orange jars.

Because I keep forgetting, I think that is actually why there might be a shortage in this country. Because I keep forgetting, I have a jar already of cornucons at the back of the fridge, and I just keep putting more cornucons in front of them, and that's probably what's happening there. Sorry about that, so it's probably my fault. Do we know why we're running out of them?

Do they have to come to the straight of hormills? Not all of them, I don't. But there are concerns. The food prices will go up because of the lack of fertilizer that come through the strait. Apparently, we rely on the load. It's carbon dioxide coming through the straits. Is it carbon sulfate or carbon?

It's sulphur. It's sulphur. I thought it was carbon dioxide. I thought, can we just breathe on stuff? We have still got to... We just breathe on it and let it grow. Although we still don't actually know why... So this story which was broken by the London centric newspaper,

We don't know why Pratt has run out of Cornishon. They've just said it's an issue with their supplier. It's probably slightly too early for it to be a straight issue. I like to believe that maybe there's just a thief out there who's just got a huge, just a barrel of them. I think we found it. Well, it's very concerning news for fans of Cornichens, the French micro-girkin facing the horrific prospect

of having to use sensibly sized pickled vegetables in their sandwich instead. In fact, as I speak stories are emerging, of unscrupulous food retailers replacing real cornishons with substitutes including slugs, painted green and kept in the fridge so they have goose pimples as well as normal-sized pickle cucumbers but further away

and Kermit the frogs well no they wouldn't do that to him were they so at the end of this week's news quiz our winners are Stephen and Kiri congratulations about luck to Zoe and Andrew and before we go after been handed a quick emergency announcement addressed to global oil prices.

Please calm down. Pull yourself together and grow up. You do not need to be emotionally affected by everything he says. Until next week, thank you for listening. Goodbye. Taking part in the news quiz were Andrew Maxwell, Kiri Pritchard MacLean, Stephen Bush and Zoe Lyons. In the chair with me, Andy Zaltzman.

And additional material was written by Mike Shepard, Ruth Husko, D. Allum and Angela Channel. The producer was Georgia Keating, and it was a BBC Studios production for Radio 4. Could you talk about being invisible or double denim? Who knows what's next on the new series of just a minute?

Belting out a rendition of Godabat. Whatever the topic, our panel has just a minute to speak without hesitation, deviation or repetition. Join Zoe Lyons, Desrey Birch, Paul Merton, and many more for the new series of just a minute with me, Super Kids. It's funny because it's true. True.

Listen on Radio 4, and the full box set is available now on BBC Sounds.