Dial F For Football is a new podcast starring Lolly Adefope, Fergus Craig, Jessica Fostekew and Helen Cripps.
The six-part series also features cameos from UK comedy royalty including Alan Davies, Ed Gamble, James Acaster, Lou Sanders, Ben Bailey-Smith and Phil Wang. It’s written by comedian Rhys James and Mark G Smith, who is also the director.
Dial F for Football is an audio comedy series that goes behind-the-scenes of a popular commercial sports radio station, Totalsport FM.
Listeners join the show at a time when the station has decided to ‘modernise’ its output by introducing more ‘diverse, dynamic and interesting talent’, a decision that provokes a reaction from its traditional listener base.
As part of this attempt to drag the station into the 21st century, the station’s most popular double act ‘Des & Pete’ have been split up to make way for Lisa, a talented ‘urban’ YouTuber.
Battling to make her way in an ultra-masculine environment, Lisa (Lolly Adefope) endeavours to prove her worth to the audience and her producer Carla (Jessica Fostekew), whilst also dealing with condescending remarks from some of her callers and in-studio guests.
Meanwhile, Des (Fergus Craig) realises he has to modernise with the station or face the same consequences as his former partner Pete.
All conversations on and off air are included, leading to a show-within-a-show set-up, with all the complexity that comes with it.
Although the main focus of the podcast is comedy, but it also tackling issues of racism, sexism, toxicity and the old guard struggling to come to terms with the new generation.
Dial F for Football is the first scripted podcast from Keep It Light Media, its founder and CEO Michael Marden says: “We’re incredibly excited to work with Rhys, Mark, Lolly, Jess, Tayo and the amazing cast of talent they’ve assembled for Dial F For Football to help bring the show to life.
“Not only is it brilliantly funny, smart and entertaining, it’s also extremely relevant and prescient of a football, sport and journalism landscape that’s constantly evolving and unfolding before our eyes.
“We’re really proud of the series and believe audiences far and wide will feel the same. (But mostly, it’s just really funny).”
The series was created and produced by Tayo Popoola, an audio producer and presenter who has worked ‘in and around’ sports radio for 10 years and the music and sound design were created by Tom Jenkins, who has previously worked on Radio 4’s satirical phone-in comedy series Down The Line.
Dial F For Football will be available on all major podcast platforms weekly from 27 March.
