Cabin Pressure, The Complete Series 1 cover art

Cabin Pressure, The Complete Series 1

A full-cast BBC Radio Comedy

 Preview

Get 30 days of Standard free

£5.99/mo after trial. Cancel monthly.
Try for £0.00
More purchase options

Cabin Pressure, The Complete Series 1

By: John Finnemore
Narrated by: Benedict Cumberbatch, Full Cast, John Finnemore, Roger Allam, Stephanie Cole
Try for £0.00

£5.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for £12.06

Buy Now for £12.06

About this listen

Cabin Pressure is set in the wing and a prayer world of a tiny, one-plane charter airline; staffed by two pilots, one on his way down, and one who was never up to start with. Whether flying actresses to Italy, cricketers to the Sahara, or a cat to Abu Dhabi, no job is too small, but many, many jobs are too difficult.

Carolyn Knapp-Shappey, MJN Air's formidable boss, has employed two of the very cheapest pilots money can buy: Captain Martin Crieff, who's always wanted to fly and won't let a little thing like lack of ability stop him, and First Officer Douglas Richardson, smooth-voiced old sky god and eternal schemer. Passenger service is provided by the relentlessly cheery Arthur, proud inventor of both Surprising Rice and his own hat.

Written by John Finnemore (John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme, The Now Show), Cabin Pressure stars Stephanie Cole as Carolyn, Benedict Cumberbatch as Martin, Roger Allam as Douglas and John Finnemore as Arthur.

‘The more I listen to John Finnemore's Cabin Pressure, the more I think what a stonking masterpiece it is. Perfect in every department.’ – Philip Pullman

'Unexpectedly brilliant' - Time Out

'An inspired new sitcom' – Observer

©2008 John Finnemore; (P)2008 BBC Audiobooks Ltd Entertainment & Performing Arts Funny Feel-Good Witty British Fiction

Critic reviews

John Finnemore's writing flies in first class. (Jane Anderson)
a superb cast. Roger Allam, Stephanie Cole and Benedict Cumberbatch give their all (Gillian Reynolds)
I cannot find a single flaw in it. So top marks. (Nicholas Lezard)
The more I listen to John Finnemore's Cabin Pressure, the more I think what a stonking masterpiece it is. Perfect in every department. (Philip Pullman)
All stars
Most relevant
With all the joy of flying and none of the carbon footprint, John Finnemore's perfectly-crafted sitcom will have you disturbing the other passengers with shouts of laughter. The regular cast are so brilliant you forget they are a cast and start (worryingly!) to believe that there really is a tiny airline somewhere, run by the fearsome, headmistressy Carolyn and staffed by her only-marginally-more intelligent-than-a-potplant son, Arthur.
Finnemore delights every time with clever plot twists and the occasional glimpse into the tortured private worlds of his characters, continually hinting at personal tragedies but keeping the balance firmly in the area of comedy.
Buy this CD for every possible reason: the script, the acting quality, and Duggie's irresistible dark brown voice. Buy another copy for a friend. If you can't think of a friend you'd like to buy it for, make some new friends.
P.S. The captain is called Martin. He just wanted me to include that.

Cabin Pressure

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The most fantastic comedy series I have ever listened to. All the characters are excellent and the humour remains A1 even after the 20th listen! I can't praise Cabin Pressure highly enough.

Still the best thing ever produced by the BBC. If you haven't listened up till now .... do it.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This is absolutely Laugh Out Loud fare. Benedict Cumberbatch - always excellent at everything he does - is a wonderful foil for Roger Allam's biting wit. The hapless Martin is a gem. Stephanie Cole holds this motley crew together with a vicious tongue. Loved it.

LOL - as they say nowadays.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Many Radio 4 comedies fail to engage. This one is an exception - its utterly perfect. Great script and fantastic, funny performances from the core cast of four. My particular favourite is Roger Allam's smooth Douglas, the first office who delivers his withery put-downs with the precision of a surgeon.

Utter class

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Where does Cabin Pressure, The Complete Series 1 rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

I was a little reluctant to use precious credits on audiobooks that are so short - but when you find that you want to listen over and over again to each episode, you realise that these are credits well spent. I now have all 4 series - indeed, every episode ever made (there will be no more) and they still make me laugh aloud in places. (When I listen as I walk with the dogs I tend to have a permanent grin on my face. Anyone seeing me would probably sidle away as quickly as possible.)

What did you like best about this story?

These are all real, believable, warm, lovable and very funny characters. Each is very different. No one character is more important than any other but together they make the MJN airline (consisting of one elderly jet) a "family" whose antics are entirely believable in spite of being often surreal. The writing is just superb, the plots complex and satisfying, and each time I listen to the dialogue I notice something subtle that hadn't struck me before.

What does the narrators bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you had only read the book?

This is a BBC radio series. I only caught a very few when they were broadcast - but quickly realised that this is BBC radio comedy at its very, very best. John Finnemore, both as writer and actor, is a joy. Stephanie Cole is perfect (and it is so good that she gets her own marvellously idiosyncratic love story!), no one in England has a more splendid voice than Roger Allam, and here is Benedict Cumberbatch giving each episode such a lovable, diffident, self-deprecating seam of fun that his eventual triumph makes one want to cheer aloud.

Joyous listening ("The lemon is in play")

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews