''Lenin of the Rovers'' was a

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...

comedy Comedy is a genre of fiction that consists of discourses or works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. The term o ...

series from 1988 written by

Marcus Berkmann Marcus Berkmann (born 14 July 1960) is a journalist and author. Life Berkmann was educated at Highgate School and Worcester College, Oxford. His younger brother is the DJ Justin Berkmann. He began his career as a freelance journalist, contribut ...

, produced by

Harry Thompson Harry William Thompson (6 February 1960 – 7 November 2005) was an English radio and television producer, comedy writer, novelist and biographer. He was the creator of the dark humour television series '' Monkey Dust'', screened between 2003 ...

and starring comedian

Alexei Sayle Alexei David Sayle (born 7 August 1952) is an English actor, author, stand-up comedian, television presenter and former recording artist. He was a leading figure in the British alternative comedy movement in the 1980s. He was voted the 18th gre ...

as Ricky Lenin, Russian captain of Felchester Rovers -

Britain Britain most often refers to: * The United Kingdom, a sovereign state in Europe comprising the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands * Great Britain, the largest island in the United King ...

's only communist

football team A football team is a group of players selected to play together in the various team sports known as football. Such teams could be selected to play in a match against an opposing team, to represent a football club, group, state or nation, an all-s ...

. Other regular players in the team were Stevie Stalin (played by Andrew McClean) and Terry Trotsky (played by Keith Allen in series 1 and by

Phil Cornwell Philip Cornwell (born 5 October 1957) is an English actor, comedian, impressionist and writer. He is part of the '' Dead Ringers'' television and radio series, and was the voice of Murdoc Niccals in the virtual band Gorillaz. Cornwell has co- ...

in series 2). The team was managed by Ray Royce and Colonel Brace-Cartwright (played by veteran actor Ballard Berkeley for Series 1 episodes 1 and 2. Berkeley died during recordings for the series and the part was then played by

Donald Hewlett Donald Marland Hewlett (30 August 1920 – 4 June 2011) was a British actor who was best known for his sitcom roles as Colonel Charles Reynolds in ''It Ain't Half Hot Mum'' and Lord Meldrum in '' You Rang, M'Lord?'', both written by Jimmy Perry ...

thereafter) who were frequently interviewed by Frank Lee Brian (played by real-life football commentator

Kenneth Wolstenholme Kenneth Wolstenholme, DFC & Bar (17 July 1920 – 25 March 2002) was an English football commentator for BBC television in the 1950s and 1960s. He is best remembered for his commentary during the 1966 FIFA World Cup Final; in the closing minu ...

John Sessions John Marshall (11 January 1953 – 2 November 2020), better known by the stage name John Sessions, was a British actor and comedian. He was known for comedy improvisation in television shows such as ''Whose Line Is It Anyway?'', as a panellist o ...

and Jim Broadbent made character appearances in Series 2. The title is a parody of the long-running football-themed comic strip, ''

Roy of the Rovers ''Roy of the Rovers'' is a British comic strip about the life and times of a fictional footballer and later manager named Roy Race, who played for Melchester Rovers. The strip first appeared in the ''Tiger'' in 1954, before giving its name to a ...

''. Although a knowledge of football was useful for the appreciation of the series, it was not essential. The show parodied many aspects of British football culture in the late 1980s, such as the increasing commercialisation in the game, intrusive and rarely accurate media and fan violence. The script also made frequent use of Ricky Lenin's attempts to fit in with what he saw as a 'western lifestyle', in a similar way to some of Sayle's appearances as the Balowski Family in '' The Young Ones''. Situations included the trouble caused by the

ghost-writing A ghostwriter is hired to write literary or journalistic works, speeches, or other texts that are officially credited to another person as the author. Celebrities, executives, participants in timely news stories, and political leaders often h ...

of Ricky's column in ''The Daily Tits'' (parodying '' The Sun'') (with guest appearance by Jacqueline Ashman as Curvy Corinne) - a complicated political treatise arguing in favour of

collectivism Collectivism may refer to: * Bureaucratic collectivism, a theory of class society whichto describe the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin * Collectivist anarchism, a socialist doctrine in which the workers own and manage the production * Collectivis ...

in Lenin's original text is transformed by the newspaper's ghost writer to "I hate all paddies, but I wouldn't mind giving that

Gloria Hunniford Mary Winifred Gloria Hunniford, OBE (born 10 April 1940) is a Northern Irish television and radio presenter, broadcaster and singer. She is known for presenting programmes on the BBC and ITV, such as '' Rip Off Britain'', and her regular appea ...

one" in the paper; the north–south economic divide in

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

("In Crunchthorpe there's a hundred and three per cent unemployment. The Government uses the place to dump

nuclear waste Radioactive waste is a type of hazardous waste that contains radioactive material. Radioactive waste is a result of many activities, including nuclear medicine, nuclear research, nuclear power generation, rare-earth mining, and nuclear weapons ...

...they pile it up in the town centre, outside Freeman Hardy and Willis") and films ''

The Titfield Thunderbolt ''The Titfield Thunderbolt'' is a 1953 British comedy film directed by Charles Crichton and starring Stanley Holloway, Naunton Wayne, George Relph and John Gregson. The screenplay concerns a group of villagers trying to keep their branch l ...

'' and ''

Apocalypse Now ''Apocalypse Now'' is a 1979 American epic war film produced and directed by Francis Ford Coppola. The screenplay, co-written by Coppola, John Milius and Michael Herr, is loosely based on the 1899 novella '' Heart of Darkness'' by Joseph ...

''. The script regularly took great delight in the unsophisticated nature of British football, with its traditional emphasis on strength over skill: :Northern pundit: "The average Crunchsider knows his football like the back of his hand and what he really likes to see is really elegant, skilful one-touch players...out in the middle of the park, screaming in agony, clutching their gonads." :Commentator: "So Crunchthorpe don't really go in for one-touch play, then?" :Northern pundit: "Oh, aye, they do. Provided the one touch is delivered just below the kneecaps like a steam hammer hitting an

avocado The avocado (''Persea americana'') is a medium-sized, evergreen tree in the laurel family ( Lauraceae). It is native to the Americas and was first domesticated by Mesoamerican tribes more than 5,000 years ago. Then as now it was prized for ...

..." A running gag in the show was various characters (particularly Sayle) speaking lines from well known pop songs as dialogue. The fictional town of Felchester was a joke: a reference to

felching Semen, also known as seminal fluid, is an organic bodily fluid created to contain spermatozoa. It is secreted by the gonads (sexual glands) and other sexual organs of male or hermaphroditic animals and can fertilize the female ovum. Semen is ...

, conflating that term with Melchester, the fictional home of

. In one episode, "The Fifth Man", the

Cambridge Five The Cambridge Spy Ring was a ring of spies in the United Kingdom that passed information to the Soviet Union during World War II and was active from the 1930s until at least into the early 1950s. None of the known members were ever prosecuted ...

spy scandal is mocked when Felchester plays Cambridge in the

FA Cup The Football Association Challenge Cup, more commonly known as the FA Cup, is an annual knockout football competition in men's domestic English football. First played during the 1871–72 season, it is the oldest national football competi ...

and wins as a result of Cambridge players, including a mysterious fifth man, scoring

own goal An own goal, also called a self goal, is where a player performs actions that result in them or their team scoring a goal on themselves, often resulting in a point for the opposing team, such as when a football player kicks a ball into their own ...

s against their own team. Lenin of the Rovers ran for two series, each comprising four shows. The final two episodes of series 2 were postponed due to the Hillsborough disaster, and were eventually aired sixteen years later in 2005.

Episodes

Series 1)

Series 2

{, class="wikitable sortable" style="width:90%; , - ! !! Title !! Original air date !! Channel !! Summary , - , 1 , , Ghosts and Goolies , , , , BBC Radio 4 , , Ricky Lenin decides to write a column in a tabloid newspaper, but ends up learning a few painful lessons about life, love, truth, and Gloria Hunniford. , - , 2 , , The Felchester Firm , , , , BBC Radio 4 , , Ricky's boys are drawn against the North East's notoriously hard team Crunchthorpe United. , - , 3 , , Apocalypse Des , , , , BBC Radio 7 , , Felchester Rovers take a break in the socialist idyll of El Telvador - but a civil war is raging. , - , 4 , , The Final Solution , , {{Start date, 2005, 04, 15, df=y , , BBC Radio 7 , , Will Ricky's million-pound sponsorship deal wreck Felchester's hopes of a Wembley victory? , - Episodes 3 and 4 of series 2 were cancelled from their original scheduled broadcast dates of 15 April and 22 April 1989 respectively due to the Hillsborough disaster, and were not broadcast until the series was repeated on

BBC 7 BBC Radio 4 Extra (formerly BBC Radio 7) is a British digital radio station from the BBC, broadcasting archived repeats of comedy, drama and documentary programmes nationally, 24 hours a day. It is the sister station of BBC Radio 4 and the p ...

in April 2005. However, the whole of series 2 was released by the BBC as a double-cassette set in 1992.

External links

epguides.com
''Lenin of the Rovers'' on epguides.com
BBC
''Lenin of the Rovers'' on bbc.co.uk

''Lenin of the Rovers'' on radiolistings.co.uk BBC Radio 4 programmes BBC Radio comedy programmes 1988 radio programme debuts 1989 disestablishments Fictional association football clubs