What can I say about I Swear I’m Not Doing a Bit that isn’t positive? Very little, that’s for certain. In fact, there’s nothing I can say about this brilliant production that isn’t laudatory in the highest!

I remember getting the call from Louis Davies as if it were yesterday. I was in the middle of my usual Wednesday afternoon Lego session at the time, going at it with the usual voracity, when my Manslave entered the study to inform me of a telephone call.

“Whoever it is, they can wait!” I lisped, “Can’t you see I’m in the middle of my usual Wednesday afternoon Lego session?”

“That may well be, sir,” my Manservant deftly replied, emollient as always. He knew I only lisped when simply furious. “But this is urgent. It is Louis Davies upon the phone for you, sir.”

“The two team captains, Alex Walker and Nathan Galpin, are a consistent fount of hilarity”

“Louis Davies?” I cried in a mess of excitement, “The very same human who auditioned me for the radio show?”

“The very same,” my Manservant replied, a thin, knowing smile spreading across his face so that it reached the ends of his carefully groomed sideburns.

With that confirmation, I jumped to my feet like a person jumping up to their feet – apologies, I’ve never been great with similes – and ran to the phone, my breath ragged with anticipation and my clothes ragged with neglect. Over the phone, I heard it. The smooth, languid voice of Louis Davies telling me that I had it. I had it! The radio panel show slot was mine!

Oh, how I danced and jigged! I saw Manservant, and I beamed. Then I danced some more, and Manservant gave a wide, open grin in return. Then I jigged some more, and I opened the champagne. Then Manservant danced. And then I jigged. And then... well, the rest probably isn’t worth describing. Needless to say, it was the happiest evening I have had in years, and Manservant and I have never looked at each other in the same way since.

“There were football chants on curtains, limericks, improvisation sections, all sorts of snappy one-liners, and some bizarre product pitches...”

But then I recorded the radio show, and it beat even that wildly ecstatic evening which Manservant and I shared together. Why did it do so? Let me tell you.

The two team captains, Alex Walker and Nathan Galpin, are a consistent fount of hilarity. Just when you think El Galpino and El Walkero have emptied their stock, just when you think they’re weak and defenceless... bam! You’re keeling over, grabbing your chest in pain, struck by the force of yet another wit bullet. And just as you were about to draw! But, of course, you were too slow. You were always too slow. You cannot direct the course of things; you cannot shape the controlled chaos that flies from the mouths of those two team captains, and so you sit back and resign yourself to the madness of the comedy flow.

But the show is not complete mad chaos. Thanks to the dextrous work of hard-working sound editors Elen Hughes, Miranda Stephenson, and Louis himself, the hours and hours of wit duelling is whittled down to its very ore. This means that the audience gets the sweet essence of hours and hours of wit-duelling, leaving out all the trim, valleys and troughs that occur with even the most grizzled of wit-duellists.

“I can picture you now, holding your very sides as wave after wave of giggles rack your frame! Gosh, how you giggle!”

And one thing which also makes this show is the wonderful questions, jokes and prompts from the writers! They create room for a scrumptious grab bag of jokey treats, so they do. For the episode in which I participated, there were football chants on curtains, limericks, improvisation sections, all sorts of snappy one-liners, and some bizarre product pitches aimed at a justifiably bemused Louis.

It would be safe to say that I had an absolute blast doing this show. Along with the many nights spent in the quivering arms of Manservant, this show really helped inject me with a bit of vigour and life during the Christmas vacation.

But it wasn’t just me who had a wonderful experience, oh no! For I am sure that you faithful listeners, when you cock your ears in the direction of the radio waves and listen to the cultivated madness of I Swear I’m Not Doing A Bit, will have just as much of a blast as we all did. I can picture you now, holding your very sides as wave after wave of giggles rack your frame! Gosh, how you giggle! I don’t blame you, for what mortal could not help but giggle at it?

Anyway, I must dash, for I think I see Manservant holding out a beckoning finger from the gloom of the study. I must answer his call, for I am in his thrall. But with the final dash of my pen, I will write the following:

Although your mind is giggling, and slowly going to bits,

You’ll swear until your dying breath that you’re not doing a bit!