Duncan: You can just do that, then? You can just... form a party?
Jared: Yeah.
Duncan: Right. And you don't need any... adults around?
Jared: Yeah.
Duncan: Right. And you don't need any... adults around?
Party is a BBC Radio 4 sitcom about five naive students trying to set up a new political party. It was adapted by Tom Basden (of Cowards) from his play of the same name, which premièred at the 2009 Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Basden also co-stars as Simon. Party currently consists of three series containing four episodes each, broadcast in 2010, 2011 and 2012.
Party contains examples of:
- Accidental Unfortunate Gesture: By Jared's mum in It's Technology, Stupid, leading to a very troubling case of Nonverbal Miscommunication.
- Accidental Pervert: How Jared accounts for his offscreen groping of a girl called Elaine, and his awkward accidental kiss with Phoebe in All Publicity Is Good Publicity.
- Anti-Climactic Parent: Mister Simon in Prison Ain't All That Bad.
- British Unis: The main cast are all undergrad students of various subjects throughout series one and two. They apparently live in Hertfordshire, and could all plausibly be attending the University of Hertfordshire.
- Crack Defeat: The results of the leadership election in Episode 1.
- Crazy Homeless People: At the end of Jared's parents' garden in Is The Party Over?
- Delicious Distraction: Duncan frequently derails meetings by fretting out loud about, for example, biscuits.
- Dumb Muscle: Duncan during series three.
- Eating the Eye Candy: Phoebe to Duncan, ever since he came back stacked at the start of series three.
- Gratuitous Latin: Gladius (pronounced Gladiaaarse)
- Have I Mentioned I Am Gay?: Mel came out in All Publicity Is Good Publicity, but nobody ever mentioned it again, and we've never seen anything to back it up.
- I Was Told There Would Be Cake: The main reason Duncan joined the party in the first place.
- Insistent Terminology: It's not a shed, it's a summer house.
- Literal-Minded: Duncan, to the frustration of his fellow characters and great amusement of the audience.Mel: [Comparing the party to an aeroplane] None of us are pilots.
Phoebe: But we're all very much in the cockpit.
Mel: Exactly.
Duncan: So we're hijackers? - Mistaken Identity: Duncan for Jared in Radio. They play along and Hilarity Ensues.
- Non-Specifically Foreign: The European stranger in The Splits.
- Politicians Kiss Babies: Jared and Phoebe hatch a plan to exploit this in Radio. What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
- Popping Buttons: Happens to Duncan at the worst possible moment during Radio.
- Real Time: Every episode is a single, continuous, half-hour-long scene. Their original broadcast dates could easily be real time too, with one meeting per week and the characters ageing at an appropriate rate.
- Sleazy Politician: Jared, with the emphasis on the sleaze rather than the politics.
