Nature's Pantomime - a podcast by BBC Radio 4

Howard Jacobson reflects on why we look to comedy to see one year out and a new year in.

Reflecting on the misbehaviour of a mischievous Australian cockatoo and a 'great mocking Rigoletto chorus' of shearwaters in the Canary Islands, he considers whether he may himself have been a bird in an earlier life, as he celebrates the way animals rescue us from self-importance - and help us imagine a funnier, fairer world.

Producer: Adele Armstrong
Sound: Peter Bosher
Production coordinator: Iona Hammond
Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

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