Show Format

While Teatime With Matt has undergone a number of changes over the years, the basic format of the show has always remained the same. A typical show contains the following elements:


 * Weekly Themes
 * Regular Features
 * Guests/Co-hosts
 * Audience Interaction
 * Sketches
 * Music

Weekly Themes
When Teatime With Matt was broadcast weekly on MUD Radio, the show usually featured a different talking point each week. The talking point did not usually influence the content of other regular features and the show took on a loose feel, with guests and listeners encouraged to talk about anything they liked (while being reminded that Teatime With Matt is a “family show”).

When Teatime With Matt returned in November 2012, the format changed to a run of six weekly shows, plus an occasional one-off special, with each episode having a different theme. The theme would be the basis for the main points of discussion and heavily influence the content of some regular features. This format is still used on the show today, although in most episodes, the content tends to lead onto other topics of conversation.

Matt has presented several episodes which feature a What If? scenario as the theme, such as episodes taking place during the apocalypse or during a revolution in an unnamed country.

Examples of previous themes include:


 * Books
 * Doctor Who
 * Mars
 * Pets
 * Traditions

The weekly theme will usually influence the content of the regular features and will include several talking points, which Matt and any guests will discuss at various points during the show. Most discussion and conversation revolves around users in the chat-room.

Regular Features
Each episode of Teatime With Matt contains several regular features:


 * Alternative Facts
 * Bedtime Story
 * Common Sense Advice
 * News
 * Weather

Each feature will usually have something to do with the theme of the show; for example, Common Sense Advice may be advice on how to do something relating to the theme.

Guests/Co-hosts
During his time at MUD Radio, Matt usually presented the show with a guest or regular co-host in the studio. Matt had several regular co-hosts during this time, including Hannah Stanbury, Emily Edwards, Scru Love and Alayna Hollis.

Currently Matt’s regular co-host is Bren Tenkage who joins in with the show via Skype, because Matt cannot afford to fly him in from America every week. Matt always introduces Bren on air as the show's American Correspondent, accompanied by a rock guitar version of The Star-Spangled Banner.

Audience Interaction
Much of Teatime With Matt revolves around interaction with the audience. During Matt’s first year at MUD Radio, this interaction mainly took place via a chat room on the live-streaming video service, Stickam, which also offered listeners the option of a behind-the-scenes look at the goings on in the radio studio. The studio also had an on air phone line, which Matt occasionally used to take calls from listeners.

In 2010, Matt switched from using Stickam and began streaming the show via Livestream, which also had a built in chat room. Most listeners regularly used this to interact with Matt and with other fans of the show. The show has since moved to a dedicated Youtube Channel, which also has a live chat room.

In addition to the chat room, Matt also asks people to interact with him via Twitter, Facebook , and Skype. However, the Livestream chat room is by far the most popular form of communication.

Sketches
During the MUD Radio years, sketches were frequently performed on the show by Matt and his Guests/Co-hosts. Matt would write each sketch ahead of time and a script would be given to each person in the studio to read out. The idea behind this was that the guests and co-hosts seeing the sketch for the first time as they were performing it live on air would be humorous in itself.

In the more recent shows, Matt still writes and performs sketches, which he pre-records and edits before the live show. The sketches usually appear at the top of the show as an introduction to the episode’s theme.

Occasionally, Matt has produced video sketches for the show; for example, a sketch played at the beginning of Teatime With Matt's 24 Hour Tea Break showed Teatime suggesting the idea of a charity broadcast. In another example, a video sketch featuring Derek The Dalek taking over the Livestream channel appeared at the beginning of a 2013 episode about Doctor Who.

Music
During the initial run on MUD Radio, Teatime With Matt only featured music from the 1980s. This was influenced by Matt’s strong believe that popular music died during the 1990s and that everything released since then was absolutely awful.

In his second year at MUD Radio, Matt decided to change to an “anything goes” approach, particularly as music was not the focus of the show. This lasted through to the return of Teatime With Matt in 2013, when Matt started to choose music based on the theme of each show.

For recent shows, Matt has returned to the “anything goes” system, as it was becoming increasingly difficult to find music with even the most tenuous connection to the increasingly outlandish themes for each episode.