VIDEO - BBC Radio 4 political debate show Any Questions comes to Great Hale

A number of technical hitches had dogged the production team during the day but everything came together for the main event.

Chairman of Hale Magna Village Hall’s committee, Andrew Key, had applied to host the 70-year-old show at the venue and was successful and the production team duly turned up to enjoy the newly refurbished stage facilities. But programme producer Lisa Jenkinson said there was a technical hitch with the equipment meaning a component had to be sent by courier up from London urgently. Meanwhile one guest had become unavailable and so at the 11th hour, Father of the House, Rushcliffe MP Ken Clarke agreed to travel over to fill the vacant seat, joined by shadow International Development Minister Dan Carden, domestic abuse campaigner Julie Bindel and Financial Times political journalist Sebastian Payne.

Shaun Ley was presenting the show following the recent retirement of Jonathan Dimbleby after 30 years.

The radio show aired in front of a capacity audience of nearly 200 locals. Anyone in the audience was invited to hand in questions and a handful were selected to put them to the panel. Shaun Ley explained that none of the panellists have any idea in advance what they are to be asked.

For once, the questions skirted around the thorny and well-worn subject of Brexit. Instead they were asked about whether social care should be free, police funding, whether the UK government should intervene over treatment of protestors in Hong Kong and whether food production should be supported by government.

Andrew Key admitted after the programme went off air it had been a stressful day but he was so relieved that everything went well without mishaps.

He said: “It is impressive how professional and unflappable the production team are throughout the whole thing. The whole day has been really interesting.”

Mr Key said: “We had no electric at one point and no transmission line, but it all got sorted out. They did Great Hale proud and came across very well with the questions being all very civilised.

“Hopefully I will be applying to have BBC Gardener’s Question Time here next.”

He was delighted to have attracted new visitors to the hall, with the new stage curtains having just gone up and the stage renovated.

Shaun Ley commented after the show: “As a programme I thought it was a very enjoyable experience. I was looking at a friendly and interesting panel and no-one in the audience was looking at their watch.

“We had a great range of questions from farming to climate change to the economic consequences of spending pledges to what we should do about Hong Kong.”

He hoped the show would return to Lincolnshire soon and invited applications from venues keen to hear debate by leading political figures.