Listened religiously every Sunday lunch time as a young lad, laughed so much I would choke on my roast. It was quite a few years later that I started to understand what the innuendos were all about!
There is nothing like an episode of Round the Horne to chase away the blues. The scripts and performances are great, of course, but more than anything there is just something about it all that just gels somehow, like The Beatles, Abbey Road LP. Still fresh and enjoyable now, and perhaps the best radio sketch troupe ever.
I have collected all the available BBC cds of "Round the Horne" and its predecessor "Beyond our Ken".I'm old enough (68) to remember hearing it for the first time on radio.
My first Saturday job was working in a pet store and I suggested to the boss we start opening Sundays; he agreed as long as I worked solo. Great on two counts - I earned another £7.30 and I got to listen to my choice of radio. It was invariably Radio 4 and always the highlight was when Round The Horne was broadcast at 12.27. It was already at least 13 years old then but was the naughtiest, funniest, campest, cleverest comedy I had ever heard. It is half a century old now and still the naughtiest, funniest, campest, cleverest comedy I still ever heard - BBC radio's finest half hour.
Absolutely brilliant. I remember listening to this show when I was five years old and loved it. These actors have captured the pace and spirit of the programme - they are almost indistinguishable from the originals ! Congratulations to all involved.
(guest) October, 2020: the Kenneth Williams impersonation is about the best I've heard. He does not only a very passable vocal impression, but also the expressions ,e.g., the pushing the head forward with an open mouthed guffaw, sounding a bit like a sheep ! 🐑. " Baa-aa-aa-aaa ! "...did you notice the sucking in of cheeks , and even the flaring nostrils ?Very well done. 😊. I also really like Miss Julie Coolibar . ( " What d'yer mean by that ?! " 😊) Impersonations can sometimes be almost embarrassing, but this was admirable. Lots of L.O.L. 's . 😊. A lovely tribute to this excellent show.😊. The Covid virus is on the march again , depressing , with days shortening now ( the pretty Spring made it easier the first time round , but this second wave feels as if we're being dragged down into a swamp...( That reminds me, must go and look for You Tube videos of " Toby the Swamp Dog", have a look, it's hilarious !😊🐕😊), Its so sad with so many restrictions dsmaging the country's economy. That's why these excellent shows are are such fun . So glad to have sought and found this...it's like dear old friends coming to visit. Thank you so much. xx😊🇬🇧🎼🌺🌿🎹😊
Brilliant !!....The actors were hand picked and sound exactly like the originals...im a massive Kenneth Williams fan and the actor who voices him is awesome !!...they are all absolutely brilliant...wish I was there !
+Dusty Miller BTW Betty Marsden is played by the actress India Fisher, whose has been narrator on Masterchef for many years and voiced many documentaries and commercials..
I worked on the first three series. I was responsible for all the spot effects, at the bottom of the pecking order of the small production team. I did a lot of that work and generally (with the surprising exception of Benny Hill) I found celebrated comedians absolutely foul. Dick Emery was the absolute pits, with Frankie Howard not far behind. What made Round the Horne different was that they were all actors, not stand-ups. They were lovely to work with and really enjoyed what they were doing.. Through rehearsals, Took and Feldman sat in front of them in the little old cinema that was The Paris in Lower Regent Street, and afterwards everybody, oily rags like myself included went round the corner for a pint, where we continued chuckling. On the subject of chuckling, that's what the mostly elderly daytime audience did. They didn't roar with sudden gusts of laughter as they do here. As I type I have The BBC Radio Collection cassettes beside me. All my discreet little spot effects are buried in there with my memories, overwhelmed with the absurd canned laughter dubbed on by the silly old BBC, which utterly destroys the recordings. Bit of that here too I'm afraid. Over fifty years ago! Blimey! I must be getting old.
Nice to hear from someone involved with the production, though I'm sure you belittle yourself, interesting thoughts on the comedians, a bit surprised re Frankie, but can see Dick being hard to handle. Thanks for your revealing comments.
Lucky man Peter The best of British humour I think Mr kenneth thought he had failled by not becoming a great actor but we all loved him he made people laugh and that is the greatest of all gifts. J
"Saturday, the two-man inter-Rabbi bobsleigh championships will be held on the up and down escalators in Leicester Square tube..." so daft and surreal it's brilliant!
+Matthew Bacon Matthew I have often wondered if the Fraser Hayes Four were actually in the studio for each recording, as sometimes the sound characteristic sounds different from the rest of the show? (slightly more echo)
+Matthew Bacon Thanks for replying Matthew. It must have been a great job - what a way to cheer up Monday mornings. The show is timeless. Quite often you hear old shows and they sound dated. Listening to Kenneth Horne it is hard to believe he left us in 1969 - his personality still comes across. When I think of some of the dire work I was doing while you were involved with Fiona and Charles, and J. Peasmould Gruntfuttock ("I am a dirty old man of MANY years standing.."). Great to know somebody is still around from that time as I believe even the producer John Simmonds died years ago. Have you ever spoken to Wes Butters one of the continuity men on Radio 4 Extra? He loves Round The Horne and it's stars even though he wasn't born till the 1970s, and is quite a historian
Sunday afternoons were never the same when it finished.After Kenneth passed the show couldn't recover though they tried, but this re-enactment is superb.
Sunday lunchtime was never the same when Kenneth Horne passed away. He held the whole thing together, and though the cast tried to make a go of it, it wasn't to be. He was irreplaceable
Thank you for uploading this great tribute. I saw the stage show on tour, and was extremely impressed by the skill of the actors, who certainly caught the atmosphere and spirit of the show. I really enjoyed it and thought it was very funny -- how could it not be, using as it did, the gags distilled from 4 series of RTH plus some worthy new ones. But it was a strange experience in some ways. I couldn't work out if I was enjoying the material, or the skill of the imitators. And the preserved memories of the original performances sometimes wrong-footed me. The recreation of the missing Hancocks with Kevin McNally are also extremely good, but slightly disorientating. But nevertheless both are worthy exercises and highly entertaining.
Saw this on stage at the Prince of Wales theatre in London. Apparently they melded two genuine scripts to make an hour long show. The audience were mainly in their 50s and upwards with the odd spattering of well brought up offspring in their late 20s early 30s. It was only when we got to halfway through that I realised the backdrop curtain was an old style radio set: Hilversum, Kalundborg and Monte Carlo anybody? My elder daughter (of whom I am SO proud and not just for this) and I do a routine (much to the annoyance of her mother and sister): "I know." "I know you know!" "I know you know I know!" (long pause) "I know."
What a great routine you and your daughter must have! I've just discovered 4 shows from '67 on RUclips posted 3 months ago on FINDADMAGUS COMEDY CHANNEL you would be interested in if you don't already know of them. Cheers.
I recall Beyond Our Ken writer Eric Merrimen criticising Barry Took saying many of the new characters in Round The Horne sounded similar to his, Barry just said 'That's cos it's the same cast dear'
I went to several records at the BBC Paris studios in the 60's, the show was always recorded on a Monday lunchtime so the audience was students and pensioners..
Hi Ron,I think there is another post on you tube which is much better quality,hope you can find it,otherwise it could be available from the B.B.C. but I don't know if that's possible
+Ian Head - I think it was written by Brian Cooke, he co wrote the final 4th series with his late partner Johnnie Mortimer, don't think they were allowed to use any of the radio scripts as the belong to the estate of the late Barry - Took - you could try Brain Cooke agent UnitedAgents, just google it for the details..
Bill Pertwee was dropped from the 4th series as was the Fraser Hayes 4 and Edwin Braden and the Hornblowers, I believe the budget was cut so it was felt that Bill should go and cutting back on musicians was another way, this show is a taste of what the original series was like..
+jrgboy BTW I did see the sequel 'Stop Messing About Revisited ';, don't think it was good, it was at Richmond Theatre in West London and the place was half empty...but then the original was not that great and was soon dropped by the BBC.
+jrgboy Stop Messing About ran for 2 series. the first started recording in April 1969, and I suspect they were adapted from material that had been written for that years RTH as Douglas Smith often seems to get the Kenneth Horne lines (noticeable when he is interviewing Julian & Sandy - though they were not allowed to be called that as I believe Barry Took refused to allow the names to be used - so they were nameless but the section of the show was called "Vardering Back". Joan Sims had been due to replace Betty as she had pulled out and the end of the 1968 series as she claimed the scripts were getting too risque'. The second and final SMA series ran in 1970 and was ended, I read, because the then Controller of Radio 2 (Robin Scott?) felt the show was too "smutty". God knows what he would have made of the some of the filth which occupies even the 1830 Radio 4 slots today!. I suspect though they might have got away with it for another year or two had SMA not been broadcast on Sunday lunchtimes. There was a show on the Light Programme in 1966 and 1967 called "Larger Than Life" (Joan Sims, Tony Fayne and Warren Mitchell) which used just as many double entendres but that was broadcast on weekday evenings at 2130. SMA would have probably ended in 1972 anyway, as Douglas Smith died in December of that year
+Al Giles Don't think the chars Julian & Sandy would have been back for the proposed 5th series of Round The Horne as Barry Took had made it clear they were married to Julie & Sandra, Barry says in his autobiography that after Kenneth Horne died he didn't want to carry on with the sequel so the bits he wrote J&S, Rumpo & Grunfuttock all went, Barry says he wrote alone for the final series & acted as script editor to Johnnie Mortimer and Brian, he was very pleased with their creation 'JulieCoolibar', I managed to go to around 7 or 8 of the recordings at the BBC Paris studio, they were always at 12.30 on a Monday, so the audience was mainly students, like myself, or older people, as I recall very little was edited out.
+jrgboy Sadly I never got to one - I envy you. I did manage one Stop Messing About (on May 12th 1969), and as it was only three months after the death of KH it felt like ghosts were in the studio. The best items from SMA got edited about. Eight of the shows have made it to CD (Series 1, programmes 1 to 8), but the weekly feature "a typical legal problem from Sir Inigo Parchmutter" have been excised, all bar one. I think the remaining recordings which crop up on Radio 4 Extra are the BBC Transcription Service recordings, which run for about 25/26 minutes. All 26 shows survive but they are not truly complete.
+Al Giles Thanks for the info, TS recordings usually cut out things like topical references or remarks that overseas listeners wouldn't understand, , I recall that there are 3 versions of Tony Hancock 'Sunday Afternoon at Home', one complete unedited with fluffs and corpsing that runs around 34 mins, a heavily edited version that Pye Records issued in 1960 and a TS version.
+wickedunclebill - It gives a flavour of the show only at the original recordings the band were on the stage and only Kenneth Horne stayed there, the rest of the cast sat on the front row and walked on and off the stage as they were needed, the band were not used for this revival as it would have cluttered the stage up.
It's a shame they felt the need to insert filmed inserts, lest viewers unaccustomed to scripted radio have a non-functioning superior organ* which renders them unable to follow along. (*brain) During my formative years, I spent many nights at CBC radio comedy tapings in Toronto, Canada. So, watching a scripted radio show being created (even a dramatization of one) takes me back to my mis-spent youth.
Wordplay par excellence - so little 'humour' today comes anywhere close. Maybe 'Blackadder' scripts were the most recent examples which matched Took & Feldman at their best?
Those sort of "brown" rich voices I think just don't exist anymore. A lifetime spent in smoky bars and clubs, rich food and the finest spirits and wine, plus that tone of "command" that made people quail before a certain sort of Englishman or Englishwoman for several generations. All gone now, even if RP is having a major comeback (for some reason) in the era of Zoom calls and podcasting. Posh voices are everywhere now, it is a different sort of posh voice now, but it would still surprise anyone who was teleported from the 90s to the 2020s.
Why? It's been done already by the original cast. I admire the talent of those who can mimic the cast however please stop trying to revive and recreate the original. What is with the outdoor scenes? The whole purpose of radio is to exercise the imagination. If it were intended for TV then I'm sure the BBC would have commissioned it. Please respect it for what it is. You cannot beat the original 😊
Приколы
Listened religiously every Sunday lunch time as a young lad, laughed so much I would choke on my roast. It was quite a few years later that I started to understand what the innuendos were all about!
Yes,great memories David and I think the cast did a wonderful job of the recreation
Choke on your roast, mmm, nice!
There is nothing like an episode of Round the Horne to chase away the blues. The scripts and performances are great, of course, but more than anything there is just something about it all that just gels somehow, like The Beatles, Abbey Road LP. Still fresh and enjoyable now, and perhaps the best radio sketch troupe ever.
Agreed. The best thing on the radio.
I have collected all the available BBC cds of "Round the Horne" and its predecessor "Beyond our Ken".I'm old enough (68) to remember hearing it for the first time on radio.
Saw this in London. Absolutely fantastic! The voices were spot on and the script well writen.
My first Saturday job was working in a pet store and I suggested to the boss we start opening Sundays; he agreed as long as I worked solo. Great on two counts - I earned another £7.30 and I got to listen to my choice of radio. It was invariably Radio 4 and always the highlight was when Round The Horne was broadcast at 12.27. It was already at least 13 years old then but was the naughtiest, funniest, campest, cleverest comedy I had ever heard. It is half a century old now and still the naughtiest, funniest, campest, cleverest comedy I still ever heard - BBC radio's finest half hour.
Great memories, not much humour around these days.
Absolutely brilliant. I remember listening to this show when I was five years old and loved it. These actors have captured the pace and spirit of the programme - they are almost indistinguishable from the originals ! Congratulations to all involved.
Yes, it's almost uncanny how they get so close to the original.
never missed a show all us teenagers switched over from R1 for this
Certainly brightened Sunday lunchtime up!
(guest) October, 2020: the Kenneth Williams impersonation is about the best I've heard.
He does not only a very passable vocal impression, but also the expressions ,e.g., the pushing the head forward with an open mouthed guffaw, sounding a bit like a sheep ! 🐑.
" Baa-aa-aa-aaa ! "...did you notice the sucking in of cheeks , and even the flaring nostrils ?Very well done. 😊.
I also really like Miss Julie Coolibar . ( " What d'yer mean by that ?! " 😊)
Impersonations can sometimes be almost embarrassing, but this was admirable.
Lots of L.O.L. 's . 😊.
A lovely tribute to this excellent show.😊.
The Covid virus is on the march again , depressing , with days shortening now ( the pretty Spring made it easier the first time round , but this second wave feels as if we're being dragged down into a swamp...( That reminds me, must go and look for You Tube videos of " Toby the Swamp Dog", have a look, it's hilarious !😊🐕😊), Its so sad with so many restrictions dsmaging the country's economy. That's why these excellent shows are are such fun .
So glad to have sought and found this...it's like dear old friends coming to visit.
Thank you so much.
xx😊🇬🇧🎼🌺🌿🎹😊
Glad you liked it Brian, agree with you about the Kenneth Williams and Betty Marsden impressions. Take care.
Well said Brian
Horne was brilliant they all were really.
Love julian and Sandy.
Really great comments
I would have loved to ne in that audience. J
Superb recreation of a sublime radio series.
Brilliant !!....The actors were hand picked and sound exactly like the originals...im a massive Kenneth Williams fan and the actor who voices him is awesome !!...they are all absolutely brilliant...wish I was there !
+Dusty Miller BTW Betty Marsden is played by the actress India Fisher, whose has been narrator on Masterchef for many years and voiced many documentaries and commercials..
+jrgboy She does a great Betty Marsden.
@@jrgboy she was great as Charley Pollard in Doctor Who
@@jrgboy That's Kate Brown, not India Fisher. They look quite different!
@@frankshailes3205 WoW, someone replies 7 years later, thanks..
I worked on the first three series. I was responsible for all the spot effects, at the bottom of the pecking order of the small production team. I did a lot of that work and generally (with the surprising exception of Benny Hill) I found celebrated comedians absolutely foul. Dick Emery was the absolute pits, with Frankie Howard not far behind. What made Round the Horne different was that they were all actors, not stand-ups. They were lovely to work with and really enjoyed what they were doing.. Through rehearsals, Took and Feldman sat in front of them in the little old cinema that was The Paris in Lower Regent Street, and afterwards everybody, oily rags like myself included went round the corner for a pint, where we continued chuckling. On the subject of chuckling, that's what the mostly elderly daytime audience did. They didn't roar with sudden gusts of laughter as they do here. As I type I have The BBC Radio Collection cassettes beside me. All my discreet little spot effects are buried in there with my memories, overwhelmed with the absurd canned laughter dubbed on by the silly old BBC, which utterly destroys the recordings. Bit of that here too I'm afraid. Over fifty years ago! Blimey! I must be getting old.
Nice to hear from someone involved with the production, though I'm sure you belittle yourself, interesting thoughts on the comedians, a bit surprised re Frankie, but can see Dick being hard to handle. Thanks for your revealing comments.
Lucky man Peter
The best of British humour
I think Mr kenneth thought he had failled by not becoming a great actor but we all loved him he made people laugh and that is the greatest of all gifts. J
So quick, funny, witty, timeless and smart.
"Saturday, the two-man inter-Rabbi bobsleigh championships will be held on the up and down escalators in Leicester Square tube..." so daft and surreal it's brilliant!
The actor who plays Kenneth Williams is great
Excellent. I remember reading about this and feeling sad that I couldn't get to see it. This is wonderful.
Saw this with the old man at Leicester Square! Quality stuff!
Crying with laughter at Sandy's speech to the jury...
I remember this is with great fondness. I was the Sound Supervisor for this.
+Matthew Bacon - I went to around a dozen shows at the Paris mostly the 3rd & 4th series, a very happy Monday lunchtime..
+Matthew Bacon Matthew I have often wondered if the Fraser Hayes Four were actually in the studio for each recording, as sometimes the sound characteristic sounds different from the rest of the show? (slightly more echo)
+Al Giles they were recorded separately and remixed. Well spotted.
+Matthew Bacon Thanks for replying Matthew. It must have been a great job - what a way to cheer up Monday mornings. The show is timeless. Quite often you hear old shows and they sound dated. Listening to Kenneth Horne it is hard to believe he left us in 1969 - his personality still comes across. When I think of some of the dire work I was doing while you were involved with Fiona and Charles, and J. Peasmould Gruntfuttock ("I am a dirty old man of MANY years standing.."). Great to know somebody is still around from that time as I believe even the producer John Simmonds died years ago. Have you ever spoken to Wes Butters one of the continuity men on Radio 4 Extra? He loves Round The Horne and it's stars even though he wasn't born till the 1970s, and is quite a historian
Bona fantabulosa
How Dolly!
First class recreation of a high point of British comedy, thanks for posting ...
Saw this live I think in 2004, at the white lion theatre, brilliant!
Brilliant tribute! 👏👏👏
I'm glad you like it ,it's uncanny how close they get to the original artists.
Hugh, “could’ve been getting his broccoli in. “. The bind moggles. The audience at the original show screamed the roof off.
Sunday afternoons were never the same when it finished.After Kenneth passed the show couldn't recover though they tried, but this re-enactment is superb.
Sick, Sick, Sick With Laughter! Miss them!
Sunday lunchtime was never the same when Kenneth Horne passed away. He held the whole thing together, and though the cast tried to make a go of it, it wasn't to be. He was irreplaceable
Fantabulosa!
Saw this show when it was on in Leicester Square.Fond memories.
Thank you for uploading this great tribute. I saw the stage show on tour, and was extremely impressed by the skill of the actors, who certainly caught the atmosphere and spirit of the show. I really enjoyed it and thought it was very funny -- how could it not be, using as it did, the gags distilled from 4 series of RTH plus some worthy new ones.
But it was a strange experience in some ways. I couldn't work out if I was enjoying the material, or the skill of the imitators. And the preserved memories of the original performances sometimes wrong-footed me.
The recreation of the missing Hancocks with Kevin McNally are also extremely good, but slightly disorientating.
But nevertheless both are worthy exercises and highly entertaining.
The innocent smut we all loved.
Kenneth Williams had a built-in snigger in his voice!
Saw this on stage at the Prince of Wales theatre in London. Apparently they melded two genuine scripts to make an hour long show.
The audience were mainly in their 50s and upwards with the odd spattering of well brought up offspring in their late 20s early 30s.
It was only when we got to halfway through that I realised the backdrop curtain was an old style radio set: Hilversum, Kalundborg and Monte Carlo anybody?
My elder daughter (of whom I am SO proud and not just for this) and I do a routine (much to the annoyance of her mother and sister):
"I know."
"I know you know!"
"I know you know I know!"
(long pause)
"I know."
What a great routine you and your daughter must have! I've just discovered 4 shows from '67 on RUclips posted 3 months ago on FINDADMAGUS COMEDY CHANNEL you would be interested in if you don't already know of them. Cheers.
I went to see this in 2004, and I spoke to Robin Sebastian for some time afterward.
Thanks Steve, must have been very memorable, a terrific show!
wonderful stuff
I saw this when it was originally done. Fabulous.
Must have been great to be there. It's uncanny how close they get to the original characters.
I recall Beyond Our Ken writer Eric Merrimen criticising Barry Took saying many of the new characters in Round The Horne sounded similar to his, Barry just said 'That's cos it's the same cast dear'
So quick, funny, witty, timeless and smart. About time someone tore the lid off "the Unfinished Symphony". See hints of Monty Python here too.
great stuff
I went to several records at the BBC Paris studios in the 60's, the show was always recorded on a Monday lunchtime so the audience was students and pensioners..
What a great experience to have had !
fantastic recreation gentlemen.
Hear hear!
The actors did a remarkable job, particularly Robin Sebastian who sounded exactly like Kennith Williams and Kate Brown as Betty Marsden (57:28).
I couldn't agree more!
Hallo i,m Julian -and i,m Sandy- the eek owny palony dudes !
Mr Orn !
and this is Sandy!
I see Steve Pemberton from The League of Gentlemen in the audience at the start of the show.
'I do like a bit of Roughy' Don't we all dear - genius
Golden Age of Black & White Radio
At around 2 mins. in there was a few seconds of "Nutrocker". Does anyone know if that was Keith Emerson's version?
Rather short to call, but it does sound like the ending to the B Bumble and the Stinger's version
This is wonderful, I would love to own this on good quality format, I wonder IF it is out there
Hi Ron,I think there is another post on you tube which is much better quality,hope you can find it,otherwise it could be available from the B.B.C. but I don't know if that's possible
The 'mole on the neck' clip at the beginning is from Beyond Our Ken, not Round the Horne.
Anyone know where I can get scripts and rights to perform this?
+Ian Head - I think it was written by Brian Cooke, he co wrote the final 4th series with his late partner Johnnie Mortimer, don't think they were allowed to use any of the radio scripts as the belong to the estate of the late Barry - Took - you could try Brain Cooke agent UnitedAgents, just google it for the details..
Bill Pertwee was dropped from the 4th series as was the Fraser Hayes 4 and Edwin Braden and the Hornblowers, I believe the budget was cut so it was felt that Bill should go and cutting back on musicians was another way, this show is a taste of what the original series was like..
+jrgboy BTW I did see the sequel 'Stop Messing About Revisited ';, don't think it was good, it was at Richmond Theatre in West London and the place was half empty...but then the original was not that great and was soon dropped by the BBC.
+jrgboy Stop Messing About ran for 2 series. the first started recording in April 1969, and I suspect they were adapted from material that had been written for that years RTH as Douglas Smith often seems to get the Kenneth Horne lines (noticeable when he is interviewing Julian & Sandy - though they were not allowed to be called that as I believe Barry Took refused to allow the names to be used - so they were nameless but the section of the show was called "Vardering Back". Joan Sims had been due to replace Betty as she had pulled out and the end of the 1968 series as she claimed the scripts were getting too risque'. The second and final SMA series ran in 1970 and was ended, I read, because the then Controller of Radio 2 (Robin Scott?) felt the show was too "smutty". God knows what he would have made of the some of the filth which occupies even the 1830 Radio 4 slots today!. I suspect though they might have got away with it for another year or two had SMA not been broadcast on Sunday lunchtimes. There was a show on the Light Programme in 1966 and 1967 called "Larger Than Life" (Joan Sims, Tony Fayne and Warren Mitchell) which used just as many double entendres but that was broadcast on weekday evenings at 2130.
SMA would have probably ended in 1972 anyway, as Douglas Smith died in December of that year
+Al Giles Don't think the chars Julian & Sandy would have been back for the proposed 5th series of Round The Horne as Barry Took had made it clear they were married to Julie & Sandra, Barry says in his autobiography that after Kenneth Horne died he didn't want to carry on with the sequel so the bits he wrote J&S, Rumpo & Grunfuttock all went, Barry says he wrote alone for the final series & acted as script editor to Johnnie Mortimer and Brian, he was very pleased with their creation 'JulieCoolibar', I managed to go to around 7 or 8 of the recordings at the BBC Paris studio, they were always at 12.30 on a Monday, so the audience was mainly students, like myself, or older people, as I recall very little was edited out.
+jrgboy Sadly I never got to one - I envy you. I did manage one Stop Messing About (on May 12th 1969), and as it was only three months after the death of KH it felt like ghosts were in the studio. The best items from SMA got edited about. Eight of the shows have made it to CD (Series 1, programmes 1 to 8), but the weekly feature "a typical legal problem from Sir Inigo Parchmutter" have been excised, all bar one. I think the remaining recordings which crop up on Radio 4 Extra are the BBC Transcription Service recordings, which run for about 25/26 minutes. All 26 shows survive but they are not truly complete.
+Al Giles Thanks for the info, TS recordings usually cut out things like topical references or remarks that overseas listeners wouldn't understand, , I recall that there are 3 versions of Tony Hancock 'Sunday Afternoon at Home', one complete unedited with fluffs and corpsing that runs around 34 mins, a heavily edited version that Pye Records issued in 1960 and a TS version.
Shame they couldn't find authentic BBC microphones....otherwise, good stuff
+wickedunclebill - It gives a flavour of the show only at the original recordings the band were on the stage and only Kenneth Horne stayed there, the rest of the cast sat on the front row and walked on and off the stage as they were needed, the band were not used for this revival as it would have cluttered the stage up.
It's a shame they felt the need to insert filmed inserts, lest viewers unaccustomed to scripted radio have a non-functioning superior organ* which renders them unable to follow along. (*brain)
During my formative years, I spent many nights at CBC radio comedy tapings in Toronto, Canada. So, watching a scripted radio show being created (even a dramatization of one) takes me back to my mis-spent youth.
Glad you liked it,a wonderful re-enactment
Still as corny & hilarious as it was all those years ago!
Wordplay par excellence - so little 'humour' today comes anywhere close. Maybe 'Blackadder' scripts were the most recent examples which matched Took & Feldman at their best?
The transcript set lp,s are-shhh you know who-whisper it-the Beeb.copyright freaks.
Thanks Nigel
Where's Bill Pertwee?
Bill left along with the Frazer Hayes Four & Eddie Braben & the Hornblowers in a BBC cutback after the 3rd series...
Bloke playing Horne has a voice which is far too high pitched. Sounds nothing like the real thing.
Quite a few actors don't have as much timbre in their voices as previous generations.
Those sort of "brown" rich voices I think just don't exist anymore. A lifetime spent in smoky bars and clubs, rich food and the finest spirits and wine, plus that tone of "command" that made people quail before a certain sort of Englishman or Englishwoman for several generations. All gone now, even if RP is having a major comeback (for some reason) in the era of Zoom calls and podcasting. Posh voices are everywhere now, it is a different sort of posh voice now, but it would still surprise anyone who was teleported from the 90s to the 2020s.
Though Douglas Smith is nowhere near, the chap who does Kenneth Williams is brilliant and Hugh Paddick not bad at all .
Why? It's been done already by the original cast. I admire the talent of those who can mimic the cast however please stop trying to revive and recreate the original. What is with the outdoor scenes? The whole purpose of radio is to exercise the imagination. If it were intended for TV then I'm sure the BBC would have commissioned it. Please respect it for what it is. You cannot beat the original 😊
Hear Hear!
Long gone now, but script good, delivery God-awful: you can't exaggerate what was already exaggerated without sounding as if you're trying too hard.