May be preaching to converted, but just found this - old Round the Horne and I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again from the '60s.
Takes me back to my youth and having a good laugh on a Sunday afternoon (when I should have been doing my homework!)
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00j05x7
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Oooh, innie Bold!
A while back I downloaded a history of Julian and Sandy, and the whole 'polari' scenario.
It was amazing what they got away with in those days.
I recall growing up with the SABC English Service (we didn't get TV here til the late 70s, and even then only in the evenings) playing a lot of the BBC stuff like Round the Horne, My Word, the Glums, My Music, Just a Minute etc etc etc.
The Goons was on Sundays at 2:15pm.
There was also the excellent Alastair Cooke, and Anthony Lejeune's 'letters'.
Sadly, upon the Africanisation of the SABC, all this stuff was dropped - probably too imperialist - in favour of rubbish phone ins etc.
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You can always listen to BBC radio on your computer though.
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I have the complete Round the Horne CD Box set, absolutely my all time favourite comedy programme .....
I even went to see the West End production of Round the Horne revisited
Absolutely the pinnacle of innuendo comedy and comic timing.
I used to listen to the programme on a Sunday afternoon in the sixties and it still reduces me to tears of laughter.....
Julian and Sandy , J Peasmould Gruntfuttock and Rambling Sid Rumpo dandling their lallies in the Balls Pond road ...
just absolute genius.......
I must get them out again .... the CD's I mean...in the meantime I must nurdle my wassocks....
Last edited by: retpocileh on Fri 15 Mar 13 at 08:38
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It makes me wish I'd chosen the username Eric Poad of Croydon.
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I guess times have changed, but according to the Urban Dictionary I'm not sure that's a name I'd want these days.
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We are hooked on R4 Extra now - hardly ever watch TV except for news and teletext.
At the moment they are running 'Much Binding in the Marsh' from 1950-ish and 'Take It From Here' from around 1955. I love that Alma Cogan...
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There were certainly a few gems like Round the Horn but R4 Extra just reminds me how painfully bad most of the stuff from the fifties and sixties really was. Educating Archie or The Clitheroe Kid anyone? I guess its the same in any era.
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I don't remember Educating Archie, though I know what it was of course.
To be fair, the Clitheroe Kid was light family stuff. I used to look forward to it as a kid of probably up to 10 years old, listening to it before Sunday dinner which was mid-afternoon then.
Later I liked the Navy Lark, and later still Round the Horne, though that didn't run nearly as long.
The Goons is often alluded to as the precursor to Monty Python. Round the Horne was more surreal.
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i never did get the goons... im a big sellers, milligan fan but the goons was way over my head
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how many times does " he's fallen in the water" not become funny?
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and whilst there are truly brilliant and memorable parts of Monty Python, albeit only a few, they were encased in an awful lot of unfunny rubbish.
IMO of course, others seem to find the entire thing hilarious.
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i like off the wall comedy , the mighty boosh comes to mind, but noel feildings recent effort was dissapointing... the recent crop dont push many buttons these days... its all too safe and PC
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It's tempting to look back at that era with rose-tinted spectacles and imagine that (almost) everything was wonderful. Occasionally, it's worth enduring Brian Matthew's 'Sounds of the 60s' on Saturday morning if only to remind yourself that 95% of the music was absolute rubbish.
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>> It's tempting to look back at that era with rose-tinted spectacles and imagine that (almost)
>> everything was wonderful.
>>
I'm Sorry I'l Read That Again was wonderful because we listened at school in the RAF hut while skiving off gym.
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No one has mentioned Take it From Here, Much-Binding-in-the-Marsh or Home at Eight. Fifties... I loved them all when a child and young adolescent, but I doubt if I would now.
I think I must have heard Julian and Sandy, though only once or twice. A bit after my time, and a bit contrived compared to the real thing (often hilarious as well as appalling) to which I had been alarmingly exposed during an early job as a washer-up.
Call yourselves oldies? Tchah!
:o}
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>> Call yourselves oldies? Tchah!
>>
Surreal image of old people outdoing each other with stories of oldness, like the working class competition of coal in the bath, clogs, ouside privy, etc, but with the added slant that they can't really remember what they can remember anyway.
"I remember when old people were really old, and used to reminisce about Mafeking night and the old queen's funeral. No one's really old any more"
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>> "I remember when old people were really old, and used to reminisce about Mafeking night and the old queen's funeral. No one's really old any more"
Very funny CP, really.
But I can remember: 'This is the BBC Home Service. Here is the news:... ' followed by a lot of stuff about Hitler, US forces, etc. that I didn't understand but that made my parents look grim and serious. No joke... on VE day they had a sort of quarrel, my father cruel and triumphalist about the Nazis and my soft-hearted mother saying 'Give them their peace' and crying. And the Bomb too, the only time it has been used in anger. That reduced everyone to shocked silence.
As for the Goons and Monty Python, it was (mostly) funny if you were there. But humour, like radical literature, goes out of date quickly.
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'no-one has mentioned...'
See above mon ami!
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>> It's tempting to look back at that era with rose-tinted spectacles and imagine that (almost)
>> everything was wonderful. Occasionally, it's worth enduring Brian Matthew's 'Sounds of the 60s' on Saturday
>> morning if only to remind yourself that 95% of the music was absolute rubbish.
I absolutely love that programme.
If I have a long drive on a Saturday I try to set off at 8 to do the first 2 hours with Brian, it flies by.
I'm not especially fond of 60s music but there's usually an eclectic mix and always some interesting background and links.
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>> It's tempting to look back at that era with rose-tinted spectacles and imagine that (almost)
>> everything was wonderful. Occasionally, it's worth enduring Brian Matthew's 'Sounds of the 60s' on Saturday
>> morning if only to remind yourself that 95% of the music was absolute rubbish.
....................As it is today and ever has been!
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"....................As it is today and ever has been!"
I wouldn't disagree with that. The recent dustbin is already half-full with all that rap (with a silent c) music!
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Yep, Python was a curate's egg.
But still some brilliance.
If anyone wishes to understand the genius - go to youtube and look for Nigerian Parrot Sketch.
even funnier than the original.
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I didn't "get" The Goons but my parents did. I "got" Python but my parents didn't, I also "got" Reeves and Mortimer but I know some people, mainly older than me, found it puerile. My son "gets" Celebrity Juice but I'm afraid I don't.
I suspect t'was ever thus. Probably, most court jesters went out of fashion eventually but at least their modern counterparts don't get beheaded or whatever they did to them.
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i like rebel comics to be honest, max miller, frank randle...the dafter the better... will hay for instance (wasnt he amy johnsons flying instructor)
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Roy "Chubby" Brown, Bernard Manning?
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Frankie Boyle? So unfunny, he's funny.
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I like - anyway am amused by - comedians who are funny. Bernard Manning - is he still alive? - and Frankie Boyle are sometimes, although they can be unpleasant too.
Roy Brown isn't funny at all, and neither is that awful twee twit, enormously popular and successful, who wrote a booky-wook and was quite rightly fired by the Beeb for that nonsense with the other fellow, the intelligent but hopelessly vulgar film critic with floppy hair. Can't abide either of them. So much so that I can't remember their names.
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Sat 16 Mar 13 at 23:04
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Some Monty Python sketches were shown here this evening for the nippers - Spam, Ministry of Silly Walks - and they still seemed funny to me. But the Pythons were always a bit patchy. Some old - very old - Bugs Bunny was shown too, as supporting programme before the main nippers' feature, 'Legally Blonde' starring Reese Witherspoon. I even liked that, although I sloped out half-way through.
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>> There were certainly a few gems like Round the Horn but R4 Extra just reminds
>> me how painfully bad most of the stuff from the fifties and sixties really was.
>> Educating Archie or The Clitheroe Kid anyone? I guess its the same in any era.
Exactly. Watch a rerun of crackerjack (CRACKERJACK) for example and it seems awful to us now and our kids look at us bemused (The Crankies anyone?)
Rambling Sid Rumpo does nothing more now than raise an embarrassed wry grin, more from rarity than anything else. Passage of time does funny things.
As said, we remember the best bits, Python turned out a LOT of crap with the odd jem here and there. Much of Dads Army was pretty mundane but peppered with genius from time to time.
In my book (thats the left leaning liberal, rabid right wing Tory, green and bitter with envy at anyone with a German car one - depending on your view) only two entertainment programes still deliver today what your memory bigged up at the time.
Fawlty Towers and Yes (Prime)Minister
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There's, what I consider, a few gems around. R4's Cabin pressure (series recently ended) and CBBC's Shaun the sheep (a new series currently showing) that spring immediately to mind.
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>> There's, what I consider, a few gems around. R4's Cabin pressure (series recently ended) and
>> CBBC's Shaun the sheep (a new series currently showing) that spring immediately to mind.
Shaun the Sheep had originality, it was refreshing, and a bit dangerous in its writing that appealed to adults. But, Alas, too many episodes, too long a life span, the gems get lost under the weight of familiarity.
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>> But, Alas, too many episodes, too long a life span, the
>> gems get lost under the weight of familiarity.
>>
See also Only Fools and Horses.
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>>Fawlty Towers and Yes (Prime)Minister
+ Oh Brother (Derek Nimmo)
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>> >>Fawlty Towers and Yes (Prime)Minister
>>
>> + Oh Brother (Derek Nimmo)
Until you mentioned it I had completely forgotten it. I remember watching it, but I cant remember anything from it, and subsequently never had a desire to seek out any examples of it. I'll give it a go, and find some.
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>> May be preaching to converted, but just found this - old Round the Horne and
>> I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again from the '60s.
>> Takes me back to my youth and having a good laugh on a Sunday afternoon ..........
Those were the good old days when comedians didn't feel the need to resort to wholesale gratuitous swearing.
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Eee ba goom - warrabout Worker's Playtime, Tommy Handley and Arthur Askey, then?
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It's all a bit "Where's me washboard?" and Chester Drawers for me.
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The Al Read Show follows Round the Horne on R4 Extra on Monday evenings. Al Read was a 'northern' monologuist who, I guess, began his radio career on things like Workers' Playtime in the early 1950s. When I was a devoted fan of RTH in the '60s I thought Al Read was dismally unfunny. Now I think he's hilarious.
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>> in the '60s I thought Al Read was dismally unfunny. Now I think he's hilarious.
Yes, funny that, these things go in both directions.
I hadn't noticed you had mentioned Take it from here and Much Binding Mike, but you had.
Still, no one has mentioned Home at Eight, with Mrs Doom's Diary (Hermione Gingold I think), sort of radio Charles Addams... a sinister minion called Trog who trumpeted instead of talking, stomped very loudly and killed people on demand, or 'dealt with' them resulting in a death-scream.
No doubt lots of people have mentioned 'Ray's a Laugh' with Ted Ray. Not a favourite with me.
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For those wishing to indulge in a bit of radio nostalgia this site has a full listing. Surprising how few I remember.
www.comedy.co.uk/guide/radio/
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>> Those were the good old days when comedians didn't feel the need to resort to
>> wholesale gratuitous swearing.
No - just behind the bike shed smutty sexual innuendo.
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A comedy show that always stuck in my memory, and I think it was pretty obscure even its day, was this one:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=fF6iRc2Bfdw
But looking at it now it's beyond dreariness and into incomprehensibility. Ah, the passage of time. Maybe if I stuck with it and got to know the characters again it would work.
Edit: I should add it also appeared on Radio 4
Last edited by: Crankcase on Wed 20 Mar 13 at 10:41
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>> A comedy show that always stuck in my memory, and I think it was pretty
>> obscure even its day, was this one:
>>
>> www.youtube.com/watch?v=fF6iRc2Bfdw
>>
>> But looking at it now it's beyond dreariness and into incomprehensibility. Ah, the passage of
>> time. Maybe if I stuck with it and got to know the characters again it
>> would work.
Oh yes! I remember that with some enjoyment. Quite liked it, I would of course it pandered to all my preconceptions about 't northerners. In that kind of Rab C way.
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You have to admit Liz Smith is a cracking actor. (or actress, whatever you're supposed to say.)
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>> A comedy show that always stuck in my memory, and I think it was pretty
>> obscure even its day, was this one:
>>
>> www.youtube.com/watch?v=fF6iRc2Bfdw
>>
>> But looking at it now it's beyond dreariness and into incomprehensibility. Ah, the passage of
>> time. Maybe if I stuck with it and got to know the characters again it
>> would work.
>>
>> Edit: I should add it also appeared on Radio 4
>>
No, it doesn't grow on you again - as i found out when I bought it on DVD last year...
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"No, it doesn't grow on you again - as i found out when I bought it on DVD last year... "
I see what you mean!
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For the Oldies (Ancient R4 programmes) - Ian (Cape Town)
