In honor of Great English Entertainment

[Sally]

Fawlty Towers. Only 12 made, every one of them is perfect.

[DirectorDave]

Somebody mentioned the great British classic TV
All they had was one simple room setting but they had two terrific comedy actors who knew their lines by heart and could say them with great conviction and timing. One long (hilarious) 'take' per scene - not cut about in any way.

Not sure Wilfred Bramble knew his lines by heart....fluffed quite a few but that just adds to his performance imo.

Great to see another Steptoe fan giving Harold & Albert a shout.

Worth watching the first series of "Secret Army" in parallel with the first series of "Allo, Allo". It ads a dimension to both!

Phil
Secret Army ruined Allo, Allo for me.....thankfully.

[Robert]

At this point, I would like to give a plug to the writers - people like Galton & Simpson, Perry & Croft, and all the other great writers we've been blessed with.

[DirectorDave]

I must give honourable mentions to....

Dads Army - Runs Steptoe, very, very close, on another day might have got the nod as my no.1.

Blackadder - It's Blackadder enough said, but the last episode with the poppy field Television at it's finest.

Porridge - The great Ronnie Barker (Barker>Morcambe imo), The Great Fulton Mackay and not forgetting performances by Beckinsale and Wilde and others.

Fools & Horses - A Steptoe ripoff but acknowledged as so by it's writer, and still funny.

Pheonix Nights - Too young yet to be a classic but will no doubt take it's place with others in time.

And as already mentioned.....the Torquay Hotelier.

[DirectorDave]

I missed out The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

The Radio Series, the book and the TV series.

[Robert]

Hancock, Morecambe and Wise, Goon Show...

[louisa]

I have to say I never really 'got' the Goon Show. A lot of men making putting on silly voices and making rude noises and finding themselves hilarious.

Monty Python is another show that left me cold. Grown-ups behaving in a very silly way.

I think it might be a 'man's thing' because all the people I know who are Monty Python fans are men. Women don't seem to find it anywhere near as funny. We're far too sensible.

Morecambe and Wise. Two men in expensive designer suits reading scripts. That, to me, sums them up. Back in the early sixties we only had two TV channels hence the popularity of these shows.

Hancock - I can relate to him because he was a pessimist - like myself.

[Robert]

"A lot of men making putting on silly voices and making rude noises and finding themselves hilarious."

It wasn't just the performers who found it hilarious - the BBC used to take some of the audience laughter out of the Goons in order to make the show fit the time slot, and then re-use the laughter in some other comedy show.

"Morecambe and Wise. Two men in expensive designer suits reading scripts. That, to me, sums them up."

I think there is something in your notion of women being too sensible, Louisa. When I told my aunt Paul Merton's line about Charles I pinching the shirts from his wardrobe, so that every time he reached for a clean one there was blood round the collar, her expression was one of blank incomprehension.

[Phil H]

I'm just listening to cds of "Beyond Our Ken" and "Round the Horne", two BBC radio series from the late 50s early 60s, with kenneth Horne, Kenneth Williams, Hugh Paddick, and Bill Pertwee (the Air Raid Warden from Dad's Army later).

In regard to men reading scripts, I suppose almost any comedy series can be accused of that - with Eric and Ernie it was often the way Eric played the gags. One of the funniest comedians I know of, though I carry no brief for Ernie Wise.

With the radio series I mentioned, as with Monty P, it is the juxtaposition of the ideas, the plays on words, the sheer zanyness and panache. Also the MP sketches have depth, in that they are intellectually sound - one sketch about Thomas Hardy "Novel Writing from Dorchester" is absolutely true to the novels.

There is also a sense of development, from theatrical satire such as "Beyond the Fringe" (Alan Bennett, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, Jonathan Miller etc) through radio shows such as Last of the 1948 show and "I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again". As with 1960s/70s pop-groups, the performers assembled in different groupings, and then went their own way again. So the "Goodies" were also in radio shows with Pythons.

It's difficult to appreciate if you weren't there at the time, anticipating each week's show and WANTING to find them funny.

John Cleese developed his pompous uppper-class act, in "Frost over England" playing with Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett - who later had their own series together.

Phil H

[Robert]

Very often it's the silliness that attracts me. If the silliness is subsequently given an explanation, I feel cheated.

I saw a clip from the Crazy Gang where a character suddely starts eating the buttons from a man's waistcoat as if they were chocolate. I hope that was never explained. It's funny enough as it is.

Or take Eric Idle's "man who pushes sailors into shops." I don't want to know why he pushes the sailors into shops.

[Phil H]

The Crazy Gang were still going when i was young - in their last years. I saw them at Royal Variety Performances on TV and so on. Loved Bud Flanagan (who sings the opening song on Dad's Army).

Typical Crazy Gang gag:

One of them on stage talking to the audience. Enter another with a suitace.

"Where are you going?"
"I'm taking my case to court". (EXIT)

Conversation with audience continues.

Re-enter man with case and now with a ladder.

"I'm taking my case to a higher court!"

Stupid but the way they played it, comedy dynamite.

Phil H

[Robert]

Yes, sounds good.

Arthur Askey told a story of an old comedian - I cannot remember his name - who would go up to a pillar box, crouch down and call through the entrance "Well, how long have you been in there, then?" He would gather quite a crowd while he conversed with the man supposedly trapped inside.

[Phil H]

Arthur Askey used to tell some wonderful stories against himself.

When he was awarded an honour (something like the MBE) he had to take a day off from the pantomime he was then appearing in to go to the Palace to be invested by the Queen.

He was in the theatre foyer a few days beforehand, when two women came in to buy tickets two tickets for the day of the investiture. The box office told the women that, on the day in question, Mr Askey would not be appearing. The women went away to speak to friends outside, then returned and said: "In that case we'll have FOUR tickets".

Askey (Big Hearted Arthur, as he was known) had a career on radio and TV from the 30s to the 60s or 70s - very long. He was for years associated with Richard Murdoch, I think in a wartime radio show called "Band Wagon" which my parents spoke of a lot with affection.

That reminds me of ITMA - "It's That man Again" with Tommy Hanley which was popular during WWII. The radio show gave catch phrases like, "Can I do you now, sir?" (said by a char lady/cleaner); and (I think) "After you Claude." "No, after you Cecil!" I remember these still being quoted in the 50s.

Phil H

[Cogidubnus]

As a child of eight I was taken by my father to see what he described to me as the very last Crazy Gang show at the Victoria Palace...even at that age (where many of the subtleties would've surely eluded me) I found it irresistably hilarious...

My parents always raved about Brighton's own Max Miller...it's only in years since I've checked him out (in fact briefly during 1985 I lived in Burlington Street, Kemp Town opposite the Max Miller house)...and you'd better believe how clever (and very near the knuckle) his patter really was...It's perhaps not surprising how often he clashed with the Lord Chamberlain (and other more local censors!).

I think it's out of folk who stretched the limits like Max and the Crazy Gang, that we evolved through "Round the Horne" (compulsory listening along with the Navy Larks in our household - how DID they get away with so much on a Sunday lunchtime mainstream programme?) and TW3 into Python, Farty Towels and thence more modern comedy...

All the best

Dave

[Robert]

Well, I wanted to post a link to an Arthur Askey song, and when I watched it again the word "faggot" rather surprised me, even though I'd seen the clip several times before.

The reason I'm posting it is, in the 70s Arthur Askey criticised the trend for comedians to rest an arm on the microphone stand - which meant they didn't have to do anything with that hand - while of course not needing to do anything with the other hand, as it was holding the microphone. Compare that with Askey's performance here (A Pretty Little Bird Am I) :

http://www.petefaint.co.uk/jackhylton/wmv.html