Over the summer time we’re repeating this collection recalling BBC radio programmes from the 30s, 40s and 50s, when the company was a much-loved establishment broadcasting materials the listeners wished to listen to. This text was first printed on March 16, 2019.
ONE of many radio reveals which emerged after the warfare combining the skills of performers who had both served within the forces or had entertained the troops was Take it From Right here.
It had its roots in an earlier present, Navy Combination, which ran for 25 editions from July, 1947. Within the selection vein, it was launched by Australian actress and singer Pleasure Nichols and featured ‘Professor’ Jimmy Edwards, a wartime RAF officer full with DFC and handlebar moustache (which hid burn scars ensuing from being shot down at Arnhem in 1944). His common spot, a light-hearted lecture, was written by Frank Muir. An occasional visitor was one other Australian, Dick Bentley, who carried out materials by Denis Norden. Producer Charles Maxwell had the genius to carry Muir and Norden collectively to put in writing a present for Nichols, Bentley and Edwards.
The primary version of Take It From Right here went out on the Mild Programme on March 23, 1948, Edwards’s twenty eighth birthday. The setting was a radio station. Musical interludes have been offered by a vocal group referred to as The Keynotes, and right here is an instance of their work.
The listeners have been underwhelmed, and had it not been for Maxwell the present would have sunk with out hint. He persuaded the BBC bosses to fee a second collection, which was refashioned into three sections: some opening banter between the three contributors, a sketch on a theme or a current information merchandise, such because the operatic climate forecast: ‘The mercury’s sunk to the determine 0. Determine 0? Determine 0, Determine 0, Fi-gar-O!’ and a parody of a movie, guide or play. Wallas Eaton joined the solid to supply a mess of characters. The programme was given an enormous enhance partway by means of its run by the sudden demise of Tommy Handley, the immensely fashionable star of It’s That Man Once more, or ITMA. There could possibly be no ITMA with out Handley, so the present’s slots grew to become vacant, and Take It From Right here took over the Saturday lunchtime one.
4 extra collection adopted, every constructing on the success of the final and in 1950 it was named Present of the Yr at a London awards ceremony.
The fabric was recent and humorous, with a lot phrase play. Muir specifically was eager to not discuss all the way down to his viewers, and wrote of the movie/guide/play parody part that ‘it was a small breakthrough in radio comedy as a result of so far as we knew it was the primary time in a prime-time collection that the listener was credited with having been at college, taken a newspaper and skim just a few books’.
One parody of Quo Vadis had the platoon numbering off:
Centurion: Roman troopers, by the left, num-BAH!
First soldier: Aye
Second soldier: Aye aye
Third soldier: Aye aye aye
Fourth soldier: Aye vee
Fifth soldier: Vee
Sixth soldier: Vee aye
Different sketches parodied the style for books and movies on North Nation themes, one being entitled Hassle at t’Mill, which lives on.
Many TIFH strains ended up within the Carry On movies after Norden and Muir handed some previous scripts to their buddy, Carry On author Talbot Rothwell, when he was pushed for time, with permission to plunder them. One such line was Dick Bentley as Caesar, attacked by Brutus, crying ‘Infamy! Infamy! They’ve all bought it in for me!’ This was delivered by Kenneth Williams in Keep it up Cleo (1964) and in 2007 it was voted the best one-liner in film historical past.
On the finish of Collection 6 in 1953 Pleasure Nichols left, and the present was re-jigged to incorporate a section a few household referred to as the Glums. This was conceived as an antidote to all the opposite BBC households who have been impossibly good, such because the Huggetts, the Lyons and the Archers. Edwards performed the frightful Mr Glum, the pinnacle of the household. His spouse was performed by Alma Cogan, practically all the time as an vague racket from ‘upstairs’ (for instance, Edwards: MUVVA! Cogan: Shouting which could possibly be interpreted as WHADDAYAWANT?) Their dim-witted and workshy son, Ron, was performed by Bentley (who was truly 13 years older than Edwards) and his long-suffering fiancée Eth was performed by June Whitfield. The section all the time started with Mr Glum wheedling a final pint of brown ale out of pub landlord Ted (Wallas Eaton) then regaling him with the newest story of woe involving Ron and Eth. The story, instructed in flashback, would begin with Eth’s soulful ‘Oh, Ron!’ to which got here the flat reply ‘Sure Eth.’ (It was by no means defined why Ron had an Australian accent.)
In a single episode Ron informs his father that he and Eth have fashionable concepts on marriage. Mr Glum is shocked: ‘Is that this the golden-haired boy within the sailor go well with what used to climb on to his dad’s knee and recite Goblin Market?’ Ron: ‘I’ve grown up dad – that was final Christmas! I’ve met Eth now and develop into a person!’ Mr Glum: ‘When?! When was that?! The place’s me strap?’
The Glums have been an prompt hit. One shock was that Muir and Norden obtained quite a few letters from engaged {couples} who noticed the Ron and Eth state of affairs mirroring their very own lives. (I’m not positive {that a} pair of comedy scriptwriters can be my first port of name for relationship recommendation.)
Listed below are a number of Glums episodes. The primary consists of the Take It From Right here signature tune and the tip theme, Cole Porter’s Simply Certainly one of These Issues.
The Tax Rebate, wherein Eth tells Ron she has bought a refund on her PAYE. Ron: ‘Nicely don’t attempt to deal with it your self Eth, let the chemist take a look at it.’
Ron’s Identify, wherein Ron fails to get a job as a sandwich board man: ‘It’s a disgrace as a result of it could have stored me off the streets.’
Toed within the Gap, wherein Mr Glum will get his toe caught within the bathtub plughole, Eth and Ron have to assist, and to protect Mr Glum’s modesty Ron is required to pour gravy browning into the tub. Mr Glum confides to landlord Ted: ‘I shall bear in mind it until the day I die – if I’m spared that lengthy.’
Roger the Lodger, wherein Mr Glum inserts an advert within the tobacconist’s window studying ‘Snug room supplied to paying visitor in small home, secluded street, go well with enterprise gent or Military deserter’.
Sadly I couldn’t discover any full episodes, however for the document Alma Cogan offered a musical quantity, similar to this one, in collection seven and eight.
After she left I believe Mrs Glum was decreased to the sound of shuffling toes upstairs.
In 1959, on the finish of Collection 12, Muir and Norden moved into tv. As alternative writers the BBC introduced in Barry Took and Eric Merriman, who had been on Past Our Ken starring the great Kenneth Horne, however they cut up up and TFIH got here to an finish. The final programme went out on March 3, 1960, and featured the Glums emigrating to Australia.
The Glums returned in a brief collection as a part of Bruce Forsyth’s Massive Evening on ITV in 1978, and the previous scripts have been recycled two at a time in a collection of eight 30-minute reveals in 1979, once more on ITV. Nevertheless it wasn’t the identical.
I’ve had a whole lot of laughs placing this collectively and I hope you might have loved it too.
