Friday 15 March 2024

The Not Now Show


So The Now Show becomes The Then Show after this next series as time is called on one of radio’s longest running comedy shows. Punt and Dennis have casting their eye over topical news stories for the last 26 years, a remarkable run. And when you take into account their work on Live on Arrival, The Mary Whitehouse Experience and It’s Been a Bad Week the duo have been on the radio pretty much consistently for 36 years.

Steve and Hugh are not disappearing from BBC Radio 4 however:  a second series The Train at Platform 4 follows in July, Steve will be asking the questions on series 14 of The 3rd Degree also starting in July and together they’ll be working on a podcast (naturally) called RouteMasters which will also be broadcast in October. 

I’ve written about The Now Show before back in 2015 – see That Was the Week – Part 6 – complete with a couple of editions of the programme from 1998 and 2012. This time I’m offering three more recordings.

Firstly, the series two opener from 3 April 1999. It’s worth pointing out that The Now Show wasn’t yet a Friday night comedy fixture, that happened from series four. This edition went out on Saturday at 6.15 pm, the old Week Ending repeat slot, with an in-week repeat on Tuesday at 11 pm. Early series tended to rely more on a regular team rather than a number of guest contributors. In this show the regulars are David Quantick, Emma Clarke, Dan Freedman, Nick Romero , Jane Bussmann and the guest is Kevin Day.

The Wikipedia entry for the show mentions the time in July 2005 when the show was recorded without an audience due to the London bombings on the day of recording. Of course that entry should probably be updated to mention the shows in 2020 for series 57 and 58 that had to be recorded remotely with no audience due to Covid-19 restrictions. Anyway here is that 22 July 2005 edition with Mitch Benn, Jon Holmes, Laura Shavin and guest Andy Zaltzman.     

Back to 2016 and just two months before THAT referendum this show from the start of series 48 features Gemma Arrowsmith, Marcus Brigstocke (both appear in the first show tonight) and an early appearance by Mae Martin. It’s from the period when they had the bright idea of including a journalist or some expert talking about an issue of the day, a spot that often drained the comedy out of the programme, in this show its Felicity Spector from Channel 4 News on the impending US presidential election.

The 64th and final series of The Now Show starts tonight and runs for six weeks. 

Sunday 10 March 2024

An Everyday Story of an Omnibus Edition


As any BBC Radio 4 controller knows, you ‘refresh’ the schedules at your peril. And what’s more, to tinker with The Archers is sure to incur the wrath of any dyed-in-the-wool Ambridge fan. Cue the letters in green ink and emails fired off to Feedback.

But this is exactly what Radio 4 controller Mohit Bakaya is doing from next month as the Sunday omnibus edition of The Archers is shifted by an hour to the later start time of 11am. Taking its place after Broadcasting House is an extended one hour Desert Island Discs. As a sop to listeners whose Sunday morning routines will now be in disarray the omnibus edition will be available online at midnight, presumably so that Archers listeners can play it out for themselves just after Paddy O’Connell has signed off.

To be fair the omnibus edition has been at 10am on Sundays for the last 26 years. It was moved forward by 15 minutes in April 1998 under the controllership of James Boyle. He’d gain himself something of a reputation as schedule meddler -in-chief, changing the time of the weekday editions of The Archers from 1.40pm to 2pm, dropping the repeat of the Friday edition (reinstated in the new changes) and adding a Sunday evening edition.  Boyle also extended Today, changed the start time of Woman’s Hour lopped 10 minutes off The World at One and dropped the likes of Kaleidoscope (for Front Row), Week Ending, Sport on 4 and Breakaway. Interestingly Desert Island Discs also moved from 12.15pm to 11.15am where it also has remained until next month.     

But surely The Archers omnibus edition has always been on a Sunday morning? Well, no it hasn’t, as this dip into the schedules of Radio 4, the Light Programme and the Home Service will demonstrate.

7.30 pm on Saturday

Well that surprised you. Yes, when the omnibus editions first started on 5 January 1952 – a year after the programme had first been nationally broadcast – it was on a Saturday night. In 1952 it was on the Light Programme so followed programmes such as Sports Report, Jazz Club and Radio Newsreel.

4.00 pm on Sunday

From 26 July 1953 the omnibus moves to Sunday. Why? Well I’ll come to that.

7.30 pm on Saturday

Yes even Light Programme controller Kenneth Adam liked to move the radio furniture now and then as the omnibus is back to Saturday night by the end of September 1953. That same week saw the start of Friday Night is Music Night, also recently in the news as it re-appears on Radio 3.

9.10 am on Sunday

Listeners can, in July, August and September 1954, now ‘have breakfast with The Archers’. But what’s behind this Saturday night/Sunday morning swapping? Well it coincides with the summer Proms concerts. In the 1950s the Proms were not the exclusive preserve of the Third Programme and would also be broadcast on the Light and the Home Service. This summer pattern continues in 1955.

7.30 pm on Saturday

This remains the usual slot apart from when the Proms are on in 1955. The Sunday morning versions start at 9.10 am and run for 50 minutes rather than the usual one hour so actually there’s a bit of editing going on here to make the omnibus version fit the timeslot.  

8.00 pm on Saturday

It’s moved on by half-an-hour from 1 October 1955. In the summer of 1956 it again pops up on Sunday, this time at 3.15 pm. In mid July 1957 it temporarily moves to Sundays at 9.10 am.

12.15 pm on Saturday

For some reason, between 28 September and 30 November 1957, the omnibus is now heard on the Home Service on Saturday lunchtime, again in a truncated form. The weekday editions remain on the Light Programme.

9.45 am on Sunday

Finally, from 8 December 1957, the omnibus edition ends up on Sundays where it has remained ever since. Back in 1957 on the Light Programme it was followed at 10.30 am by Easy Beat, so it remains very much edited down from the regular weekday broadcasts.

9.32 am on Sunday  

On 1 January 1961 it moves back a few minutes and is now just under an hour long so presumably we’re now getting the full weekly story. It follows Chapel in the Valley and a two-minute news bulletin at 9.30 am.

9.30 am on Sunday

From 30 August 1964 the Home Service takes the Sunday morning omnibus and, as it happens, Chapel in the Valley. Meanwhile over on the Light they have The Record Show with Geoffrey Wheeler followed by Easy Beat. The fact that Radio Caroline, with its all day pop programmes, had started earlier that year is purely coincidental surely!

Meanwhile from 14 December 1964 the Home Service starts to repeat the previous day’s Light Programme broadcast. From Monday 2 January 1967 the Home Service broadcast all editions of The Archers .The Home Service becomes BBC Radio 4 on 30 September of that year.


6.15 pm on Sunday

In 1976 Ian McIntyre is appointed as the new controller of Radio 4 and a year later, from 2 October 1977 he causes major consternation by moving The Archers omnibus to Sunday evening at 6.15 pm; at the same time dislodging Letter from America from Sunday morning to lunchtime. Listeners complain in droves. Correspondents to the Radio Times were not happy: ‘I feel like weeping...the most disastrous change of all” (Renee Obard, Salisbury) and ‘change for the sake of change has no appeal’ (S.C. Russell, Bolton). Even the offering of a quadraphonic stereo transmission – for the first omnibus edition at any rate – failed to impress: ‘the pleasure afforded to a few listeners of hearing The Archers in stereo and quad must surely be outweighed by the discomfort caused to those who, like myself, are now denied the pleasure of listening at all, albeit in humble mono’ (R. Collingwood, Camberley)   

The incoming Director General Ian Trethowan tells McIntyre to think again. Bizarrely someone protests by nailing both an abusive letter and a kipper to the door of McIntyre’s son’s room at his Cambridge college. BBC Governor Lady Seota complains that it has “up-ended her life”. Eventually after increasing pressure from listeners and the governors McIntrye relents and the omnibus programme reverts back to Sunday mornings from July 1979.

10.15 on Sunday

This becomes the new time for the omnibus edition for the next 19 years. Returning to Sunday morning on 1 July 1979 it is preceded by Letter from America (which had already been moved back to Sunday morning) and the Morning Service and followed by Weekend Woman’s Hour, back on air after been dropped in late 1974.


10.00 on Sunday

On 19 April 1998 there are changes to Radio 4 Sunday morning’s schedule as mentioned above. At 9 am we get a brand new programmes Broadcasting House in which ‘Eddie Mair presents a fresh approach to news’ followed by The Archers now 15 minutes earlier and also 15 minutes longer. And that is how things have remained until now.  

Sunday 11 February 2024

Wogan House


Wogan House falls silent this month as engineers continue to decommission the BBC Radio 2 and 6 Music studios. The stations have been based in what was then Western House since 2006, at the time of the Broadcasting House re-development. Prior to that there were some production booths in the building. Radio 2 and 6 Music have been moving into new studios back over in NBH, with the daytime news bulletins now coming from studio WG1. Any late-night revelries in the BBC Club, also in Wogan House, ended in December 2023 prior to its move into the existing Media Cafe area by the end of April.

Studio 6A in Wogan House (2018)

The BBC first occupied Western House in 1953 and for many years it was the home of the Designs Group of the Engineering division. A car showroom remained on the ground floor premises until the early 60s. Later the Recorded Sound Effects Library moved in. 

Western House in 2015. The following year on
16 November 2016 it was renamed Wogan House

The lease for the building will transfer to Landmark Space who propose to use it as ‘flexible office spaces’. It will be known as 99 Great Portland Street.

Studio 6B (2024)


Studio 4D (2024)


As far as I’m aware the last 6 Music show from Wogan House is today with Gideon Coe, in for Cerys Matthews. The last Radio 2 shows are this coming Friday.

Friday 9 February 2024

Not the A to Z of Radio Comedy: I is for In One Ear


I first heard Steve Brown on Radio 4’s late-night live comedy show In One Ear. His songs, musical skits and attempts to paint himself as the “affable sex symbol” were an integral part of the show. Press releases of the time also described him variously as “a good natured Nicholas Ball”, “the versatile Brown” and “the man who wrote the press release”.  

In One Ear enjoyed a run of three series of live Saturday late-night shows (plus a recorded pilot and a Christmas special) between 1983 and 1986. It brought together a cast of four: Nick Wilton principally an actor though also in revue and a scriptwriter, stand-up comedian Helen Lederer, musician Steve Brown and actor Clive Mantle. Mantle’s height (6’5½”) and his role at the time as Little John in ITV’s Robin of Sherwood was the subject of much ribbing in the show.     

Before In One Ear both Nick and Steve had worked together a number of times. In 1982 they appeared in the Perrier award-winning show Writer’s Inc. alongside Jamie Rix and Vicky Pile. Rix would go on to produce In One Ear and Vicky wrote for it. (Nick’s first professional role was in the farce Simple Spymen directed by Jamie’s dad the veteran farceur Brian Rix).  Wilton and Brown also worked together in the Spring of 1982 in a two-week run at the Fortune Theatre of News Revue, an attempt at a musical satire show with Wilton in the cast and Brown at the piano. In July 1982 there was a limited run of Ha Bloody Ha! at the Gate in Notting Hill. This sketch and music show also featured Jan Ravens, at the time a radio comedy producer (Week Ending etc.). The following year she and Steve would marry (they divorced in 1993) and from 1986 to 1988 they were part of the Sunday morning Brunch crew on Capital Radio (CFM) with Roger Scott, Jeremy Pascall, Paul Burnett and later Angus Deayton.

Steve’s first radio gig was as a song writer on the 1982 sketch show Three Plus One. Produced by Jan Ravens it also featured the musical talents of Philip Pope, already an established performer on Radio Active. This led to Steve working with Philip on future series of Radio Active and, a few years later, on Spitting Image.  


The cast recorded the pilot of In One Ear in April 1983 but it had to wait until December for broadcast. By then a series had already been commissioned to run the following May and June. Nick Wilton was already appearing in another Radio 4 comedy show, the Grant and Naylor scripted Son of Cliché (1983-84). This show would win the 1984 Sony award as Best Light Entertainment Programme, Radio Active having bagged it the year before. In 1985 it was the turn of In One Ear.  

To introduce the first series in May 1984, Radio Times staff writer David Gillard wrote this article. By the way, take the reference to The Goons as the last live comedy show with a large pinch of salt. That show was, to my knowledge, always recorded, though interestingly enough the In One Ear team do reference The Goons in the pilot episode.  

The art of living dangerously

The sign on the door of one of the BBC Radio Light Entertainment offices reads: ‘Prefects Common Room. Knock before Entering’. Inside, the wine bottles and paper cups on the table suggest St Trinians, though the assembled ‘prefects’ seems a studious bunch. Here, in earnest conclave are the producer, writer and performers of In One Ear – radio’s first live comedy show since the Goons.

‘Above all, we have to justify going out live at 11.30,’ producer Jamie Rix, tells his team. ‘We’re not going to hide behind the format – we’re going to be different and we’ve got to be dangerous. The audience at home must be unsure about which way we’re heading. We must constantly take them by surprise by going off at unexpected tangents.’

The programmes’ tongue-in-cheek publicity poster describes In One Ear as ‘somewhere between alternative cabaret and a puerile adolescent undergraduate revue’. Jamie, in a more serious moment, prefers to call it ‘cabaret revue with a satirical element’. The four performers Nick Wilton (late of Carrott’s Lib), stand-up comedienne Helen Lederer, Radio Active songwriter Steve Brown and actor Clive Mantle –share the burden of providing Rix with ‘seamless comedy’.

Though occasionally adopting another persona, they will all be playing themselves – or, at least what they see as their ‘radio selves’. Nick is ‘paranoid and politically naive’; Helen is ‘slightly embarrassed and neurotic’, modest Steve ‘a romantic crooner and an affable sex symbol’, while Big Clive (recently seen as Little John in ITV’s Robin of Sherwood) is ‘the thick-set, strong-voiced type’.

Jamie Rix, who produced Radio Active and The Best of Bentine and was once a writer on Not the Nine O’Clock News believes they have the recipe for a controversial, hard-hitting comedy success, though there will be no attempt to shock for shock’s sake. ‘We’ve been put into a slot where we can offend the least people-just before the Shipping Forecast’ he says with a grin. ‘But we’re not out to offend. We’re out to challenge.’

    


So here is that first episode from Saturday 12 May 1984. Although Radio 7/Radio 4 Extra have repeated some episodes I’m not aware that this was been heard since. The show doesn’t entirely eschew BBC comedy traditions as there’s a parody poking fun at the recent Granada tv series The Jewel in the Crown and a Fats Waller gag straight out of I’m Sorry I’ll Read That Again. “It’s time for comedy....”

From a couple of weeks later comes the third show. It includes Steve and Nick singing Hello Alexei, referencing Alexei Sayle’s ‘Ullo John! Gotta New Motor? that had charted a couple of months previously. Hello Alexei was itself released as a single on the Red Door label at the end of 1984. The B side Nobody Ever Listens to the B Side featured Nick doing his John Cooper Clarke impression as he had done in the pilot episode. The single didn’t chart.      

Steve Brown’s death at the age of 66 was announced last week.

In One Ear episode guide:

All programmes (except pilot) broadcast live at 2330 on Saturday night

Pilot: Tuesday 27 December 1983

Series 1: 12 May 1984 to 30 June 1984 (8 programmes)

Christmas Special: 22 December 1984

Series 2: 16 February 1985 to 6 April 1985 (8 programmes)

Series 3: 30 November to 1 February 1985, except 21st and 28th December (8 programmes)

The In One Ear poster comes from Nick's website nickwilton.com

Thursday 1 February 2024

Tale of the Goat and Compasses


This week BBC Radio 4 Extra begins a repeat of the recently recovered second series of Wrinkles, the 1981 sitcom from Grant and Naylor starring Tom Mennard and Anthea Askey. For a comedian with nearly 30 years of experience under his belt the 1980s were a busy period for Tom as he undertook an increasing number of acting roles.

Born in Leeds in 1918 Tom Mennard had appeared in amateur children’s pantomimes. His wartime service was in the Royal Engineers and he also played in Divisional Concert Party Shows. On demob he found work as a bus conductor and then driver with Brighton & Hove Omnibus Co. but the pull of the theatre meant he still performed in amateur revue whenever he could. His time on the buses sounded like an episode of the LWT sitcom with Mennard getting into trouble for his comic antics, telling stories to the local kids rather than taking the bus out and impersonating a ticket inspector. 

Coming to the attention of singer Donald Peers, who was touring in Brighton at the time, he suggested Tom go for an audition with the BBC; he was successful and made an appearance on the BBC tv’s Show Case (15 March 1954) presented by Benny Hill. On advice from Hill he auditioned at that well-known training ground for budding comedians, London’s Windmill Theatre. Successful only on his third attempt Vivian Van Damm told him to commence in the show starting in one hour, he stayed there for a year.

Variety and theatre work followed such as the Moss Empire’s New Faces of 1956, the Fol de Rols-“the famous song and laugh show”- Masquerade (this was alongside Pamela Cundall, later Mrs Fox in Dad’s Army), summer seasons back up in Yorkshire at Bridlington and Scarborough and, perhaps most significantly in the touring revue show Music for the Millions. Starring in the show was his idol Robb Wilton, then nearing the end of his career. Wilton’s style of delivery of his famous monologues heavily influenced Mennard’s act, especially his meandering Local Tales. (see below)

 Alongside the theatre work there were tv spots including Camera One and The Good Old Days and dozens of radio appearances throughout the 1950s and 1960s on Midday Music-Hall, Workers’ Playtime, Variety Playhouse, Holiday Playhouse and London Lights.

from Panto Archive

In the latter half of the 1960s Tom hosted regular seasons of Old Tyme Music Hall in Newquay and on Radio 2 in 1968 acted as the chairman on Come to the Music-Hall, a radio equivalent of The Good Old Days. Panto work included Goody Two Shoes at Hull’s New Theatre in 1969 which I was in the audience for (oh no you weren’t!). His co-stars were local lad Norman Collier, Jimmy Thompson and McDonald Hobley.

Comedy panel show work followed in the 1970s with regular gigs on You’ve Got to Be Joking (Radios 2 & 4 1977-80) and Funny You Should Ask (Radio 2 1978-80). From 1980 the majority of Tom’s work was as an actor mainly on tv but also in the two series of Wrinkles (Radio 4 1980-81). Wrinkles was made in Manchester by the veteran comedy producer Mike Craig. Writers Rob Grant and Doug Naylor were apparently introduced to Tom Mennard by Mike Craig in the BBC bar. Grant recalls: ‘Tom was a naturally funny guy, with a unique and distinct delivery. He was always “on”. But not one of those annoying, not-really-very-funny people who are always straining to get a laugh: he was actually funny. He would play practical jokes constantly, weaving some fantastical story to innocent, hapless bystanders without making them the butt of the joke. I once saw him on his knees outside a closed lift door, shouting “Well how did you get stuck down there?” That kind of thing.’

In Wrinkles Mennard plays the handyman in an old people’s home. His co-star was Anthea Askey, daughter of big-hearted Arthur who Tom had worked with year’s earlier. He’d appeared with Anthea in Dick Whittington at the Sunderland Empire just the year before. Also in the cast were Ballard ‘Morning Fawlty’ Berkeley, David Ross, Gordon Salkilld and Nick Maloney. After a successful pilot a series was commissioned to air in April and May 1980. A second series followed in November and December 1981. The BBC dumped or otherwise lost the tapes of Wrinkles but off-air recordings were returned and series one was repeated late last year and the second starts today.    


It was around this time that Tom was also given his own series on Radio 2. Local Tales was a series of short monologues, each about 13 minutes, that aired at intervals from 1981 to 1987. The scene was his local pub the Goat and Compasses and the rambling stories were about Tom and his mates Harry, Charlie and Fred. 

Throughout the 1980s most of Tom’s work was as a actor in a number of tv series, particularly Oh Happy Band with Harry Worth (BBC 1980), Foxy Lady (Granada 1982-84), Open All Hours (BBC 1982-85) and, most notably, as Sam Tindall in Coronation Street between 1985 and 1989. As Sam he would often be sparring with Percy Sugden for the affections of Phyllis Pearce. Sugden and Pearce were played by Bill Waddington and Jill Summers whom Mennard had first met during his Windmill Theatre days. Sam Tindall appeared in the soap, often with his dog Dougal who was, by all accounts, Tom’s own dog, in over sixty episodes. His last appearance was in May 1989. Just six months later Tom Mennard died.  

Back to Local Tales and my recording comes from the final series in 1987. There are five shows on YouTube including this one but I’ve also uploaded it as it includes some continuity. The theme is Johnny Pearson’s Corn on the Keys (KPM 1008 issued in 1966). 

Tracking down the details of all the broadcasts of Local Tales has not been easy due to some inconsistent labelling of repeats and industrial action affecting the printing of the Radio Times. 

3 episodes: 5 March to 19 March 1981

5 episodes: 16 December 1981 to 13 January 1982. All but one of these, the 30 December 1981 programme, are listed as a repeat but given that only 3 episodes were in the first series this can’t be the case.

16 episodes: 21 April to 4 August 1982

8 episodes: 28 January to 18 March 1983

3 episodes: 19 April to 10 May 1983. Not clear if these are new or repeats as the National editions of the Radio Times have reduced listing information.

4 episodes: 1 April to 22 April 1984 (all repeats)

6 episodes: 20 March to 24 April 1985

4 episodes: 27 November to 18 December 1985

6 episodes: 4 February to 11 March 1987

There were selected repeats in late 1989 following Tom’s death and a further six repeated shows in late 1990.

You can hear Tom in a Workers' Playtime revival from 1982 on my YouTube channel here

Sunday 21 January 2024

Radio on Record – Radio Loves You


Writing a song with radio in the title is a surefire way to grab some airplay. With luck that airplay will translate into a hit record. Perhaps that thought was going through the mind of songwriter Paul Battle when, in 1977, he penned Radio Loves You a paean to the joys of listening to the radio “a love affair on the air.”     


Promotional copies of the single were sent round to US radio stations with a stereo mix on one side and a mono version on the flipside, to cater for both FM and AM stations. Paul’s version was released in the States and in Australia by A&M and in Europe, or at least the Netherlands, by CBS. On the B side was another of his songs Baby, I’m Falling in Love With You. Paul Robert Battle (1949-2012) wrote over 200 songs but this song remains his best known.  


But it doesn’t end there because in November of that year another version of the song was released, this time by an act calling themselves Gadzooks. It seems likely that Gadzooks was a group of session players and singers brought together for this recording. Again a stereo/mono promotional copy was circulated. It went on general release on the GRT label with Holiday, written by Jack Grochmal, on the B side. Interestingly the lyrics for the second verse were re-written for the Gadzooks version.

The original lyrics read:

Lovely maid in your Cadillac that day was serenaded by the sounds of I’ll be true,

The three of us were there, no one seemed to care, not the radio, not me or even you.

These were changed to:

You’re feeling down and your chin is on the ground from the hassles in your life from day to day,

Then you hear your song and you start to sing-a-long as the radio blows all your blues away.  

Both songs did get US airplay; according to the comments on YouTube uploads stations WRSU-FM, WCOR, KKUA, KSTN, KACY and KHJ are mentioned. As far as I can tell chart success eluded both releases as they failed to make the Billboard Hot 100 or the Dutch or Australian charts.

My attention was drawn to these recordings when they were featured recently on Jon Wolfert’s weekly show on Rewound Radio. Jon also shows us how the Gadzooks record was used by JAM Creative Productions to create a bespoke version for WAKY radio in Louisville. Here’s how this played out on Jon’s show on 7 January 2024.

The song lived again two years later when, in 1979, Swedish group Säwes recorded it under the title Radion spelar för dig with lyrics by Björn Håkanson (you can find it on YouTube). Säwes seemed to specialise in cover versions as their records also included Let Your Love Flow, Paloma Blanca and RFSU (their equivalent of YMCA).   

Jon’s three hour show, a mixture of music and jingle features, can be heard online on Rewound Radio each Sunday at 3 pm US Eastern time.    

Friday 12 January 2024

Not the A to Z of Radio Comedy: W is for Wow Show


In the 1980s any young radio light entertainment producer worth his or her salt was scouring the comedy clubs and the Edinburgh Fringe looking for the next big thing and signing them up for a Radio 4 series.

In 1985, the year in question for this blog post, BBC Radio 4 was already offering listeners the fifth series of Radio Active and the second of In One Ear. It was also the year you could hear the short-lived sketch show In Other Words...The Bodgers (though this did begat Absolutely) and the second series of Don’t Stop Now-It’s Fundation, an early outing for Hale and Pace. And in January 1985 the latest show to join the comedy schedule was The Wow Show.

The Wow Show was written and performed by four young actor/comedians who were already well known for the fringe stage show bearing the same name. The quartet was Stephen Frost, Mark Arden, Lee Cornes and Mark Elliott. Frost and Arden were teamed up as The Oblivion Boys and worked together on BBC1’s Carrott’s Lib as well as appearing on Blackadder, The Comic Strip Presents... and The Young Ones. Cornes also had The Young Ones and the same Comic Strip episode under his belt. Elliott (also billed under his full name Paul Mark Elliott) had more straight acting credits but like the others also popped up in the Comic Strip (the frankly bizarre s02e07 episode Slags which can be found on YouTube).     


The Wow Show
ran for two six-part series in 1985, the first starting in January and the second in October. The producer was Jamie Rix who’d joined the Light Entertainment department in 1981 initially producing Beat the Record, Pros and Cons and Three in a Row for Radio 2 before picking up comedy duties in 1983 on Radio Active, In One Ear and The Bentine Years.

Radio Times 19 January 1985

From the first series comes this second episode titled For Your Hives Only, a surreal tale set in a beehive. There’s a feel of I’m Sorry I’ll Read That Again about this show judging by some of the puns and, a couple of minutes in, Lee Cornes as The Queen Beatrix Herself, sounding not unlike TBT’s Lady Constance de Coverlet.

First broadcast on Saturday 12 January and then repeated on Friday 18 January (which is the transmission I recorded) like all of The Wow Show it’s never had a subsequent repeat, the BBC having wiped or dumped the lot.   


Postscript: Since I wrote this post BBC Radio 4 Extra are now due to repeat this very same episode as part of one of their All Request Weekends on 10 February 2024. I understand that some off-air recordings were returned to the BBC. 
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