It always used to be “another chance to see” but now Afternoon Classics is the umbrella title for BBC2’s afternoon of repeats of 30 and 40-year old programmes. Mind you the best bit is probably the old BBC2 idents coming out of retirement.
Anyway
showings of Are You Being Served? set
me thinking about any radio connections for the stars of that sitcom. Mollie Sugden I remember from her appearances
in The Clitheroe Kid. I hadn’t
realised that she’d previously appeared as Jimmy mother in the ITV series Just Jimmy, even though she was younger
than the pint-sized star. There was also a 1982 series with Mollie called Oh Mother!
Frank
Thornton co-starred with Derek Francis in The
Navy Lark spin-off The Embassy Lark
and with Jimmy Edwards in The Big Business Lark. He was in the equally short-lived Mind
Your Own Business alongside Bernard Cribbins and Annette Crosbie and co-starred with June Whitfield in Men of Property.
Long-term Just a Minute listeners will recall
Wendy Richard sparring with the team regulars. Larry Martyn stepped into the
role of Private Walker in the last few radio adaptations of Dad’s Army whilst Arthur English was a
radio star back in the days of Variety
Bandbox.
As for John
Inman he starred in three series of Inman
and Friends on BBC Radio 2 between 1986 and 1989. Speaking to the Radio Times in 1986 he described the
show as follows:
“It’s
definitely not alternative humour”, says Inman with satisfaction. “You could
call it old-fashioned”. By this he means lots of Goonish sound effects, and
echoes of Round the Horne.
“Each
programme starts with me saying ‘Hasn’t it been a funny sort of day?’, and
going on about it. Then I introduce my guests … they really are friends.” This includes the various
members of the Grace Brothers gang, and the likes of Ernie Wise, Ruth Madoc and
Peggy Mount. “We chat, do gags, sketches, I sing in a strangled tenor…”
This is the
first show from series one that aired on 30 September 1986. Alongside John are
regulars Jeffrey Holland and Sherrie Hewson and the special guest is Ernie Wise.
The comedy is broad (read ‘not very funny’) and with a tribute to Billy
Bennett it was certainly “old-fashioned”.
My recording
only runs at 18 minutes as it was tagged onto a C90 cassette after an edition
of I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue.
Obviously it make much of an impression on me, I didn’t record another.
The script
was by Tony Hare, Peter Hickey, Stuart Silver, Alan Whiting and Malcolm
Williamson. Music is by the Max Harris Trio and the producer is long-time LE
producer Richard Willcox.
2 comments:
Since I wrote this post I've remembered that Trevor Bannister was in the Radio 2 comedy series My Sainted Aunt with Eleanor Summerfield.
This is wonderful! I'm glad you posted this lot. Now I'm on a search to find more. Thanks!
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