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 21^st and 28^th December (8 programmes)

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