If you thought Legal,
Decent, Honest and Truthful (1982-6) was the only radio comedy series set
in an advertising agency, think again. Between 1960 and 1962 the Light
Programme offered listeners "a light-hearted look at the advertising
world" in Something to Shout About.
Now, more than fifty years later, its getting its first ever repeat starting
next month on BBC Radio 4 Extra.
Something to Shout
About was penned by scriptwriter and songwriter - Right said Fred and Hole in
the Ground being his best known - Myles Rudge and Ronnie Wolfe - think On the Buses. It had a cast of
well-known actors: Michael Medwin, straight out of The Army Game and years before Don Satchley, as account executive
Michael Lightfoot, Fenella Fielding as his secretary Janet, Eleanor
Summerfield, Joan Sims, Nicholas Phipps, Warren Mitchell and, in the final
series, Sheila Hancock.
Set in the agency of Apsley, Addis, Cone, Barbican, Blythe,
Giddy & Partners the programme ran for three series. Sound Archives kept
very few episodes so the repeats are taken from the Transcription Services
discs.
At the start of the second series on 2 January 1961 the Radio Times published this article,
though it actually tells you very little about the programme:
"From the outset listeners were quick to express their
appreciation of this show, and its revival after so brief a lay-off is further
proof of its popularity. Myles Rudge, who with Ronald Wolfe, writes the scripts
of Something to Shout About did some
pretty intensive investigations in the world of advertising before starring to
write and, he says 'infiltrated into the offices of several of my friends in
that line of business. Actually, to present that quite unique world as it
really is would utterly bewildering to the uninitiated. Nobody would understand
what was going on, and, if they did, they wouldn't believe it. Our show
presents a sort of compromise.
"As before Michael Medwin has three leading ladies,
Eleanor Summerfield, Fenella Fielding and Joan Sims, and those who held their
breath at the prospect of the sparks that could fly around the studio when
three start comediennes were cast in the same show have been disappointed. the
girls are the firmest of friends, and woe betide any of the men in the cast who
don't keep in line. As Eleanor Summerfield puts it: 'If the men tread on any of
our toes, we girls gang up on them, and they have a very rough time!'
Series 1 of Something
to Shout About starts on BBC Radio 4 Extra on Friday 8 July at 8.30 am. You
can read more about the programme on Laughterlog.
5 comments:
Radio Times says this show goes out at 8am on Fridays.
Best wishes. Simon
I really loved this show when it first went out in the 1960s and I could never understand why it wasn't repeated later in the decade. When R4Extra broadcast it they seemed to dosoalmost apologetically, and there was a hiatus during series 3 when it was taken off air for several weeks to re-repeat some Men From The Ministry episodes.Sadly the shows last survivor, Michael Medwin (1923-2020) died during the greak in transmissions, though Shiela Hancock, who took over from Joan Sims for the last few shows is still with us. In Fenella Fielding and Eleanor Summerfield you had two wonderful unique voices.
I suspect they won't broadcast them again, as the R4Extra love doesn't seem to be the same for the show as it is for the numerous re-runs of The Navy Lark, for example. At the moment, with all due respect to him, they are repeating loads of 1949 Ted Ray "Rays A Laugh" episodes,, which got better as the years went on, after they got rid of the frowsy Bob & Alf Pearson vocal spots ("we bring you mel-o-dies on high, from out of the sky, my brother and I").
I had recorded all the repeats of the 1960 and 1961 series on my TV recorder, but sadly the box gave up the ghost last year, but I have retained it just in case some way the recordings can be rescued. I have recorded the final series but sadly during this run, the shows started late (because they broadcast long slabs of Desert Island Discs, A Good Read, or trailers for The Comedy Club) and the TV recording box starts dead on the hour and only lasts 30 minutes so I lost the last two, three sometimes 4 minutes of each episode. 4Extra is getting very much worse at these late starts. Sorry for the moaning, but this series was underrated in the 60s and even more so on it's repeats. Alan
R4X repeated series 3 - but missed out 3 eps: 11, 12, 14 - if anyone has archival recordings leave a message here please!!!
Alan - we have all episodes (except for the missing 3). How can we contact you?
It sounds interesting to hear of a UK advertising comedy that was contemporary to the same era the later fictional Mad Men in set. Although UK advertising hadn't yet gone through the same creative forces of change that the US world had at that time.
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