Discussion of BCG feature articles Page 3

Quote: Aaron @ 9th March 2024, 11:13 AM

Danny was great and The Love Match is a real favourite. Utterly wonderful. I wish someone would restore it and release a Blu-ray. And how dearly I wish more in that series of plays had been filmed and survived. Brilliance.

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Yes, one of my all time favourites, as I loved Arthur Askey, and then you have the superb Thora Hird and Arthur's mate Wally, played by Glenn Melvyn, whose idea it was and wrote a lot of the script.

This bit from that video clip also never fails with me.................

"You know what I think of you, don't you........................?"

Door bell goes

"................Allo, somebody's beaten me to it" 😆

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vH9gm6YmvE&t=18s

And as it happens, today marks 25 years since Melvyn's death. A wonderful writer.

Well, I never knew that - belated Rest In Peace, and here's a bit of trivia - "He met Ronnie Barker in repertory theatre and gave the young actor his break into television, offering him a role in I'm Not Bothered (1956)", which RB reciprocated, it appears, in 1968 in one of his Ronnie Barker Playhouse series, in the episode "The Fastest Gun in Finchley", which would be lovely to see, and slight coincidence, also appearing in it was Charlotte Mitchell who often turned up in The Goon Show when they needed a genuine female voice and not one of Peter Sellers' OTT female voices - she was very good in as Maid Marian in "Ye Bandit of Sherwood Forest" (one of my favourites I always listen to at Christmas).........................you should listen to it sometime Aaron 😁

But seriously, you really should expand your listening pleasure https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWC7iz0vngs

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0688405/?ref_=ttfc_fc_cl_i36

Quote: Alfred J Kipper @ 9th March 2024, 9:55 AM

Yes good article on the Steam Radio. 😠

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Thank you Alf 🙂

Quote: Firkin @ 8th March 2024, 6:56 PM

Good to see you back Herc, and I'd agree the Goon Show was "a masterclass in characterisation" as was Hancock's half hour. Why else would they be "Classics" and have such an influence ? But I did once have to explain why the Ying tong song wasn't racist to a Chinese friend, apparently you can go to jail if you tell a joke folk don't like over there !

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Thank you Firkin - much appreciated. 😊

What I really find interesting is Hancock's lifestory and sad, lonely demise at his own hand. I honestly used to think that the character he portrayed in his eponymous show 'Hancock' was just a boring moaner (sorry!) but then I listened to 'The Blood Donor' and fully realised how good that he was, especially in conjunction with Galton and Simpson's writing underpinning it all.

The latest comedy chronicles is a good read for all writers and writer wannabes, although most of those covered were fairly well known about and or notorious. Reading this you'd again think the only way to do it is as a partnership but there have been plenty of very successful solo sitcom writers such as Sullivan, Chappell, Clarke, Mortimer, Nobbs, Lane, Elton, etc. who just got on with it but don't have the eccentric or torturous stories behind their processes like the more readable and well known ones relayed here.

Shock announcement, writing can be just as dull and normal and productive as any average job, and if you really struggle with it, maybe it's not for you.