Rockabilly
Wednesday 11th June 2008 2:57am
167 posts
Quote: Alan C @ June 10 2008, 11:45 PM BST
Well this is the whole problem of the nature of the times we are talking about - it was not a subject for comedy in the 50's or 60's and most gay actors would never reveal their sexual preferences until the 70's at least. The Bona Polari talk in Round the Horne was just seen as two very odd characters speaking in a very strange language at a time when esperranto was also popular. So only if you knew that polari was an underground gay "language" would you even be aware of the sexual overtone to the sketches.
You would have had to have been a bit thick not to have noticed any ''gay'' under/overtones, just from the voice characterisations alone! , the polari used was very basic.
I think you are underestimating the ''alertness'' of the audience to this subject in rth.
Re the steptoe ''any old iron'', I am a massive steptoe fan ,and it has always made me wonder whether this episode was Galton and Simpsons little joke at the expense of Wilfrid Brambell, considering his characters disgust at the thought of his son becoming a ''poof'', considering he was himself homosexual.
Porridge had many references to homosexuals in it's scripts, and there was another gay character in one episode wearing curlers! the same actor was the jockey in HI DE HI, and the Porridge film had 2 gay characters.
What I was hoping was some ''underground'' characters similar to Julian and Sandy may have existed in a 50's or early 60's sitcom , but it seems not.
