Barry Took

Round The Horne repeat 'broke BBC standards'

A 52-year-old episode of radio comedy Round The Horne has broken current BBC standards because of its potentially racist stereotypes, the broadcaster's complaints department has ruled. The episode, from 1967, featured white stars such as Hugh Paddick and Betty Marsden mimicking black characters in an extended parody of the 1950 movie Young Man With A Horn. However, in its newly released findings, the unit stopped short of a ban because of Round The Horne's status as a comedy classic, with the show recently voted best radio comedy of all time.

From the archive: Round the Horne reviewed, June 1965

This show's air of maverick, matey rudeness provides a perfect formula for mockery without tears.

Dad's Army at 50: the history of 'comedy's finest hour'

The leads hated the script and the BBC was terrified of offending veterans. But Dad's Army became a TV phenomenon. We reveal how the Walmington warriors seized victory.

Every Home Should Have One: DVD review

The humour is adolescent throughout. A movie that ought to have given the increasingly tired-looking Carry On series a run for its money is a curious period piece that captures the ad game well it has it has its brighter moments like the take-offs of Ken Russell, Benny Hill, a Swedish nudist picture and a hell-for-leather Buster Keaton-like fight sequence in the BBC props room. It was ad guru David Ogilvy who said that advertising was 'the best fun you can have with your clothes on'. Every Home Should Have One proves him wrong.

If the names Captain Kremmen, Marcel Wave, Sid Snot and Cupid Stunt mean anything to you, then it's a safe bet that you're familiar with the work of the late Kenny Everett. Jeremy Beadle, Barry Cryer, Barry Took, and Steve Wright celebrate the work of a comedian who was always in the best possible taste.

Kenny Everett died 15 years ago, which seems an awfully long time to have been without the DJ/comedian who specialised in bad taste, anarchic humour and a biting line in satire. First shown on Channel 4, this affectionate tribute features Barry Cryer, Steve Wright and Barry Took, who celebrate the weird genius of Everett's career on radio and on TV, where his mix of nonsense, rudery and stabs at authority have been missed. The characters he created, such as Sid Snot and Marcel Wave, also defined his humour, although it's telling that this insecure comedian once said about his time on radio, "It's a good place to work if you are not really a jolly person but want to appear to be one."

A worthwhile repeat of this episode from Channel 4's 1998 series Heroes of Comedy about Benny Hill, a comic who managed the trick of being popular on both sides of the Atlantic. And he didn't stop there: Hill had fans from China and Russia too. As he once observed of his visual humour: "I can get my face slapped in six languages." This tribute captures the man behind the bawdy "seaside postcard" humour: the shy, humble loner. With clips from his shows and contributions from Bob Monkhouse and Barry Took.