Val Arnold-Forster

After the recent collection of disastrously unfunny new comedy it is a relief to see Week Ending (Friday, Radio 4) returning. The Burkiss Way had its adherents, and I even met a man who smiled at Radio Burps but The Chronicles of The Soppy Family was plain awful. Do you remember that classic Charles Addams cartoon of the solitary man in the audience chuckling happily away as all around wept and hid their faces? He must be somewhere in Broadcasting House these days.

And a new comedy series, He's A Wonderful Wife (Radio 4, Wednesday) which depends on the unfunny, out-dated and overplayed notion that there is something inherently comic in men staying at home and wives working. It needs remarkably skilful dialogue to absorb such a wet idea - and this series, though it is early days yet, looks like being not so much a sponge, as a lead face flannel.

It is grievously underrating The Enchanting World of Hinge and Bracket (Wednesday, Radio 4) to describe it as a drag show, rather than as an affectionately observed, gently absurd, and successfully laughable series about two elderly ladies.

Collapse of Stout Party (Radio 4, Mondays), a two-part programme about Victorian humour had some pretty awful stories too - but clean ones. We were told that the Victorians had their dirty jokes as well but confined, because of the price of the dirty mags, to the very rich, and apparently too filthy to be broadcast. The rudest word I heard was "bleeding" - though that was used 17 times in one story. Today a different word might well be used.

It requires quick wits and considerable general knowledge and has some of the fascination of quizzes, in that we at the wheels of our cars or at the dish washing can play it too and when we don't know the answer, we can comfort ourselves that our concentration was distracted by traffic lights or the frying pan.

The real skill is to get the imitation both of voice and content just a trifle over-played. From time to time the impersonators on this programme achieve exactly this, but they are given difficult tasks. They are asked, for instance, to imitate some famous figure imitating another famous figure - which doubles the difficulty.

For those who already know the Likely Lads, so far the radio version is sticking closely to the television scripts. However, last week when Thelma ends up accidentally in Terry's bed in the radio version it sounded as though she was naked whereas in the television version she wore a discreet petticoat. The best example I have heard of the old saw about preferring radio to television because the scenery is better.

Ernie's plans and pretensions are constantly interrupted, denigrated, and sabotaged by Eric - and yet, of course, they depend upon each other. Like the Steptoes, and Hancock and James, this means that most of the humour is in straight dialogue and makes excellent radio.

Even in the comedy field there are promising contenders. The Gag-Crackers' Ball (Radio 2, Sunday) has some of the oldest jokes in the business: though when we heard again the gag about that wasn't a lady, that was my wife, it was a joke about old jokes, at least I think so. Snap, sparkle, and pop from them certainly - but the pop is from a fairly leaden balloon.

"I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again" (Tuesday) is School of M. Python round for the second time. Sometimes just plain silly, for the middle-aged, but popular with the young.