Round The Horne

Yesterday evening Mike and I went out to see a radio program. It was performed by a group called the Generic Radio Workshop. It was very interesting , funny and well presented . It reminded us of the “good old days” when we would all sit in our armchairs and listen to the wireless. Some of the shows we would listen to would be comedy shows , like Hancock's Half Hour or the Goon Show or more serious stuff(!!) like Dick Barton, a detective mystery which ran for I think 15 minutes every evening or The Archers a daily show about life in the country .Some of these programs were on every day and some just once a week. The characters and their punch lines became part of our lives.This was mostly in the days before television or the telly took over and radio shows were passe.

The show we saw which was very well performed, was a scripted version of 'Round the Horne” and the performers took the parts that had been originally  performed by Kenneth Horne, Hugh Paddick, Kenneth Williams, Betty Marsden and Douglas Smith.

This particular show was not one of my favorites although I did listen to it occasionally. Obviously the audience last night made up of  British people and also Americans thought it hilarious. Whether  the jokes were understood by all it's very difficult to say but it was a lovely evening and made us remember those”good old days”.

I did look on the internet and saw that on BBC4 you can still hear some of these old radio shows.Here is a link.http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00c7q4l

Kenneth Horne with Kenneth Williams, Hugh Paddick, Bill Pertwee, Betty Marsden and Douglas Smith. Written by Barry Took and Marty Feldman