r_caton

Tommy Handley was supremely talented in rapid fire delivery and in making scripted humour sound spontaneous. Listening to his work on the Radio in ITMA or his work on record with Ronald Frankau (Murgatroyd and Winterbottom, or in earlier days North and South) you will marvel at the sheer speed of delivery matched to clarity of diction. He was a broadcast comedian who had started with the BBC as early as 1922 but it was with ITMA that he truly became a national icon. The problem with ITMA is that like most really good comedy it was very topical and what was recognised in 1943 might need research by 1948 to even understand. When translated to film radio comedy is doubly hampered by the need for a plot which a show that depended on catchphrases fast delivery and topical humour simply didn't need on its home turf. This applies to most radio comedy, as has been remarked on with the Goons, and films like Bandwaggon (where Big and Stinker... Arthur Askey and Richard Murdoch.... end up running a pirate TV station). Yet ITMA holds up. Handley's character as the rascally mayor of Foaming at the Mouth is a joy to watch as he keeps extracting himself from trouble only to get caught with his own trick at the very end of the film. Don't like ancient radio comedy actors? Go watch something modern! But comparing the verbal dexterity of Tommy Handley to the slapstick antics of the Three Stooges? That's like comparing steak to sea bass... both delicious but nothing like each other.

It's hard to comment on a show one hasn't seen for 40 years but I recall the theme song (by Jake Thackeray) even now "Tick-tick-er tape, Tick-Tick-Er Tape, A most pec-uli-er mach-ine" The other think I recall about it was that it had an animated sequence - cutout animation I think, the sort that has legs and arms without knee/elbow joints which would feature a boy and another character who was the devil/tempter - this would have been a nod to the fact that the show went out on Sunday. It is hard now to imagine the poor standard of shows that went out on Sunday, and as a result were supposed to be edifying and morally educational to the children watching. Not that children's TV has ever not had a message for its audience, just that Sunday shows were expected to be especially moral. Why did we watch them? because the stuff on the BBC was even worse from the preaching aspect. I will give this show credit for introducing me to the inimitable Jake Thackeray though!