Mastodawn

Michael Meckler Aug 25, 2024

@NearerAndFarther Your prize vegetable may remind some of us of a certain novelty song.

#TheMarrowSong #marrows #zucchini #KennethWilliams #RoundTheHorne

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lyTPEVv-hNE

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And finally, the well ran dry on occasion when the writers tried to fulfill listener expectations for regular appearances by some of the programme's best-known characters. This was especially true of the 'Julian and Sandy' sketches that brought the episodes to their conclusion, but it was also the case with 'Rambling Syd Rumpo' and 'Charles and Fiona'.

I still very much enjoyed the fourth series of 'Round the Horne', but to me, it lacks the sparkle of the earlier series.

Another difficulty with the final series were the attempts to make Hugh Paddick and Betty Marsden into characters in their own right, in the manner of Kenneth Williams.

But neither Paddick nor Marsden seemed comfortable creating a public persona, something that came naturally to Williams. Paddick and Marsden were highly skilled and versatile radio actors who shone when given roles to play.

The fourth series of 'Round the Horne' did contain a musical segment, having cast members perform comic music hall and variety ditties, but these also require significant concentration by listeners to process.

To me, these music hall songs made the episodes flag, rather than allow for a re-energised listen for the episode's second half.

The absence of the Fraser Hayes Four does, in fact, affect the programme's pacing in a quite significant way. While having a musical interlude may seem to us rather old-fashioned, harkening to radio comedies of the 1930s and '40s, it served an important structural purpose by giving listeners a break from processing comedy (which can be quite complicated speech). Listeners can then approach the second half of the programme with 'fresh ears'.

While series 4 is still quite amusing, it doesn't strike me as being as clever and innovative as the previous three series were.

Much of the programme's humour involved double entendre, but this double entendre seems to dominate the fourth series, and sometimes the attempts are a bit of a stretch. The loss of Bill Pertwee limits the writing, and sometimes the cast announce that an actor is playing multiple parts in a sketch.

Over the past few years, I managed to listen to the first three series of 'Round the Horne', but I had never heard the fourth and final series until the past few weeks, when it was rebroadcast on Radio 4 Extra.

There were significant changes between series 3 and series 4. Marty Feldman left to pursue other projects, and Johnnie Mortimer and Brian Cooke joined Barry Took as writers. Bill Pertwee was dropped, as were the Fraser Hayes Four singing group and their musical interlude.