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Two giants of English comedy
'Around the Town' was a one-off comedy special which the BBC transmitted on the first of October 1955. Up until that week, the BBC had held a monopoly over all TV broadcasting in Britain, but this week transmissions began for the ITV channel. To keep ahead of their new competition, Auntie Beeb led off with this programme which featured the two biggest names in English comedy at the moment: Max Miller and Terry-Thomas.
Max Miller was the number-one headliner in the glory days of the English music hall. He was certainly Britain's leading comedian during the Second World War, and very possibly he was **the** #1 entertainer in Britain, in any genre. He wore a garish outfit spangled in weird floral patterns, and occasionally strummed a ukelele (not a banjolele, like his competitor George Formby) whilst singing naughty little tunes like 'Mary from the Dairy'. His onstage outfits were so flamboyant that they inevitably provoked rumours that Miller was gay, even though he was in no other way flamboyant nor effeminate. (Miller encouraged such rumours, working them into his material.) Max Miller had a reputation for doing 'blue' material, but most of his jokes were suggestive rather than obscene. A typical Miller routine: he would walk onstage and stride directly towards the most attractive woman in the front row of the stalls, while peeling a banana and counting the peelings aloud: 'One skin, two skin, three skin ... here, lady, want a bite?'
Much like Jack Benny (from Waukegan) and Lou Costello (from Paterson, NJ), Miller made frequent references in his comedy routines to his hometown: in his case, Brighton ... although the character he played onstage really seemed more like a Cockney. Miller would perform onstage with two books: one in a white cover, the other in a blue cover. Ostensibly the white book contained all the clean jokes ever written, whilst the blue book contained all the 'other' jokes. Asking the audience to choose from one book or the other, Max would invariably receive their shouted reply: 'The BLUE book!' If anyone felt that Max's jokes were just a bit too suggestive, he had a ready catchphrase handy: 'It's the way I tell 'em, lady.' With the possible exception of Red Buttons, **NO** other performer has ever controlled an audience so perfectly as Max Miller did consistently.
In 'Around the Town', Miller and Terry-Thomas performed some of their most popular material from the time. Miller did two of his Blue Book routines (including the one with the notorious throwaway line 'No, no; he'd got gout!'), and performed some musical material. Terry-Thomas did a monologue and also performed his skit 'Technical Difficulties': in this sketch, he played a radio disc jockey who is just about to go on the air when he accidentally smashes his entire stack of records. With no time to substitute other material, the DJ is forced to go on the air, announcing each record and doing rapid-fire vocal imitations of all the artistes on the records. This routine shows Terry-Thomas's astonishing ability as an impressionist ... a talent which he surprisingly neglected later. Although his disc-jockey routine in this 1955 kinescope recording was quite hilarious when it originally transmitted, it is no longer very funny because modern viewers will not recognise most of the people whom Terry-Thomas was imitating. Still, Terry-Thomas's virtuoso imitation of *all* the Ink Spots is hilarious!
I have a great fondness for old-style comedy, and I'm tempted to rate this programme 10 out of 10. But I recognise that much of this material has dated badly, so I'll rate it 7 in 10.
Max Miller was the number-one headliner in the glory days of the English music hall. He was certainly Britain's leading comedian during the Second World War, and very possibly he was **the** #1 entertainer in Britain, in any genre. He wore a garish outfit spangled in weird floral patterns, and occasionally strummed a ukelele (not a banjolele, like his competitor George Formby) whilst singing naughty little tunes like 'Mary from the Dairy'. His onstage outfits were so flamboyant that they inevitably provoked rumours that Miller was gay, even though he was in no other way flamboyant nor effeminate. (Miller encouraged such rumours, working them into his material.) Max Miller had a reputation for doing 'blue' material, but most of his jokes were suggestive rather than obscene. A typical Miller routine: he would walk onstage and stride directly towards the most attractive woman in the front row of the stalls, while peeling a banana and counting the peelings aloud: 'One skin, two skin, three skin ... here, lady, want a bite?'
Much like Jack Benny (from Waukegan) and Lou Costello (from Paterson, NJ), Miller made frequent references in his comedy routines to his hometown: in his case, Brighton ... although the character he played onstage really seemed more like a Cockney. Miller would perform onstage with two books: one in a white cover, the other in a blue cover. Ostensibly the white book contained all the clean jokes ever written, whilst the blue book contained all the 'other' jokes. Asking the audience to choose from one book or the other, Max would invariably receive their shouted reply: 'The BLUE book!' If anyone felt that Max's jokes were just a bit too suggestive, he had a ready catchphrase handy: 'It's the way I tell 'em, lady.' With the possible exception of Red Buttons, **NO** other performer has ever controlled an audience so perfectly as Max Miller did consistently.
In 'Around the Town', Miller and Terry-Thomas performed some of their most popular material from the time. Miller did two of his Blue Book routines (including the one with the notorious throwaway line 'No, no; he'd got gout!'), and performed some musical material. Terry-Thomas did a monologue and also performed his skit 'Technical Difficulties': in this sketch, he played a radio disc jockey who is just about to go on the air when he accidentally smashes his entire stack of records. With no time to substitute other material, the DJ is forced to go on the air, announcing each record and doing rapid-fire vocal imitations of all the artistes on the records. This routine shows Terry-Thomas's astonishing ability as an impressionist ... a talent which he surprisingly neglected later. Although his disc-jockey routine in this 1955 kinescope recording was quite hilarious when it originally transmitted, it is no longer very funny because modern viewers will not recognise most of the people whom Terry-Thomas was imitating. Still, Terry-Thomas's virtuoso imitation of *all* the Ink Spots is hilarious!
I have a great fondness for old-style comedy, and I'm tempted to rate this programme 10 out of 10. But I recognise that much of this material has dated badly, so I'll rate it 7 in 10.
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- F Gwynplaine MacIntyre
- Apr 12, 2003
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