ROUND THE HORNE REVISITED

ROUND THE HORNE REVISTED: Barry Took, Marty Feldman, Johnnie Mortimer, Brian Cooke
Touring
Runs: 2 hours, one interval
Rod Dungate, 3 May 2005, Belgrade: Reviewed elsewhere on the site . . . some thoughts about RTH itself

More than just nostalgia worth revisiting'Ladies and Gentlemen, for those of you easily offended, you've come to the right place.' So ROUND THE HORNE was introduced to its audience (both now and when it was recorded.) And so was introduced one of the most special radio shows ever (and there have been a lot of special ones.) Some of us, well, me, can remember sitting round our table for Sunday lunch in the late 60s listening to it with great glee much to the bemusement of my parents.

Rumour has it that it only got past the radio censor because he didn't understand the jokes. True or not, it doesn't matter, it was, in its way, ground-breaking stuff. Listening to it now, it's easy to wonder what all the fuss was about: times have moved on. The truth is that times have moved on, in part, through the work or people like Barry Took, Marty Feldman, Brian Cooke and Johnnie Mortimer. In a way, they are a bridge from the zany Goons to Monty Python.

This 'Revisited' is more than just charming nostalgia then; it's a timely homage to sixty-six half-hour shows that can now be seen as a landmark.

All the main characters are reborn for us Rambling Syd Rumpo, Charles and Fiona, Gruntfuttock, Dame Celia Molestrangler, Gypsy Rose Swansoiler. Puns abound, double-entendres abound even more. Who can forget Jules and his friend Sandy with their endless, mysterious, polari? Characters you wouldn't write today (and quite right too); but Jules and Sandy quite clearly a gay couple were created at a time when to have a gay relationship was to break the law. And somehow you never feel you're laughing at them; you always feel they're chuckling away at us.

The team splendidly bring all this to life.

Kenneth Horne: Stephen Critchlow
Douglas Smith: Oliver Beamish
Kenneth Williams: Stephen Matthews
Hugh Paddick: David Rumelle
Betty Marsden: Felicity Duncan
Sound Effects Man/ Understudy: C P Hallam
Sound Effects Woman: Courtney King

Directed by: Michael Kingsbury
Designed by: Liz Cooke
Lighting Designed by: Tony Simpson
Original Music and Sound Designed by: Rod Anderson

2005-05-05 11:00:19