Radio 2 was definitely the place to be for Beatles fans during the bank holiday weekend, with the station offering a whole host of programmes celebrating the Fab Four’s enduring musical legacy.
Though each show had a theme, a couple of these broadcasts were simply an excuse to play end to end Beatles tracks, or other artists’ covers of Lennon/McCartney compositions. Having myself been a dedicated follower of the band’s catalogue since the age of 15, I had no problems with these compilations, although the documentaries turned out to be more rewarding.
A case in point was The Beatles @ The Beeb, which threw the spotlight on songs and interviews John, Paul, George and Ringo recorded at the BBC during the sixties, one or two of which had not been aired since then. Despite the fact that this was a period of wireless innocence when records were rationed and live performance was encouraged, it was still surprising to discover that the group played on 53 different radio shows between March 1962 and June 1965.
What was very welcome about this two-hour helping of music and chat was that the archive recordings were played without any interruption from presenter Bill Kenwright or other figures - DJs Brian Matthew and the late Alan Freeman for example - who contributed to the programme. It could not have been easy for the Beatles @ The Beeb producer to pick from the 88 different songs the band played live on air during this period, but a nice balance was made between original tracks and cover versions.
As the Fab Four’s fame and success skyrocketed, their radio appearances dwindled. But what these recordings allowed the listener to witness was the huge journey the then young men made both personally and professionally during that period. One of the last gems from the archive to feature in the programme was excerpts from a programme entitled the Lennon and McCartney Songbook, during which the writers were interviewed about the increasing amount of artists recording their songs. The intense atmosphere of the 1966 recording, during which Lennon often sounded irritated and disengaged, came as such a contrast to the cheeky chappie banter of the boys having a laugh in the earlier broadcasts.
By coincidence, 1966 was the same year that a comedy script called Twice Ken is Plenty was submitted to, and rejected by, the BBC. Hugely popular radio personality Kenneth Horne, along with his ghost writer at the time Mollie Millest, had envisaged the project as a vehicle for himself and Kenneth Williams, but the powers that be at the Beeb were not sure there was any room in the schedule for the piece and believed there was a risk of over-exposure. Horne and Williams were, of course, already regularly heard in the incredibly successful series Round the Horne.
Lucky for us then that the discarded script was recently discovered among Williams’ possessions, bought by writer and broadcaster Wes Butters on eBay and then adapted and performed in front of a BBC Radio Theatre audience earlier this year.
For aficionados of radio comedy, Twice Ken is Plenty - The Lost Script of Kenneth Williams must have been quite an event, and the pressure was on Butters, producer Stephen Garner and actors Robin Sebastian (Williams) and Jonathan Rigby (Horne) to re-create the on-air magic of these two great personalities. Happily, the result of their efforts was a joy, with Sebastian and Rigby perfectly delivering both the witty repartee and so bad that they’re good gags with quick-fire timing (even if they got close to corpsing on several occasions).
The plot for Twice Ken is Plenty followed Horne and Williams as they walked around Broadcasting House searching for an office to work in and meeting a host of characters (all played by them except for Charles Armstrong’s announcer). Nowadays one of those BH doors could quite easily open on to another double act of sorts, namely David Mitchell and Robert Webb. Whether That Mitchell and Webb Sound is yet so memorable that audiences will still enjoy it in decades to come is up for debate, but how encouraging that they are still working on radio. Most of their contemporaries never return once television has lured them away.
PROGRAMMES
The Beatles @ The Beeb, R2, Monday, August 31
Twice Ken is Plenty - The Lost Script of Kenneth Williams, R4, Tuesday, September 1
That Mitchell and Webb Sound R4, from Tuesday, August 25
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