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As used by the characters Julian and Sandy in the postwar BBC radio comedy Round the Horne.
by mprev 9y ago
As used by the characters Julian and Sandy in the postwar BBC radio comedy Round the Horne.
- grkvlt 9y agoI believe at the time in the UK not just homosexuality (cf. Alan Turing) but also depictions of it were illegal, so this was a way to have gay characters without the BBC directors or censors realising.
- pvg 9y agoalso depictions of it were illegal I don't think 'having a gay character' was illegal or that there was any doubt in the minds of directors, censors or audience the characters were gay.
- jdietrich 9y agoDepicting gay characters wasn't illegal, but it would have caused an almighty shitstorm in the tabloid press. In the 60s and 70s, British comedy and light entertainment was rife with "confirmed bachelors" with a flamboyant manner - John Inman, Kenneth Williams, Frankie Howerd, Larry Grayson etc. A metropolitan audience would see them as obviously gay, but there was a level of plausible deniability, aided by straight camp and drag performers like Dick Emery and Stanley Baxter.
- dingaling 9y agoI only heard the Horne series for the first time in the early 2000s, when the BBC started tapping its archives for the new digital channels. What stood out about those programmes were: 1. How well they've aged, with very few lost contemporaraneous references ( mostly in Horne's introductory monologue ) 2. How much literature I had read in my youth that was directly influed by Horne's ensemble, without me being aware 3. How progressive it was, moreso than the likes of the Goon Show which seem to be higher-profile It used to be a staple of BBC Radio 7 but seems to be much rarer on its successor, Radio 4 Extra: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00c7q4l http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00c7q4l