Gather Round the Horne again as legendary radio show is reconstructed in Sussex

JULIAN Howard McDowell is well placed to extol the virtues of what many call the greatest British radio comedy of all time.

The actor, who plays Kenneth Horne in the 50th anniversary touring version of Round the Horne, claims “everybody remembers where they were when they listened to the show” and backs his claim up with his own vivid personal experience.

“I can recall listening to it in the car when we were coming back from my grandparents’ house on Sunday afternoon,” says the Worthing-based man, surely echoing the childhood memories of many.

His personal connection to Round the Horne doesn’t stop there – at 61 he is now the age that Kenneth Horne was when he was leading the series McDowell and company will perform on stage in their upcoming tour.

“That works quite nicely, doesn’t it? Horne died when he was 62, though, so I’m hoping the coincidence stops there.”

While gathering around the wireless after Sunday lunch will invoke warm nostalgia for many, a whole new generation might be unfamiliar with the comedy stylings of Round the Horne and, in the age of on demand entertainment, the idea of event radio in general. Together with The Goon Show, which first aired 15 years before Round the Horne, the latter programme brought the nation together in a way that has rarely been witnessed since.

Created and initially written by Barry Took and Marty Feldman – before the latter left the show to pursue a career in Hollywood – Round the Horne was transmitted in weekly episodes from 1965 until 1968. There was no conceivable way it could continue after Horne died of a heart attack in 1969.

Centring on the intuitive comedic talent of the show’s stars Horne, Kenneth Williams, Hugh Paddick, Betty Marsden and Bill Pertwee, Round the Horne was 30 minutes of controlled chaos.

It featured a range of colourful characters – including Julian and Sandy, gay figures appearing in mainstream media in the years before homosexuality was decriminalised – partially improvised sketches and send-ups of well-known personalities in a whirlwind of creative energy.

McDowell believes much of what made the show seem so natural, and the sketches so alive, was its emphasis on spontaneity – an approach his show aims to replicate.

Their production is directed by Tim Astley of the Apollo Theatre Company, who also compiled the scripts – the first three seasons of the original show are condensed into a two-part live performance.

“We try and make it so we don’t over-rehearse, because in the original recordings the cast didn’t get a chance to see the scripts until an hour before the show was transmitted,”

he says. “It was read pretty much read at the rate of transmission time and off the top of your head sometimes.”

If this sounds like a high-wire act with little margin for error, McDowell is quick to point out the perks of improvisation: “We genuinely laugh our heads off in rehearsals because we don’t have a huge idea what’s coming next.”

At the helm of the blink-and-you’ll-missit shenanigans was the eponymous Horne, who, as McDowell talks about with enthusiasm, was an interesting, multi-dimensional figure; an RAF pilot and successful businessman, broadcaster and lauded comedian. His Round the Horne co-star Kenneth Williams once said that Horne possessed a mind “in which there seemed to be stored every funny voice, every dialect, every comedy trick, which he knew that each member of the cast was capable of.”

With such an intuitive grasp on the show and its component parts, Horne was a hugely reassuring character.

“He was a much loved man and he always treated his staff very fairly,” says McDowell, who meticulously researched Horne’s life before taking on the role. “It is nice to get a feel for someone who was such a popular person in his own right. You feel affection towards somebody who could have caused that much enjoyment among the people he knew in his life.

“It was his natural charm and ability to get on with people that made him such a success.”

Touching on his business background – Horne eventually became chairman of toy company Chad Valley after various other ventures – McDowell astutely remarks that his character was very much embedded in the “establishment”.

“That was the irony – he was an establishment figure in the middle of this utterly chaotic show.”

In highlighting the paradox of this, McDowell hints at the fact that Round the Horne had – and has – a reputation for “shaking up the establishment”, even while it was aired on such a trusted institution as the BBC.

He highlights one episode in particular that prompted considerable controversy.

“Kenneth Horne wrote a part which referred to scantily clad girls and was transmitted on Easter Sunday. The BBC then had all kinds of ‘very upset from Tunbridge Wells’ type people ringing up and calling the show disgusting.”

Another reason the show was “groundbreaking”

(in McDowell’s words) is its focus on homosexuality.

Kenneth Williams played Sandy on the show, who, with Hugh Paddick (Julian), played the role of a flamboyant gay man.

McDowell does not think the high profile of Round the Horne had anything to do with the decriminalisation of homosexual acts between two men over 21 years of age in England and Wales (“in private”) in 1967 but suggests that Julian and Sandy played a role in advancing LGBT affairs at the time.

“I think it would have been comforting to listen to a BBC show and laugh openly with these characters without people thinking ‘you’re breaking the law’ or ‘you’re gay and that’s dreadful’. Of course Kenneth Williams was gay but nobody could be in the same way you can now. The show did break the barrier.”

He adds: “There is a lovely line in one of the Julian and Sandy sketches when they’re talking to Kenneth Horne, where Hugh Paddick (Sandy) says ‘oh, I don’t know Mr Horne, we’ve got a criminal practice that takes up most of our time’. It was quite overt in that sense.”

Beyond the innovative touches seen on the show, McDowell believes there is a certain magic specific to all comedy and drama on the radio. He speaks about the medium with passion.

“The great thing about it is it sparks the imagination. Everybody has an idea about what a radio character looks like. but to everybody that is a different person. It gives you that feeling of ‘this is just for me’.”

McDowell is a fan of programmes including Just a Minute and feels that Radio 4 in general is doing a good job of hosting the kind of communal listening experience that Round the Horne initially offered.

The show itself is still broadcast every day on Radio 4 Extra, where, apparently, students listen to it. McDowell has spotted some at the shows, as well as much smaller children.

“They probably didn’t quite understand the show but children love the silly, playful aspects of it,” he says. “There is a playground mentality to a lot of the stuff which they respond well to.”

While people might not be gathering around the wireless en masse any more, it seems the legacy of this iconic radio production continues to grow.

Julian Howard McDowell on...

Kenneth Horne

He was a very successful man and a very successful businessman. There’s not much left about him, even though he did an awful lot of television. Of course in those days nothing was kept, it was all taped over. There is very little, nothing on YouTube. I’ve only got snippets. It became even more fascinating in that sense.

His last wife burnt almost every piece of documentary evidence there was about him, for personal reasons obviously. I think his step-daughter is still alive, because I think she came to the show last year. Horne had contact with Sussex, of course, because after he had his first heart attack he came down to Hove to recuperate and then bought a house in Sussex.

I drove about his village while researching the role and looked at the house. His death was a terrible tragedy, in the most tragic circumstances and I got the feeling I wanted to find out more. 

Kenneth Williams

Williams was constantly sitting behind Kenneth Horne on the show, making faces and trying to make him laugh. He has often said that Horne was like a second father to him.

Staying true to the original script

We haven’t changed the script at all.What we have done, though, is where there are references to people that modern day audiences wouldn’t get, like minor politicians of the time, we haven’t included that. People would think “who the hell is that?”.

Round the Horne’s content matter

It wasn’t directly satirical. If something really embarrassing had happened to a politician there may have been a reference made to it in a comical way, but not really a satirical way. In our last show I made reference to Quentin Hogg who was at that time in charge of the law courts. People got that, because some people who remembered Round the Horne would remember Quentin Hogg. People of a certain age remember old Prime Ministers, and even Ken Dodd, who was still going at the time.

On getting permission to perform

Tim Astley, our director, asked Lyn Took (wife of RTH writer Barry Took) a few years ago. And here we are.

The Barn Theatre, Southwick Street, Southwick, Oct 4 and 5, 7.30pm, £15, 01273 592819