''Beyond Our Ken'' is a

BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board ex ...

radio comedy programme first broadcast between 1958 and 1964. It starred

Kenneth Horne Charles Kenneth Horne, generally known as Kenneth Horne, (27 February 1907 – 14 February 1969) was an English comedian and businessman. He is perhaps best remembered for his work on three BBC Radio series: ''Much-Binding-in-the-Marsh ...

, with

Kenneth Williams Kenneth Charles Williams (22 February 1926 – 15 April 1988) was an English actor of Welsh heritage. He was best known for his comedy roles and in later life as a raconteur and diarist. He was one of the main ensemble in 26 of the 31 Car ...

Hugh Paddick Hugh William Paddick (22 August 1915 – 9 November 2000) was an English actor. He starred in the 1960s BBC radio show ''Round the Horne'', performing in sketches such as "Charles and Fiona" (as Charles) and "Julian and Sandy" (as Julian). He and ...

Betty Marsden Betty Marsden (24 February 1919 – 18 July 1998) was an English comedy actress. She is particularly remembered as a cast member of the radio series ''Beyond Our Ken'' and ''Round the Horne''. Marsden also appeared in two Carry On films, ''Carry ...

Bill Pertwee William Desmond Anthony Pertwee, (21 July 1926 – 27 May 2013) was a British comedy actor. He played the role of Chief ARP Warden Hodges in the sitcom ''Dad's Army''. Early life Pertwee was born in Amersham, Buckinghamshire, on 21 July 1926 ...

, and, as announcer, Douglas Smith. The title is a play on the name Kenneth and the familiar expression "beyond our ken" (''

ken Ken or KEN may refer to: Entertainment * ''Ken'' (album), a 2017 album by Canadian indie rock band Destroyer. * ''Ken'' (film), 1964 Japanese film. * ''Ken'' (magazine), a large-format political magazine. * Ken Masters, a main character in ...

'' being a mainly Northern English and Scots word meaning 'knowledge or perception'). The show ran for seven series, and a total of 121 shows. The scripts were by

Eric Merriman Eric Hugh Peter Merriman (6 December 1924 – 2 June 2003) was a British radio and television writer, who provided material for numerous comedians including Frankie Howerd, Terry Scott and Morecambe and Wise. Born in Golders Green, the son of musi ...

, with

Barry Took Barry Took (19 June 192831 March 2002) was an English writer, television presenter and comedian. His decade-and-a-half writing partnership with Marty Feldman led to the television series ''Bootsie and Snudge'', the radio comedy ''Round the Horn ...

as co-writer in the first two series. Musical accompaniment was provided by the BBC Revue Orchestra, with musical interludes mostly by the

Fraser Hayes Four The Fraser Hayes Four, originally called The Fraser Hayes Quartette, was a British close harmony vocal group, formed by the musicians Jimmy Fraser (real name Frazer Potts) and Tony Hayes in the late 1940s, disbanded in 1953, and re-formed in 1956. ...

. When the show finished it was replaced by the series ''

Round the Horne ''Round the Horne'' is a BBC Radio comedy programme starring Kenneth Horne, first transmitted in four series of weekly episodes from 1965 until 1968. The show was created by Barry Took and Marty Feldman, who wrote the first three series. The fo ...

'' (1965–1968), which built on, and exceeded, the success of the earlier show.

Background

had written some material for

, when the latter was an aspiring

stand-up comic Stand-up comedy is a comedic performance to a live audience in which the performer addresses the audience directly from the stage. The performer is known as a comedian, a comic or a stand-up. Stand-up comedy consists of one-liners, stories, ...

.Took, p. 137 They subsequently collaborated in writing material for

for

radio shows, and in June 1957 the

producer

Jacques Brown Jacques Brown (first name pronounced "Jakes") (23 August 1900 – 3 April 1975) was a British radio producer. He produced ''Much-Binding-in-the-Marsh'', ''The Goon Show'', ''Beyond Our Ken'' and others for BBC Radio. He was born Solomon Jacob Brow ...

asked Merriman to devise a thirty-minute show with Horne as the star. The proposal was for a series depicting a fictional week in Horne's life. The original working title was ''Don't Look Now'', but a senior official in the BBC's Variety department thought the title weak, and Took was asked to suggest some alternatives. His own preferred title was ''Round the Horne'', and Merriman favoured ''Hornerama'', but from Took's list the BBC chose ''Beyond Our Ken'', and it was under that title that Merriman and Took completed the script for the pilot show. For the supporting cast it was agreed that the show required a strong team of versatile comedy actors who could play a wide range of parts. They were drawn from the West End and BBC radio and television. From

revue A revue is a type of multi-act popular theatrical entertainment that combines music, dance, and sketches. The revue has its roots in 19th century popular entertainment and melodrama but grew into a substantial cultural presence of its own duri ...

the show featured the actors

Ron Moody Ron Moody (born Ronald Moodnick; 8 January 1924 – 11 June 2015) was an English actor, composer, singer and writer. He was best known for his portrayal of Fagin in ''Oliver!'' (1968) and its 1983 Broadway revival. Moody earned a Golden Globe ...

and

and the singer Pat Lancaster; from BBC television,

; and from radio

.Johnston, p. 171

Production history

The pilot was recorded on 2 October 1957. It was well received by the studio audience and the BBC agreed to go ahead with a series. The project was put on hold in February 1958 after Horne suffered a

stroke A stroke is a medical condition in which poor blood flow to the brain causes cell death. There are two main types of stroke: ischemic, due to lack of blood flow, and hemorrhagic, due to bleeding. Both cause parts of the brain to stop functionin ...

that left him partially paralysed. He made an almost complete recovery – left with only a slight limp – and was able to return to broadcasting. There followed seven series of the show, beginning in July 1958 and ending in February 1964. Moody left after the first series, concluding that he was less suited than his colleagues to radio performance. His replacement was

, whom Horne had encountered in Pertwee's early days as a performer, and whose versatility impressed him. After the second series, Merriman and Took fell out, and the former rejected Horne's plea that Took should be invited to contribute material to future shows. Merriman insisted on being recognised as the sole writer for the duration of the show.

Series

In 1964 Merriman quarrelled with the BBC and refused to go on writing ''Beyond Our Ken''. The BBC proposed to continue without him, keeping Horne and the team together in a show provisionally titled ''It's Ken Again'', to be written by Took and his new writing partner,

Marty Feldman Martin Alan Feldman (8 July 1934 – 2 December 1982) was a British actor, comedian and comedy writer. He was known for his exophthalmos, prominent, strabismus, misaligned eyes. He initially gained prominence as a writer with Barry Took on ...

. In the face of Merriman's furious objections, the new series went ahead, with the title changed to ''

''. Merriman was further embittered when the new show surpassed the popularity and reputation of ''Beyond Our Ken'' and he never forgave Took. Horne's biographer Barry Johnston comments "If Kenneth Horne had retired from broadcasting after the final episode of ''Beyond Our Ken'', he would still have been remembered as the star of two of the most successful radio comedy series ever. His place as one of the all-time greats of British comedy, however, is due to the extraordinary popularity of ''Round the Horne''." Nevertheless, in the words of the BBC, "While ''Beyond Our Ken'' might have been outshone by its successor, it shared much of the same DNA that made ''Round the Horne'' one of the greats".

Format

Like ''

ITMA ''It's That Man Again'' (commonly contracted to ''ITMA'') was a BBC radio comedy programme which ran for twelve series from 1939 to 1949. The shows featured Tommy Handley in the central role, a fast-talking figure, around whom the other cha ...

'' and ''

Much-Binding-in-the-Marsh ''Much-Binding-in-the-Marsh'' was a comedy show broadcast from 1944 to 1950 and 1951 to 1954 by BBC radio and in 1950–51 by Radio Luxembourg. It was written by and starred Richard Murdoch and Kenneth Horne as officers in a fictional RAF stati ...

'' before it, ''Beyond Our Ken'' interspersed comic sections with musical interludes, but it differed from them and all its other predecessors in the way the show opened each week. Instead of an opening signature tune, the programme began with a short sketch of a few lines, usually based on a punning reference to a film title (for instance a man running a flea circus for more than six years was the key to ''

The Seven Year Itch ''The Seven Year Itch'' is a 1955 American romantic comedy film directed by Billy Wilder, from a screenplay he co-wrote with George Axelrod from the 1952 three-act play. The film stars Marilyn Monroe and Tom Ewell, who reprised his stage role. ...

''). After that the announcer, Douglas Smith, would welcome listeners and introduce the fictional guests appearing that week, such as "General Sir Gertrude Fanshawe, Marion Haste, The House of Lords Banjo Octet, Dizzy Barbirolli, and of course Mr Kenneth Horne, who prefers to remain anonymous".

Characters

''Beyond Our Ken'' featured regular characters. As panellists in a parody of ''

Any Questions? ''Any Questions?'' is a British topical discussion programme "in which a panel of personalities from the worlds of politics, media, and elsewhere are posed questions by the audience". It is typically broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on Fridays at 8 p ...

'' the cast gently burlesqued real broadcasting celebrities. Marsden's hoarse-voiced Fanny Haddock, Pertwee's camp Hanky Flowerd, Paddick's gormless Ricky Livid and Williams's suggestive rustic Arthur Fallowfield parodied, respectively, the cook

Fanny Cradock Phyllis Nan Sortain Pechey (26 February 1909 – 27 December 1994), better known as Fanny Cradock, was an English restaurant critic, television chef and writer. She frequently appeared on television, at cookery demonstrations and in print with h ...

, the comedian

Frankie Howerd Francis Alick Howard (6 March 1917 – 19 April 1992), better known by his stage-name Frankie Howerd, was an English actor and comedian. Early life Howerd was born the son of soldier Francis Alfred William (1887–1934)England & Wales, Deat ...

, the pop star

Marty Wilde Marty Wilde, (born Reginald Leonard Smith; 15 April 1939) is an English singer and songwriter. He was among the first generation of British pop stars to emulate American rock and roll, scoring several 1950s hit singles including "Endless Sle ...

and the

West country The West Country (occasionally Westcountry) is a loosely defined area of South West England, usually taken to include all, some, or parts of the counties of Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset, Bristol, and, less commonly, Wiltshire, Gloucesters ...

farmer and pundit

Ralph Wightman Ralph Wightman (26 July 1901 – 28 May 1971) was an English lecturer, journalist, author, and radio and television broadcaster. He wrote many books on farming and the countryside and in the 1950s and 1960s became a well-known national figure, esp ...

. Some of these characters had their own

catch-phrase A catchphrase (alternatively spelled catch phrase) is a phrase or expression recognized by its repeated utterance. Such phrases often originate in popular culture and in the arts, and typically spread through word of mouth and a variety of mass ...

s: Ricky Livid's was "I like the backing", and Fallowfield's response to every question began "The answer lies in the soil".Took, p. 138 Elsewhere in the programmes the regular characters included Ambrose and Felicity (described by Took as "a pair of doddering old idiots"), played by Williams and Marsden. Another – unnamed – ancient personage, played by Williams, had been doing whatever he was doing on each programme for "thirty-five years"; Stanley Birkinshaw (Paddick) was a man with ill-fitting false teeth speaking with distorted sibilants and spraying saliva in all directions. Another regular was the supposed BBC commentator Cecil Snaith, played by Paddick and written not by Merriman or Took but by Horne; Snaith's commentaries were invariably struck by disaster and ended, "And with that, I return you to the studio". Two regulars who always appeared together were the men-about-town Rodney (Williams) and Charles (Paddick), variously described as "jolly decent public school chaps", "frightfully correct", "a pair of effete young men", and "two frightfully, frightfully Mayfair types, doing ridiculous things together like dressing up as red Indians when they took a canoeing holiday".Freedland, p. 93

Recordings

As at May 2020 the BBC had licensed the release of the first four series of ''Beyond Our Ken'' on commercially available CD. In 2021 the BBC released two audiobook collections, the first containing all remaining episodes of Series 1-4, the second containing all episodes from Series 5-7. Several episodes are missing from the BBC archives. Series 1 is missing 9 episodes out of a total of 22. Series 2 is missing 7 episodes out of a total of 21. Series 4 is missing 1 episode out of a total of 20 episodes.

Notes, references and sources

Notes

References

Sources

* * * * * *

External links

* * {{BBC Online, id=comedy/beyondourken/, title=''Beyond Our Ken'' * http://www.kennethwilliams.org.uk/ 1958 radio programme debuts 1964 radio programme endings BBC Radio comedy programmes BBC Light Programme programmes