Wednesday 23 January 2019

A Comedy On This Day: It Ain't Half Hot Mum - A Star Is Born (24 January 1974)


 One of the two episodes that only survive as Australian off-air recordings, in all their fuzzy Channel 7-idented glory. There's an unfortunate 'Granada Plus' quality in trying to follow the story when you watch this, with scenes seemingly stopping a couple of lines early and starting a couple of lines late.

 Perry and Croft experiment with different dramatic devices by having Sergeant Major Williams articulate his unspoken thoughts in voice-over in one scene. It works rather well, making good use of the late Windsor Davies' ability to convey poorly disguised deviousness in his close-up facial expressions and Captain Ashwood's obviously-malleable twittiness.


 It's not a technique that they often used - There's a Dad's Army sequence where the platoon write to an MP, when as they write letters it's narrated in voice over. Fraser's bit is very similar, where his facial expression sells the scene of his deviousness and self-interest. And John Laurie had the sort of face to pull it off.

 I would imagine that it would have been played in from tape or pre-recorded earlier the same day. It's not that technically difficult to do; it would also help the actor if they could hear it as he was performing. The audience laugh at the right points so it must have been shown to them on the monitor or on set, I suspect live. Colin's Sandwich in the late eighties demonstrated the wonderful comic mileage that could be got from the technique.

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