Monday 11 March 2019

A Comedy On This Day: On The Buses - The Ticket Machine (11 March 1973)


 The LWT studio audience are certainly up for enjoying themselves on this episode. Laughter is much louder than is customary in a sitcom, especially in one sequence of Stan and Jack attempting to hide a stolen ticket machine from Blakey and a Police Constable, when it reaches a pitch that rather drowns out the dialogue. In particular, there's one woman in the audience who finds the idea of somebody hiding something in their trousers, or sitting on something uncomfortable quite hysterically funny. So every thirty seconds the sight of Reg Varney (or occasionally Stephen Lewis) pulling a pained face is accompanied by the soundtrack of a crone-like call of "AAARH-HAAARGH!" It has a nightmarish quality.

 The plot initially revolves around Olive and Mum becoming (hopeless) catalogue saleswomen. The of-its-time social history aspect of this (in the same sort of way that Green Shield Stamps occasionally come into comedy plots at this period) is perhaps the greatest source of interest from this episode.

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