A Comedy On This Day: Q9 (8 July 1980)

 This series always perks up when you get to the filmed bits, which tend to be well-constructed visual jokes told in an orchestrated sequence, such as the sports day for prisoners in this episode. Back in the studio, though, its taken up with the usual three or four sketches that drag aimlessly on, with the cast stood in a line in their wacky costumes sharing puns and the star laughing at his own jokes... I know which person in the studio audience most accurately reflects my response to this.

 This week, Ed Welch sings a moving ballad in the Clifford T. Ward style, accompanied by a string quartet. Called 'Eleanor', it must be a tribute to his daughter, illustrated by a lot of still pictures of babies. In the context of this programme, it's very earnest sincerity is incongruous.

A Comedy On This Day: Doctor At Sea - Murder! He Said (7 July 1974)

 You can see why this was the most expensive Doctor series, with the money spent on the on deck Canary Islands location filming being put upfront onscreen. These location bits always seem to be subsidiary to the farcical operation of the main plot, which again involves dashing about from set to set inside the ship. And very good sets they are, too - and more of them than found in most sitcoms!

 This week, Doctor Waring has been brawling and feuding with the ship's purser, exclaiming, "I'll murder you" in public earshot - words which then rebound on him when the purser goes missing. Something that strikes me is how, although you think of Robin Nedwell as being a gangling and amiable performer, he's surprisingly convincing at being tough and menacing.

 And then I remember something that I hadn't thought about for decades. Did I see him act onstage? Yes, he had a season at the RSC - 1996, so maybe even his last job before he died a couple of years later (of a heart attack in a doctors' surgery, ironically enough). The thing that sticks in the mind is a starry production of Ben Jonson's Jacobean city comedy The Devil Is An Ass. The two leads were John Nettles as Merecraft the confidence trickster and David Troughton as Fitzdottrel the foolish gentleman. Digs out old programme... but also Sheila Steafal as Lady Tailbush, a young Damian Lewis as the young gallant Wittipol and - Robin Nedwell as Gilthead the goldsmith!

 Read the script, and I can just see and hear him - "We live by finding fools out to be trusted" - a bit thicker and greyer and playing a father, but still using those same comic skills to good effect. That was one of those really good ensembles, when you can sense that the actors are happy to be there, sharing the process with the audience. Its a happy thought that his last performances were in the company of his peers, doing good work and being recognised for doing it.

A Comedy On This Day: Thick As Thieves - Three Into Two Won't Go (6 July 1974)

 A series about two old friends who aren't so young anymore, one of whom has just got out of prison, Thick As Thieves sometimes feels like the precise midway point between Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads? and Going Straight. Only not nearly so good as either, and without the BBC's resources to make all aspects of the programme of noticeable quality...

 There's an odd sensation - even in occasional flashes of really good wring - that Clement and La Frenais are resting on their laurels. For example, Bob Hoskins' George gets a nostalgic speech about how he met his wife ten years ago in the Streatham Locarno and you think, 'That feels like a remix of something that you've already written'.

 This week, Annie and Stan have booked a holiday on the Costa Brava behind George's back. The studio audience respond best to the sight of John Thaw trying on a pair of too-tight trunks, but the more interesting part is a jealous George complaining to Annie's best friend in the backroom of the dry cleaners that she manages. It isn't particularly funny, but it is dramatically and emotionally engaging, pointing ahead to the time when Clement and La Frenais will start writing comedy-dramas outside of the sitcom format.

A Comedy On This Day: Sez Les (5 July 1974)

 There's one of Dawson's best-remembered routines this week, the gesturing newsreader. John Cleese is given very little to do. Roy Barraclough fares better, playing a character outside his usual range - a haughty country squire visiting an armorer (Dawson) to buy a new fowling piece. This is one of those sketches that have almost nothing funny in it (the squire keeps on shooting the willing assistant to test the guns), save for what the performers can bring - which is enough! Barraclough is oblivious to the effect of his actions ("I'd laike you to run acraws me at medium grouse speed"), while Dawson - who I don't primarily think of as a physical comedian - totters and falls in an original way with every new gunshot wound.

 The Hollies - a hot property at this time having just had a huge hit with 'The Air That I Breathe' (as plagiarized by Radiohead) - perform their new single. 'Son of a Rotten Gambler' failed to set the charts alight, but is actually pretty good. A cover of a Chip Taylor song better known in Anne Murray's country version, the melodic rock arrangement plays to the group's strengths. Even as early as 1974 The Hollies were getting on a bit though, and they have a weather-beaten look about them. Alan Clarke was still only 32 when this was recorded, but he looks about 15 years older.

 The real business is this week's other musical guest, the lovely Amii MacDonald, singing her version of 'Make It With You'. Amii is introduced via a spotlight with a magenta filter that trails across her reclining body. What is she reclining on, though? Some bumpy sort of chaise longe? No, it's the six male Irving Davies Dancers, laid out in a line along the floor, rolling Amii along like a conveyer belt. The Dancers then sit up, revealing that they are dressed in matching maroon leotards with exposed chests. The six men then spend most of the song manoeuvring Amii through a series of lifts and rolls manipulated by moving their hips and bellies. A dance routine that's performed while either sitting or lying down is certainly original, and we DVD owners are lucky to be able to immediately rewatch such sequences to see how they're done. The original audience would be left wondering if what they'd just seen had ever really happened...

A Comedy On This Day: On The Buses - Bon Voyage (4 July 1969)

 On The Buses rarely seemed to have much interest in plotting or telling stories... The impression it gives is usually a succession of five-minute segments in which it is optimistically hoped that the regulars might do some of their funny stuff in, rather than properly connected scenes.

 For a programme that really isn't interested in exploring contemporary living, it’s instructive to note what modern aspects still leak through. The lone mention of anything present day and external is - when a passing tramp steals Stan's trousers - Blakey calling him "the Maharishi Butler".

 The idea of a package holiday is still a tremendous novelty - only Stan and Jack have been on one before. Aside from the expectation of greasy foreign food and opportunities for lechery, comedy is also derived from how the experience of flying and customs is still unfamiliar and a source of anxiety. One will-this-do? scene milks Stan's worries about limiting his baggage to under 33 lbs. as much as is possible, with him packing and repacking his case, and planning to wear all of his clothes on the plane to avoid excess charges. When Stan and Jack depart for the holiday at the end of the episode all the comic emphasis is on Stan wearing multiple coats and jumpers, but the really strange costume is the unsettling sight of Jack wearing a cravat...

 Another scene has Jack showing off his new-fangled gadget of an Instamatic camera. A dolly bird clippie passes by, and he offers to take her picture. Very conveniently, she then immediately gets called away after the shot is taken, and says that she'll come back to see how its turned out. When the picture comes out, it transpires that - what a card! - Jack has just taken a close-up of her tits... This is perhaps the single most irritating incident of the episode, not so much for the egregious sexism but more for how it then goes on to flunk what would be a rare moment of dramatic interest, by not having the young woman return asking to see her picture.

A Comedy On This Day: Saxondale - Wasps (3 July 2006)

Iggy Pop's over fifty and he still canes it.

Dude, Iggy Pop only canes it on stage. He still has to go home and descale the kettle.

 Watching this in 2018 is a qualitatively different experience than it was in 2006. I was 34 then and had a much happier distance from these characters in their fifties. Watched now, it’s a stark warning of where I could be heading!

 Its a very nuanced comedy, which encourages the viewer to reward themselves for emotional literacy if they register how each scene develops line-by-line, when the characters' understanding of each other constantly fluctuates depending on whether they say the wrong or right thing. This must be very acutely done because, even though I haven't seen it since broadcast, I do find that I can remember everything that happens or gets said in this programme. My response this second time around is wry appreciation rather than very much in the way of active laughter, though.

 It is very good at capturing the way that certain blokey men with popular cultural interests of that generation talk to each other, in deliberately clever, allusive, catchphrasey language, and the cusp within that sort of speech between what they say being either really impressive or really irritating to listen to.

A Comedy On This Day: Brass (2 July 1984)

 A rather conceptual exercise in parody ('trouble at mill' period drama rendered as Dallas-style super-soap), Brass must be one of the most un-ITV comedies produced during the channel's heyday. Particularly as it was broadcast at 8 o'clock on a Monday evening, rather than during the 10 P.M. Sunday 'difficult comedy' slot. I do wonder how audiences responded to the unfamiliar register of the comedy, especially as it lacks the guidance of a laugh track to steer the viewer in the direction of what to find funny.

 Granada certainly had faith in the project, with two 13 episode series made in quick succession. Something that comes across is the craft and wit of all the parties involved when presented with the chance to show how their skills worked when used unconventionally, from the writers (Coronation Street stalwarts Julian Roach and John Stevenson), director and actors, through to the design and costume.

 How much of it is actively funny - rather than clever - though, is very much a matter of individual taste. Only one scene really made me laugh in this, a hustings meeting for a by-election - a familiar ritual with its expected rhythms of address and response that can be disrupted for comic purposes - where the hapless Conservative candidate (son of the ruthless businessman) lectures the impoverished rabble on "Wage cuts - the key to prosperity". Timothy West's Baron Hardacre justifies the convention of such meetings:

 Dressing for dinner in the jungle. Leaving a glass of sherry for Father Christmas. Begging the peasants for their votes at elections. Meaningless charade if you will, but we call it civilization.