Picture from All Fall Down: The Craft & Art of Physical Comedy
The highlight of Friday night on BBC4 is of course the repeats of The Good Old Days in the early evening, sandwiched uncomfortably between the repeat of Top of the Pops and the start of the music documentary night. I'm not entirely sure if there's a market for a show of this kind these days, maybe there is depending on what the viewing figures are for the repeats. When I went to see The Grumbleweeds recently the format was the same as the television show and the theatre was full. Okay so the audience was predominantly elderly but an audience is an audience. I threw around the idea in my head of staging variety shows and filming them for a YouTube version of The Good Old Days but it probably wouldn't work due to the key audience not really being totally in tune with the idea of streaming and podcasts. It's a shame really because this kind of entertainment is underrepresented in the mainstream and if you drop your snobbery and watch it you will find it highly entertaining.
When I was a child I watched Crackerjack (Cra-ck-er-jack) every Friday after school which was the last run of the show that had started in 1955. It featured pop groups, games and comedy from the likes of The Krankies or Bob Carolgees and usually magic from The Great Soprendo. Watching back on YouTube I realise that maybe today's children are too sophisticated for this sort of thing, especially one act in particular. Crackerjack and various other variety shows throughout my childhood featured a particular act that I had forgotten all about until now.
On this evening's episode of The Good Old Days there featured an act called The Halfwits, and their act was basically jumping over a vaulting horse and landing on a mattress. The act was born out of the traditions of clowning and pratfalls, and was inexplicably popular on prime time television in the days when there was only three channels. Could you even pitch this as an act these days? I certainly hope so.
===
Thank you in advance for donating using the PayPal button at the top of this page. It all goes towards creating podcasts, sketches, documentaries, films and more, all of which I will make available for free in return for your generosity.
