Lines from My Grandfather's Forehead
Lines From My Grandfather's Forehead, is a British comedy radio sketch show, first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1971. Two series of eight episodes were broadcast, the first from 15 February 1971 to 5 April 1971, the second was transmitted from 9 July 1972 to 26 July 1972.[1] In addition, there were two special episodes. A Christmas special, entitled Lines From My Grandfather Christmas's Forehead, was broadcast on 24 December 1971; and a compilation of selected items from past editions, under the title Just A Few Lines From My Grandfather's Forehead, was broadcast on 27 August 1977.
| Running time | 30 minutes |
|---|---|
| Country of origin | UK |
| Language(s) | English |
| Home station | BBC Radio 4 |
| Starring | Ronnie Barker |
| Created by | Ronnie Barker |
| Produced by | John Fawcett Wilson |
| Original release | 15 February 1971 – 26 August 1972 |
| No. of series | 2 |
| No. of episodes | 16 |
The show was created by BBC Radio producer John Fawcett Wilson and Ronnie Barker and featured Barker together with Terence Brady and Pauline Yates and Gordon Langford at the piano.[2] Some editions also featured guitarist Dick Abell. The theme music was a short excerpt taken from Divertissement by Jacques Ibert.
Each programme was a sequence of comedy sketches, monologues and comic songs. The writers were credited on each recording but the items they wrote were not named, so identifying the author of a particular item is difficult. Among the writers was Gerald Wiley, which was a pseudonym used by Ronnie Barker to submit material without using his own name. Other writers for the series included Jim Eldridge, Spike Milligan and Harold Pinter.[3] The then director of programmes for BBC Radio, Gerard Mansell, described the show as having a "very individual type of humour, quite unlike that of any other TV or radio programme".[4]
References edit
- ^ Webber (2011), p. 287.
- ^ Webber (2011), p. 156.
- ^ "John Fawcett Wilson obituary". The Guardian. 8 March 2011.
- ^ Elmes (2008), p. 243.
Sources edit
- Elmes, Simon (2008). And Now on Radio 4: A Celebration of the World's Best Radio Station. Arrow. ISBN 978-0099505372.
- Webber, Richard (2011). Remembering Ronnie Barker. Arrow. ISBN 978-0099545569.