Comedy Chronicles
Graham McCann looks back at some of British comedy's most interesting but overlooked stories.
Oh yes!: The comic guile of Deryck Guyler
Sunday 21st April 2024
A profile of Deryck Guyler, the comic actor who for much of the Sixties and Seventies on British television was the comic embodiment of the Jobsworth.
Playtime: The leisure of John Le Mesurier
Sunday 7th April 2024
Marking 112 years since his birth, biographer Graham McCann explores the truth behind the private life and pleasures of actor and beloved sitcom star, John Le Mesurier.
Val Parnell
Sunday 24th March 2024
Val Parnell was one of Britain's most significant and influential impresarios of the twentieth century. A major manager of the live variety circuit, a powerful promoter of talent and one of the pioneers of commercial television, he helped shape, maintain and move on what passed as popular entertainment in this country for the best part of fifty years.
The Comedians' Comedian: The art and impact of Jimmy James
Sunday 10th March 2024
Who influenced comics as diverse and star-studded as Peter Cook, Morecambe & Wise, Frankie Howerd, Peter Sellers and Tony Hancock? The great Jimmy James, that's who.
Lovely Rita: The indomitable Rita Webb
Sunday 25th February 2024
On the 120th anniversary of her birth, Comedy Chronicles looks back at the life and career of Rita Webb, the comic actor who often played working class characters.
Taking it to the hilt: Jack Hylton and British comedy
Sunday 11th February 2024
Jack Hylton must rate as one of, if not the, most extraordinary and influential impresarios in the history of British entertainment.
The premature exit of Harry Green
Sunday 28th January 2024
Comedy Chronicles looks at the career of actor Harry Green and how his death during a live television play threw the production into chaos.
A touch of the Gogols: When Kenneth Williams read Russian literature
Sunday 14th January 2024
It might have been somewhat surprising at the time, but now, looking back at it, it seems quite an apt connection: a diarist drawn to a diary. The diarist in question was Kenneth Williams, and the diary was Nikolai Gogol's Diary of a Madman.
Hogmanay Hell: The BBC's New Year Live 98
Sunday 31st December 2023
Graham McCann looks back at New Year Live on BBC One in 1998. Hosted by Fred MacAulay and Carol Smillie, a programme that ended up a "terrible, hopeless, depressing mess".
Merry Christmas, VT: How festive television used to amuse itself
Sunday 24th December 2023
This festive edition of Comedy Chronicles looks back at a strange tale of some strange tapes. It is about the television festivities from the latter part of the last century that were never meant to be televised, and were only meant to be seen by those behind the scenes.