|
''Stop Messing About'' was a BBC radio series broadcast in 1969 and 1970. Forced by circumstance into being a follow-up to ''Round the Horne'', a number of key talents from the previous show were retained and recast, with Kenneth Williams as the new show's main star. It was rewritten for the stage in 2009. ==Radio series== The sudden death of ''Round the Horne'' star Kenneth Horne at the end of series four prompted a rewrite of the material intended for series five which then found its way into ''Stop Messing About'' alongside new sketches; ''Round the Horne'' writers Johnnie Mortimer and Brian Cooke are therefore credited with series one of ''Stop Messing About'', while series two, which was entirely original, was written by Myles Rudge. ''Stop Messing About'' was recast as a vehicle for Kenneth Williams, who on the day of the first transmission wrote in his diary that "It was mediocre and played to a half empty house ... Joan said 'Let's face it dear, our careers are in the ash can...'" Of a later edition, however, he wrote that "It went like a bomb. I was very pleased with the marvellous reception ... and it's a triumph in the face of the terrible adversity of KH's death."〔''The Kenneth Williams Diaries'' (HarperCollins 1993), entries dated 17 March 1969 and 14 April 1969〕 The title was a catchphrase coined for Williams by Galton and Simpson back in the days of ''Hancock's Half Hour''. Hugh Paddick and announcer Douglas Smith were retained from ''Round the Horne'', starring alongside Joan Sims, who had already signed on for the fifth series of ''Round the Horne'' in place of Betty Marsden and therefore made a smooth transition to ''Stop Messing About''. The first episode was recorded at the BBC's Paris Theatre on Lower Regent Street (former home of ''Round the Horne'') on Monday 17 March 1969, and the final show was transmitted on 27 August 1970. Of the show's cancellation, Williams noted in his diary (1 September 1970) that "there'd been complaints about how dirty the script was etc" and described it as "a sad end to about 12 years of radio comedy." Barry Took, co-writer of ''Round the Horne'', pointed out that the show was proof of the fact that Williams, though second to none as a grotesque support actor of undoubted comic genius, didn't have the requisite weight to anchor a show in the way Horne had done so effortlessly: "It was written by a sort of miscellaneous gang of writers who didn't really understand what they were doing. It didn't work. He () wasn't a leading man, it has to be said. I mean, he was a wonderful support. He was Montgomery to Kenneth Horne's Alexander."〔quoted in ''Kenneth Williams Unseen'' by Wes Butters and Russell Davies (HarperCollins 2008)〕 During the summer of 2006 the digital radio station BBC 7 gave ''Stop Messing About'' a regular slot, as a break from ''Round the Horne''. It was repeated during spring 2008. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Stop Messing About」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|