Round the Horne Series 3

In October 1966, a bout of ill-health led to Kenneth Horne’s medical advisers prescribing him two to three months’ complete rest. Christmas that year, therefore, saw the broadcast of the only Round the Horne episode to be made without the eponymous star.

Although eight years had passed since Kenneth Horne’s stroke which forced him to give up his business career (and left him with intermittent speech problems and a noticeable limp), there had long been a perceived tendency for the entertainer to work himself too hard and accept more work engagements than he should. At this stage in his career he was very much in demand on radio and TV panel games and talk shows, and it seems that this inability to resist such offers of work was instrumental in bringing on a state of exhaustion. Not only would this affect the seasonal one-off episode (Horne’s lines were re-distributed amongst the rest of the cast), but it also had implications for the start of Series Three.

Recording of the third series had originally been planned for November 1966, but Horne’s condition naturally made this impossible. His Round the Horne co-stars – Betty Marsden, Kenneth Williams, Hugh Paddick and Bill Pertwee – had, however, already been booked for the weekly recordings. For some of them the postponement represented a loss of work; Betty Marsden in particular had turned down a pantomime booking in Scotland in order to be available for Round the Horne. In the event, she and the rest of the cast were available for the rescheduled recording dates (due to commence in February 1967), and settlements for the cancelled recordings were made via each artist’s agent.

There were a couple of recording and transmission hiccups with this series. For some reason the episode recorded fourth was brought forward to be transmitted first, with episodes One, Two and Three then following on in order. It was traditional with Round the Horne that, following each new episode’s Sunday broadcast, a repeat transmission would follow in the next few days. In the very first week of Series Three, however, a mistake was made and, instead of a repeat on Wednesday, listeners were treated to the second new episode in the series!

Since its inception in 1965, Round the Horne had become a mainstay of the BBC Light Programme schedules. For households all over the country it had become as much a part of Sunday lunchtimes as the traditional roast, whilst the press’s early concerns over smut and double entendre had apparently subsided. At the end of each series Kenneth Horne would celebrate their success by throwing a luncheon party for all those involved; a typical printed invitation to such an event read, ‘Monday, June 12 is an occasion of world-shattering importance. There will be Rabbi titillating at Cockfosters, Foster titillating at his own convenience, and cockbaiting at Mirabile Dictu...And by some quirk of fate, there will be a Round the Horne lunch… Let me know if you can come – list of invitees overleaf, in case you want to avoid anyone.’

Even before the third series had drawn to a close, the Heads of Light Entertainment were already looking forward to a fourth. The winds of change were on their way, however, and a cost-cutting directive from on high would find Edwin Braden and the Hornblowers, the Fraser Hayes Four and Bill Pertwee absent from future episodes. Meanwhile Marty Feldman’s own burgeoning career, as a writer and performer, was taking him in new and exciting directions. With three series of Round the Horne under his belt as co-writer and creator, he decided to call it a day.

But as the cast waved goodbye in the last episode of Series Three, they would have had little intimation of how things would never be quite the same again for their happy line-up – or that the next year of Round the Horne would be its very last.

Programme notes for the BBC's release of Round the Horne Series 3 CD collection, researched and written by Michael Stevens

Credits

• Written by: Barry Took and Marty Feldman.
• Starring: Kenneth Horne, Betty Marsden, Hugh Paddick, Bill Pertwee, Douglas Smith and Kenneth Williams
• Producer: John Simmonds
• Music: Edwin Braden and the Hornblowers and The Fraser Hayes Four.