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Authors: Alwyn Turner
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suggest that they were keen to be behind the microphones themselves, but Nation’s covering letter to Johnston made clear that this was not the case, as well as outlining the ‘cinematic technique’ they wanted to use: ‘We feel that it is essential that a show of this sort should be performed without an audience. The construction of the show will depend not upon gags but situations. Using actors rather than comedians, we feel it would be dangerous to hope to influence the audience who are notoriously “idea killers”. We hope to experiment to some degree with recorded background music, and with your assistance, microphone techniques which emphasise voice.’ And they provided a wish-list for the cast they would have liked to see, all the names being up-and-coming actors with some experience behind them: Dennis Price as Lashington, Bill Owen or Dick Emery as Herbert, and – a star of Welsh Rarebit – Anthony Oliver as Glendower, with either Kenneth Kendall or Robin Boyle as the announcer.
It was an intriguing proposal, and some way ahead of its time. Though writers were beginning to acquire star status, comedy shows were still at this stage built around comedians. It was to be six years before the practice of using actors in sitcoms became fashionable, with the television series The Rag Trade (written by Ronald Chesney and Ronald Wolfe) and with Galton and Simpson’s pilot for what turned out to be Steptoe and Son. For three virtually unknown writers to be making such a suggestion revealed considerable self-assurance. So too did the idea of doing away with a studio audience altogether; there had been a few radio comedy series without an audience, such as the Marx Brothers-inspired Danger – Men At Work , first broadcast in 1939, but they were very much the exception rather than the rule. In an attempt to head off any doubts arising from these innovations, Nation was quick to add that ‘we have devised this as a low budget show, which we trust will be a point in its favour’. Even so, the confidence was impressive, and perhaps reflected the support they found at ALS, as well as a sense that anything was possible. These were young men, seeking to make their mark on the world with the encouragement of older-brother figures. ‘We were beginning to sense our own importance,’ noted John Antrobus, another of the ALS new boys. ‘We were going to kick the rest of the Fifties up the arse and start a New Decade.’ As Beryl Vertue pointed out: ‘They were unafraid because they didn’t know what to be afraid of.’
If in retrospect the basic set-up of The Fixers sounds like an early try-out for the 1970s television comedy The Goodies , the initial concern at the time was that it smacked rather too much of The Goon Show. Nation, however, reassured Johnston that Spike Milligan had seen the revised synopsis and ‘sees no similarity to his show at all’. Suitably impressed, Johnston passed the proposal on up the BBC hierarchy, explaining that it came from Terry Nation, one of the Frankie Howerd writers, plus two new assistants, Dave Freeman, ‘who has some experience of TV writing, and John Junken [sic], who is more or less new,’ and suggesting that ‘the idea is worthy of serious consideration’.
How much consideration it actually received is unknown, but the proposal was rejected, and The Fixers never came into being. In its place the three writers were put on a completely different project, though in the meantime they had received their first commission in a more direct manner: in February 1956 ALS engaged them ‘to script material for two shows for the Peter Sellers series Idiot Weekly’ at a fee of £150 per script ‘to cover all interests’. (The commissioning letter carefully pointed out that the writers were still liable for the ten per cent agency fees from this sum.) The sketch show involved was more properly titled The Idiot Weekly, Price 2d and ran in the London region for just five episodes in the
It was an intriguing proposal, and some way ahead of its time. Though writers were beginning to acquire star status, comedy shows were still at this stage built around comedians. It was to be six years before the practice of using actors in sitcoms became fashionable, with the television series The Rag Trade (written by Ronald Chesney and Ronald Wolfe) and with Galton and Simpson’s pilot for what turned out to be Steptoe and Son. For three virtually unknown writers to be making such a suggestion revealed considerable self-assurance. So too did the idea of doing away with a studio audience altogether; there had been a few radio comedy series without an audience, such as the Marx Brothers-inspired Danger – Men At Work , first broadcast in 1939, but they were very much the exception rather than the rule. In an attempt to head off any doubts arising from these innovations, Nation was quick to add that ‘we have devised this as a low budget show, which we trust will be a point in its favour’. Even so, the confidence was impressive, and perhaps reflected the support they found at ALS, as well as a sense that anything was possible. These were young men, seeking to make their mark on the world with the encouragement of older-brother figures. ‘We were beginning to sense our own importance,’ noted John Antrobus, another of the ALS new boys. ‘We were going to kick the rest of the Fifties up the arse and start a New Decade.’ As Beryl Vertue pointed out: ‘They were unafraid because they didn’t know what to be afraid of.’
If in retrospect the basic set-up of The Fixers sounds like an early try-out for the 1970s television comedy The Goodies , the initial concern at the time was that it smacked rather too much of The Goon Show. Nation, however, reassured Johnston that Spike Milligan had seen the revised synopsis and ‘sees no similarity to his show at all’. Suitably impressed, Johnston passed the proposal on up the BBC hierarchy, explaining that it came from Terry Nation, one of the Frankie Howerd writers, plus two new assistants, Dave Freeman, ‘who has some experience of TV writing, and John Junken [sic], who is more or less new,’ and suggesting that ‘the idea is worthy of serious consideration’.
How much consideration it actually received is unknown, but the proposal was rejected, and The Fixers never came into being. In its place the three writers were put on a completely different project, though in the meantime they had received their first commission in a more direct manner: in February 1956 ALS engaged them ‘to script material for two shows for the Peter Sellers series Idiot Weekly’ at a fee of £150 per script ‘to cover all interests’. (The commissioning letter carefully pointed out that the writers were still liable for the ten per cent agency fees from this sum.) The sketch show involved was more properly titled The Idiot Weekly, Price 2d and ran in the London region for just five episodes in the
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