Specifically today, the BBC dictators have removed Round the Horne from the Radio 4 Extra schedule, at 8 o’clock, midday and 7 p.m., series 3/episode 9, btw. Yet, Mark Steel’s in Town remains, so too Yes Minister, both excellent. Obviously the decision is related to the Queen’s passing, but why take exception to Round the Horne and deny listeners/licence-fee-payers the opportunity of a laugh? Those who don’t want to listen don’t have to. I object to a BBC executive being high-handed, he or she thinking that they know better. Here’s last week’s episode:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b00m1d2k
Probably next Monday’s Horne is also due for the chop (funeral day)…
https://www.bbc.co.uk/schedules/p00fzl7l/2022/09/19
… when the news-reporting will once more be 100% Royal and there’ll again be no mention of Ukraine, Pakistan, and other important World matters, and all BBC Radio & Television channels will be identical, one imagines.
I totally agree. I despair of the BBC. Dictators is the right word.
Well, we don’t know what the content of that withdrawn episode was…or do we? Maybe it contained a specific Royal sketch which would have rubbed up awkwardly against current events. Maybe someone can tell us. And a glance at the Radio 4 Extra schedules for next Monday reveals that Round the Horne is back where it should be. Let’s see, and hope. I carry no torch for certain aspects of BBC high handedness. But it would be interesting to know what the withdrawn episode contained.
P.S. Maybe it was the episode in which a crazed Kenneth Williams screams that there are only several million people between him and royalty. ‘I’ll kill ’em….I’ll kill ’em ALL. And when I’ve killed ’em all, I SHALL BE QUEEN!!!!!’. Just a hunch. If it was indeed this episode….hmmmm.
Series 3/episode 9 (April 1967) included “A Special Tribute to J Peasmold Gruntfuttock”, and “Bona Press” (Jules and Sandy).
“…there’ll again be no mention of Ukraine, Pakistan, and other important World matters, and all BBC Radio & Television channels will be identical, one imagines.” One could be forgiven for thinking ‘for this much thanks’. They’ll soon be back in the news (as Ukraine has been in recent days) – and numerous other news sources are readily available. I am confident personally that, should there be some major international new story that day, the BBC will cover it (there is a World Service after all).
This really is the BBC at their most absurd. Great comedy taken off the air and replaced by a war programme! How depressing.