Denis Norden

[ninebob]

Does anyone have the first idea what he does when he's not presenting "laughter file" or "alright on the night"?

Just watching the new one on ITV, always at least vaguely amusing, but I can't help but wonder what his career was before he got famous for this...

 

[Panjandrum]

Frank Muir and Denis Norden wrote many, many radio and, I think, TV comedy programmes for the BBC. Long before either of them appeared personally.

"The Frank Muir and Denis Norden Archive, deposited at the University of Sussex in 2000, contains more than six hundred radio and television scripts by two gifted humorists acknowledged to be among the foremost British comedy writers of the 1950s and 60s. It contains a wealth of material for students of twentieth-century popular culture and researchers interested both in the changes and the prevailing traditions which have characterised British humour in the last century."

 

[DAZB]

I was just about to say that !!

 

[Panjandrum]

Well I didn't really say it myself.
http://www.sussex.ac.uk/library/speccoll/collection_introductions/muirnorden.html

 

[TexMex]

Dennis Norden, Ah yes, a cleaver man indeed. One of the fellows responsible for making a lot of comediens, look funny. Shame the BBC didn't commission him for the scripts of "Anties Bloomers". How can anyone take all that humorous material, and make it into such an irritating show. You can have toooo much of Terry Wogan.

 

[ninebob]

Aunties Bloomers is always rolled out at Xmas etc though, when you're expecting so much cheese anyway you can almost let Terry slip though the net (or you're too drunk to be bothered)...

Norden on the other hand always comes across as genuinely witty, which is why I pondered what he may have done before. It's therefore interesting, but not surprising, to learn that he's a comedy writer.

 

[keyplayer]

Dennis Norden is about as funny as getting run over by a bus.

 

[kendor]

Re Aunties Bloomers, The BBC has a lot of material for this show as a majority of it is taken from outakes of their sitcoms, Having worked on many of them over a decade and a half I was witness to the contrived way that the actors and actresses got laughs from the audience.
Basically they would f*ck up their lines on purpose when the audience reaction hadn't been all that good previously, this apparently unscheduled mistake would then get rapturous laughter and applause especially when followed by a curse, this whipped up the audience and the rest of the show normally went ok with a much more responsive herd as they liked to call them.
One of the worse offenders of this rehearsed co*k up was Patricia Routledge( heaven knows the show needed help that way) and you will see a lot of her out takes accordingly.

 

[pipme]

45p I am surprised !!! But then, tis a golden age gone by -- almost..

Old Frank Muir and Denis Norden .. an example :- 50's radio show 'The Glums', Jimmy Edwards as 'Pa Glum', his son 'Ron' - Dick Bently , June Whitefield as 'Eth' Ron's fiancee .. ended in 1960.
There was a Tv series later, I think.
June Whitfield -- what a career !! Has she ever been out of work ? Bit of a treasure I am thinking.

Frank Muir ... died 1998 age 78 ... team skipper in 'Call my Bluff' etc,etc,etc ... superb !!

P

 

[kendor]

Unfortunately Pip, as with most things, their brand of comedy goes out of fashion and so they fade away into obscurity.
Comedy i beleive is fashionable but if you look closely enough you will see it's the same old jokes from yesteryear just dressed up differently.

 

[pipme]

Frank Muir was always making me laugh with his wit on R4, he was a raconteur par excellence until the end ... Surely those skills are timeless ?

 

[kendor]

Unfortunately the skills and delivery seem to be forgotten if the content isn't up to date these days.

 

[pipme]

But Franky changed with the times -- Moved from writing to performing... He was born in 1920 --- can be excused retirement or change of direction in say 1970, aged 50 !! He was still calling the bluffs in the 90's !!

 

[AdamW]

Re Aunties Bloomers, The BBC has a lot of material for this show as a majority of it is taken from outakes of their sitcoms, Having worked on many of them over a decade and a half I was witness to the contrived way that the actors and actresses got laughs from the audience.

Not entirely related to this, but certainly a cousin to your post Thames TV used to have an annual competition, internally, for all their TV programmes. The outtakes would be judged and the programme with the funniest one won.

"Rainbow" is the most famous of the bunch, the "twanger" episode full of double entendres (which I think I linked to before), worth watching if you haven't already!

 

[kendor]

Re Aunties Bloomers, The BBC has a lot of material for this show as a majority of it is taken from outakes of their sitcoms, Having worked on many of them over a decade and a half I was witness to the contrived way that the actors and actresses got laughs from the audience.

Not entirely related to this, but certainly a cousin to your post Thames TV used to have an annual competition, internally, for all their TV programmes. The outtakes would be judged and the programme with the funniest one won.

"Rainbow" is the most famous of the bunch, the "twanger" episode full of double entendres (which I think I linked to before), worth watching if you haven't already!

the good old christmas tapes as they call them.