Showing results by author "BBC" in Biographies & Memoirs

Comic icon Spike Milligan recollects highlights from his stellar career. The comic genius of Spike Milligan changed the face of radio comedy through The Goon Show. Here Milligan chooses and introduces classic clips from an astonishing career: readings from his books Puckoon and Adolf Hitler, My Part in his Downfall, poems, songs, sketches, extracts from Q6 and In the Psychiatrist’s Chair. He reminisces about India and Bexhill and reads his favourite poems, including 'Fred Fernakerpan'.

In this documentary portrait of Kenneth Williams, who died in 1988, the much-loved comedy actor's diaries are drawn upon to illustrate his life and career. David Benson, who won acclaim for his one-man show in which he portrayed Kenneth Williams, reads extracts from the diaries, while archive audio clips from such programmes as Round the Horne and Beyond Out Ken illustrate the madcap versatility of Williams the performer.

Humphrey Lyttleton - Bandleader, cartoonist, writer, chairman of BBC Radio 4's I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, president of the Society for Italic Handwriting and doyen of jazz trumpeters. In conversation with June Knox-Mawer, Humphrey Lyttleton reflects on his extraordinary life; from schooldays at Eton and playing out Roll Out the Barrel outside Buckingham Palace on VE Day to the formation of this band in 1948 and his emergence as 'the godfather of British jazz'.

Stephen Fry presents a special tribute to Humphrey Lyttelton, the sublime host of I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, through the eyes of his close pals on the show and distinguished admirers, from Dame Judi Dench to Radiohead. The programme features many highlights taken from his thirty-six years at the helm of Radio 4's perennial antidote to panel games.

A special compilation of highlights from cuddly Ken’s television and radio shows.

Kenny Everett was one of radio’s great innovators, the funniest DJ of our time and a one-off whose madcap comedy burst the boundaries of broadcasting. Introduced and presented by Barry Cryer, this recording features the definitive Kenny Everett: the jokes, the jingles and the high-jinks, the interviews, the comic characters – and some naughty bits.

Wonderful highlights of Kenneth Williams’ career in this classic compilation. For more than 30 years, Kenneth Williams kept the nation in stitches with his outrageous gallery of comic creations and an effortlessly brilliant barrage of repartee and innuendo on radio and television. In Beyond Our Ken and Round the Horne, Kenneth Williams brought us the popular characters of Rambling Syd Rumpo, J. Peasemold Gruntfuttock, and Sandy (of Julian & Sandy).

Career highlights from one of this country’s funniest satirists and comedy men.

Willie Rushton’s career spanned decades, from the cutting edge satire of television’s That Was the Week That Was to the razor-sharp punnery and verbal wizardry of radio’s I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue.

Whoops! John Inverdale presents another hilarious selection of resounding clangers from the very sporting BBC Sports Department. Here are the gremlins, giggles, goofs and gaffes that can turn an innocent sports report into a commentator's nightmare - and a listener's dream. So 'corpse' with the Test Match Special team, relish 'own goal' innuendoes with guileless correspondents and ride the turbulent sound waves of technical disasters.

Nicholas Witchell presents the BBC Radio 4 programme that marked the final farewell to a great statesman. 'A remarkable documentary capturing the day when the people of London paid their respects at Churchill's funeral' (The Independent). Nicholas Witchell remembers the winter's day on 30th January 1965 when the sleet fell and a generation who had lived and served through the Second World War lost an iconic leader.