The Grumbleweeds Radio Show
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| The Grumbleweeds' Radio Show | |
| Genre | Comedy |
|---|---|
| Running time | 30 mins |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Languages | English |
| Home station | BBC Radio 2 |
| Starring | Robin Colvill, Graham Walker, Maurice Lee, Albert Sutcliffe, Carl Sutcliffe |
| Producers | Mike Craig |
| Air dates | 1979 to 1991 |
| No. of series | 15 |
The Grumbleweeds' Radio Show was a long-running comedy sketch show that aired for fifteen series between 1979 to 1988 and was broadcast on BBC Radio 2 (and later repeated on BBC Radio 4). The show later became just The Grumbleweeds.
The Grumbleweeds' comedy team themselves were founders Robin Colvill and Graham Walker along with Maurice Lee and brothers Albert Sutcliffe and Carl Sutcliffe, all from Yorkshire in the North of England.
[edit] On radio (1979-1991)
The radio programme was a mixture of fast-moving skits, impressions and sketches, linked by snatches of the band's signature tune "We Are The Grumbleweeds". Recurring sketches included 'Trouble At T'Mill' (a comedic parody of a working-class drama set in a Yorkshire mill at the turn of the 20th century), 'Oh Amanda' (a romantic soliloquy performed by Colvill to his fictional partner Amanda with a suitably humorous punchline) and a parody of Radio 4's 'A Book At Bedtime', where a softly-spoken narrator would attempt to read a story in spite of mounting technical problems such as constantly-failing transmitter power, and would end the sketch yelling at the top of his voice in order to be heard. A regular Family Grumbleweed sketch introduced the residents of Grumbleweed Towers and a revolving cast of assorted friends, neighbours and lunatics. The programmes were predominantly broadcast on BBC Radio 2 between 10pm and 11pm, with repeats on weekend lunchtimes.
Key characters included:
- Uncle Rubbish, a nostalgia buff
- Wilf "Gasmask" Grimshaw, who constantly wore a gas mask, apparently to stop him from picking his nose
- Perennially-stressed housekeeper Freda Nattercan (catchphrase: "Oh, I just can't cope!"), her husband Adolph (catchphrase, a shout of: "I don't know!") and daughter Melanie (catchphrase: "Has anybody seen me teeth?")
- The stereotypically camp duo Ernest and Geoffrey (who were reinvented as agony aunts Viv and Trix when the series transferred to television)
- Fred Fibber, a pathological liar
- Uncle Nasty, an unpleasant character who would interrupt proceedings with threatening and sarcastic comments
- Jimmy Savile, not the real one but Colvill's impersonation of the personality Jimmy Saville, who also came from Leeds.
A half-hour Christmas special, Wilf In Santaland, broadcast on BBC Radio 2 on Christmas Day 1984, switched the usual quickfire sketch-based format for a traditional Christmas pantomime.
The following four radio series, running from 1985 to 1988, were produced in a half-hour sitcom format, which was largely an extension of the Family Grumbleweed sketch from the earlier incarnation of the radio show, with scripts still mostly written by Mike Craig and often featuring cameos from other contemporary light entertainment favourites such as Mollie Sugden, Jimmy Cricket and Paul Shane. A number of new characters were introduced, amongst them the vagrant Ratface, the spluttering, lisping entrepreneur Sid Squeak and his partner-in-crime Stanley Bubble.
In late 1987, the Sutcliffe brothers decided to leave in order to pursue other careers. The remaining trio secured a new radio slot, Someone and the Grumbleweeds, with sketches mostly written by ex-Morecambe and Wise scriptwriter Eddie Braben and featuring a different celebrity guest each week. This ran on BBC Radio 2 from 1989 to 1991, since when the group have had no regular radio series.
[edit] On television (1983-1988)
The Grumbleweeds Radio Show won Best Radio Show Award in the Television and Radio Industries Awards of 1983, and transferred to a Granada Television series in the same year, paradoxically retaining the same name and set in a mocked-up radio studio. While the radio show was more targeted to the adult audiences the group had played to in working men's clubs, the TV appearances were geared toward a more family audience.
These half-hour shows, produced by Johnny Hamp of The Comedians fame, retained the fast-moving sketch format and upped it a little, with thirty or more sketches per half-hour episode, interspersed with impressions and a selection of regular characters from the radio series.
New characters introduced in the television show included:
- The Milky Bar Kid (played by a blinking, gurning Albert Sutcliffe with his false teeth removed)
- Hymie and Rachel, a stereotype Jewish couple
- Shamus O'Hooligan, a stereotype Irishman whose voice bore close resemblance to that of comedian Frank Carson
- Viv & Trix, agony aunts (largely the Ernest and Geoffrey characters from the radio series)
- Clair Voyant, a fortune teller
- Wally & Mandy, an old man (played by Carl Sutcliffe) and his sexy young wife, played by actress Mandy Montgomery
- The Mystics, a husband-and-wife cabaret magic act whose male half Gilbert was perennially drunk
- Taxi Jim, closely based on Jim Ignatowski from the TV series Taxi
- Pam Hair, a poet closely based on Pam Ayres (but with a lot of facial hair)
- Sid Noxious, a punk rocker
Additional regular performers included the "Grumble Girls" (brunette Mandy Montgomery with blondes Sally and Tracy) who usually played overtly sexy female roles, while, as with Monty Python, the roles of older women would usually be played by the men (in drag).
Popular cabaret artists such as Madeline Bell made occasional guest appearances, attempting to keep a straight face while being distracted by such oddball characters as a park-keeper dribbling Pot Noodle down his chin, the Milky Bar Kid and an outsized Demis Roussos, wearing deely-boppers which, when pulled, would cause Roussos to launch into the air.
The group also played it straight for three or four minutes each week, performing songs generally written by Maurice or Carl, the band's two guitarists, with Robin on drums, Graham on bass guitar and Albert on keyboards, although the band often swapped instruments.
The series also spun off into a book, The Grumbleweeds Scrap Book (ISBN 0708831540), and a long-playing album of songs, 'Let The Good Times Roll', released on K-Tel Records in 1996.
When the Sutcliffe brothers decided to leave in 1987, their places were taken by backing musicians for the final few television shows, which had by now been retitled simply The Grumbleweeds Show.
