Wise move indeed...

THE LIGHT PROGRAMME 

The Stage  02/03/1995 

BY LISA MARTLAND 

It would be difficult to imagine performers further apart on the comedy scale than Morecambe and Wise and Alan Parker, Urban Warrior. But thanks tc Radios 1 and 2, listeners have recently had the opportunity to choose between classic and contemporary.

When Eric and Ernie return every now and then to our television screens the ratings soar - a complement to their comic genius and perhaps a comment on the comedians that followed them.

So the decision to repeat the team's seventies radio series The Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise Show (R2, Saturday, February 18) is a wise move as well as a big treat for all those who tune in.

Morecambe was as quickfire as ever with Eddie Braben's script and the insults aimed at the little man with the short fat hairy legs.

I giggled away at the memory man sketch during which Morecambe, naturally, couldn't remember anything he was asked, not even his fee!

I doubt Urban Warrior Alan Parker (R1 Monday February 20) would think Morecambe and Wise radical enough - how much time did they spend seeking truth in our bourgeois-fascist-middle class Nazi world?

This hour of right-on shouting dragged a little towards its conclusion but the first programme in Parker's new series was very funny. it can't be easy to record cold, without any laughs along the way, but his timing was always impressive.

The 'games like life' sequence was one of my favourite offerings which also included the egalitarian version of chess - you get rid of the kings, queens, bishops, castles and knights so just the pawns are left.

It's politically correct and simple to play.

One thing you could never have accused Carry On films of being was PC and Jim Dale is still best known by most people in this country for his roles alongside the likes of Barbara Windsor, Kenneth Williams et al.

But in America, where he now spends nearly all his time, he is highly respected for his stage work, particularly since he played the lead role in Barnum in 1980 for which he won a Tony award. Dale was coaxed over the water to portray Harold Hill in the fifth of Radio 2's Broadway musicals The Music Man (R2, Saturday, February 11).

Meredith Willson's quite wonderful show very much relies on the performance of its leading player and with Robert Preston to live up to it's not an easy task. I was particularly impressed with the way Dale handled the libretto, though his singing occasionally lacked some of the punch associated with the Hill character.

Tributes to two special music men were paid in February, marking the anniversaries of their deaths. It is ten years since the singing world lost Matt Monro, admired by everyone from Mel Torme to Frank Sinatra, and thought of by many as the best popular voice this country has ever produced.

In Matt Monro: Tribute to a Song Stylist (R2, Tuesday, February 7) lyricist Don Black explained how Monro, born in Shoreditch, East London, was an unlikely looking singer.

Nevertheless, anyone who hears him singing My Kind of Girl must be grateful Monro gave up driving the number 27 bus.

Stage guest writer Dave Gelly told the story of another singer with a memorable voice, Nat King Cole, in Unforgettable (R2, Tuesday, February 14). He died on February 15, 1965, just a month short of his 48th birthday and the programme included some rarely heard material. There was even a great recording of the singer swapping jokes on a show with Sinatra.

Cole was an entertainer who excelled at whatever he did, whether it was swingin' jazz or sentimental ballads. Who cares if it's cliched? He certainly was unforgettable.

The Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise Show, Radio 2