Auctioneum - Bath & East Bristol Auctions
Lot 95
Peter Brough and Archie Andrews In 'Educating Archie' (BBC Radio Programme 1950-1960) - an original production script once belonging to writer Ronald Wolfe. and featuring Ronald Shiner, Harry Secombe, Beryl Reid, Hattie Jacques, Ronald Chesney and Peter Madden, with script by Eric Sykes and Ronald Wolfe. Dated 20th December 1953, for Episode 94 - No. 12 of the 4th Series. 27pp, plus cover. Contains many alterations in pencil throughout, with crossed out lines and added notes etc. Early piece of British Comedy memorabilia.
Educating Archie was a BBC Light Programme comedy show which was broadcast for nearly ten years between June 1950 and February 1960. The programme featured ventriloquist Peter Brough and his doll Archie Andrews. The show was very popular, despite its unlikely central premise of a ventriloquist act on radio. Educating Archie averaged 15 million listeners, and a fan club boasted 250,000 members. It was so successful that in 1950, after only four months on the air, it won the Daily Mail's Variety Award. The programme introduced comedians who later became well known, including Tony Hancock as Archie's tutor, Benny Hill, Harry Secombe, Dick Emery, Bernard Bresslaw, Hattie Jacques, and Bruce Forsyth – together with a young Julie Andrews as Archie's girlfriend. Later, Beryl Reid took this role, playing the St Trinian's School-esque Monica.
Ronald Wolfe (1922 – 2011) was a British television comedy scriptwriter, best known for his 1960s and 1970s sitcoms The Rag Trade, Meet the Wife, On the Buses and Romany Jones alongside his writing partner Ronald Chesney.
