Round the Horne Revisited ... 2
The Venue, London WC2
A second helping of last year's surprise hit, Round the Horne Revisited... 2 delivers more awful puns, clever wordplay and silly sketches originally performed on BBC Radio from 1965-69, when Kenneth Williams, Hugh Paddick and Betty Marsden played jesters to Kenneth Horne's straightman, ably assisted by BBC announcer Douglas Smith.
The cast mostly pulls off the impersonations, but the scripts are the stars here. Brian Cooke has recreated two 40-minute programmes from the scripts he co-wrote with Marty Feldman, Barry Took and Johnnie Mortimer, with a few lines updated but most delivered verbatim. They - and the simple staging of a recreated Paris Studios - work surprisingly well. The show is a wonderful celebration of the richness of the English language and our love of smut.
BBC bosses would fret over hidden meanings in the script and probably had no idea that Julian and Sandy's polari was actually private gay code, but it is surely our filthy minds that make innocent phrases such as 'So you gave her a spray' (talking about a bouquet of flowers) into something naughty. And characters named J Peasmold Gruntfuttock and Dame Celia Molestrangler are funny, well, just because they are.
Robin Sebastian's almost faultless Williams steals the show (just like old times, then) and Kate Brown as Marsden appeals, while Jonathan Rigby's Horne is impressive. Sorry, it's catching.
