Harry Worth 1

Anyone else agree that the 1980s Thirty Minutes' Worth does not show the comedian at his best?

Hard to be certain as the BBC TV shows are repeated so rarely - think I last saw one around 1990 - but I think it was a lot subtler than this, where the jokes seem tired and obvious and there's not much sketched in by way of character in between the rather tired jokes to make us warm to him.

There was a book around the time of the original TV show which suggested that the sitcom was something of an innovation in its time; this certainly isn't. Rose-tinted glasses?

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Wish I could remember more about the book, written I think in the mid sixties, which detailed the initial care taken in building up Worth's character. Possibly even absorbing a lesson or two from Galton and Simpson.

I have seen sitcom tryouts where the audience laughed uprariously at individual gags but there was nothing there to sustain a series. It's nothing without character to hold things together. Sad about Worth's circumstances, and good that it was at least a return to the persona which fitted the performer so well (I think some ITV series had tried to push him in different directions), but witless writing.

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On what is termed the official Harry Worth website, you can buy a DVD of some episodes from the BBC TV series and a DVD of the later Thames series My Name is Harry Worth. I intend to order the BBC one (the better bet) and will report back. These are apparently just on plain DVDs, no packaging.

I have tried just now to order but the paypal link is out of date - I have contacted the site.

I agree that Worth was more than that visual gag but describing what he actually was is not easy as his comedy doesn't translate into a handy catchphrase or single succinct gag - which is why the writing in the radio series, which doesn't give his trademark misunderstandings room to breathe, and even puts some uncharacteristically sharp lines into his mouth, does his memory a disservice. Especially when there are so few telly repeats to balance things up. A bit like judging Hancock by his Australian debacle.

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Problems with ordering on the Harry Worth official website have been sorted; I have now seen three of the four episodes on the Here's Harry DVD. It's a pity not to have a wider selection of his BBC work - the programmes all date from 1961 - but the technical quality is quite acceptable.

Don't know how they compare with later episodes in the longrunning TV series but on this evidence my vague memory didn't deceive: both in the playing and the writing even these early programmes seem far subtler than the recently repeated radio series.

Mabye that's because each episode is credited to three writers: Vince Powell, Harry Driver and Frank Roscoe. And there are supporting actors of the likes of Jack Woolgar and Reginald Marsh.

And unlike poor Michael Robbins, having to make bricks out of straw as the burglar in that last episode of Thirty Minutes' Worth, the characters in the TV series have been given enough to do and say so that they seem three-dimensional. it may seem an odd comparison to make but I'm reminded of The Likely Lads where such care was taken casting small parts (like that surprisingly gentle policeman played by Robert Gillspie).

It's a gentle sort of comedy. At least one slapstick opportunity takes place offscreen, and despite severe provocation characters rarely give way to cartoonlike apoplexy; most of the fun, in fact, is in our anticipation of their struggle to retain their composure as they become increasingly entangled in Harry's brand of logic.

You could say it's a kind of mirror image of Hancock's world, where Galton and Simpson have said that in order to remain sympathetic Hancock's character needed to be provoked by the pomposity or unreasonableness of those around him. In Here's Harry, by contrast, everyone around him is reasonable - but such is the warmth and innocence of Worth's own character you somehow can't really blame him for the ensuing confusion ...

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I forgot to mention that there is yet another example of the way that Here's Harry acts as a kind of mirror image of the Hancock programme.

I've noticed that the closeups are of the supporting cast as much as the lead, so that we are able to savour each stage of the mounting exasperation which invariably attends any attempt to engage with Harry's thought processes.

In a scene where Harry is explaining something to a gardening expert, for example, it cuts away about five times to a close up of the latter's face. And the playing is restrained, but you still get enough information to guess at a slowly simmering annoyance in a way which would not be possible on radio without extra dialogue.