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online encyclopaedia of contemporary british radio comedy
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Radio 4
Pip pip! The Harpoon was a rip-roaring dig
at the world of Edwardian boys' comics, featuring thrilling accounts of
jungle exploration, practical tips for growing lads, jolly japes voiced
by cheery cockneys, advice on warding off the attentions of foreigners
and assorted "tales of derring-do and derring-don't". "Illustrated
with six colour plates and numerous line drawings", the magazine was topped
and tailed by "your old chum The Editor", who answered readers' letters
and gave a run-down of the delights on offer (including the adventures
of "Captain Bonnet", always unaccountably absent), and was written by Julian
Dutton and Peter Baynham, who performed it with Susie Brann, Alistair McGowan
and Mary Elliott-Nelson. Some episodes in the later series diversified
a little from the central premise, including a fifties edition (with a
free hula hoop) and an ill-advised merger with a trade magazine about lathes. A deliberate decision was made to include more library (ie, non-copyright) music in the Series Three programmes, with a view to releasing a BBC Radio Collection cassette. Sadly, this never surfaced.
Series One 1991
Series Two 1992
Series Three 1993 (four episodes each)
