Kenneth Horne

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Kenneth Horne

Kenneth Horne (February 27, 1907, London – February 14, 1969) was an English comedian and businessman. He starred in the BBC radio programmes Much Binding in the Marsh, (with Richard Murdoch), Beyond Our Ken and Round the Horne - in the latter he was given a number of strange names. As well as being an excellent comedian he was also chairman of Triplex Glass (later merged into Pilkington) and Chad Valley Toys, until he gave up business due to a stroke and concentrated on his comedy. He was particularly close to Kenneth Williams, who looked on him as a substitute father. He also did some TV advertising and he was in the series Horne A'plenty. He hosted a game show called Treasure Hunt - not to be confused with the later Kenneth Kendall / Anneka Rice show of the same name - on Westward Television.

During World War II, Horne served in the RAF, reaching the rank of Wing Commander. As part of BBC radio's support of the war effort entertainment programmes were devised to target each wing of the armed forces, this led to Horne's involvement in Much-Binding-In-The-Marsh set at the titular fictitious air force base, a series which continued until 1954.

He died from a stroke whilst standing up to make a speech, just after the fourth series of Round the Horne was completed. A fifth series had been commissioned, but it was decided that the show could not continue without its star.

Since December 2002, editions of Round the Horne may be heard at 19:00 UK time (= GMT during the winter months) each Wednesday on the digital service called BBC 7.

In recent years a successful stage show Round the Horne - Revisisted using the original scripts, has toured Britain with actors vocally impersonating the cast, Kenneth Horne being played by Jonathan Rigby.