The Clitheroe Kid
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The Clitheroe Kid was a long-running BBC radio comedy show featuring diminutive comedian Jimmy Clitheroe in the role of a cheeky schoolboy who lived with his family at 33 Lilac Avenue. Jimmy's best friend was Ossie, alias Oswald Higginbottom, a character who was only heard of secondhand and didn't actually appear. The pilot series and 16 subsequent series equate to 289 episodes originally broadcast between July 1, 1957 and August 13, 1972.
Apart from Clitheroe, the show's stars included Peter Sinclair playing Clitheroe's Scottish grandad, Patricia Burke as his mother (in the earliest shows the part was played by Renee Houston), and Diana Day as his long-suffering sister Susan (in the earliest shows the sister was played by Judith Chalmers). Danny Ross played Alfie Hall, Susan's daft, tongue-tied boyfriend who was often drawn into Jimmy's reckless schemes, never learning to steer clear of him. And Tony Melody played Mr Higginbottom, a six foot four inch taxi driver who constantly threatened to give Jimmy a good hiding for what he had done to Ossie. Horatio Higginbottom (the first name was very rarely used) was also grandad's drinking partner.
Jimmy Clitheroe was 35 when he started playing the part in 1956, but he could pass as an 11-year-old boy because he had never grown physically beyond that age, though in later years his face gave his real age away. The series was made with a studio audience and there were frequent gales of laughter at Jimmy's schoolboy humour, as well as at Alfie Hall's mangling of the English language as he tries to explain something and makes it worse.
Jimmy wore a schoolboy blazer and cap even for radio recordings, to maintain the appearance that he was 11 years old. Real children never appeared in the show, as this would have given away that Jimmy was an adult acting a part; so he talked of his pal Ossie and his friends in the "Black Hand Gang" (who would punish any member caught in the company of a girl) but you never actually met them.
The humour could seem sharp, and if read in the cold light of day might occasionally seem harsh, but this was because it was supposed to be the humour of a schoolboy. The audience accepted this and roared with laughter at it.
Jimmy referred to his teachers by nick-names such as "Umm-ya Pete" and "Tick Tock Tillie". His grandfather's Scottish ancestry was endlessly mocked, with talk of haggises and bagpipes, and he was portrayed as someone who only lived for his beer. Jimmy's sister Susan was usually referred to as "Scraggy-neck", "Sparrow-legs" or occasionally "the Octopus" (for her clinches with boyfriend Alfie), though she in turn often had a go at her "little brother" (Jimmy was only 4 ft 3 ins).
For instance, in one show Susan tricked Jimmy into buying back a lost kitten that he had sold to Ossie, by offering a big reward in the local newspaper for its return (under an assumed name). She warned Mr Higginbottom that Jimmy wanted it back, so Jimmy had to pay double what Ossie had paid him for it. When Jimmy discovered the trick, he turned the tables on her by selling the kitten (at a profit) to a man at the newspaper, who then turned up at the Clitheroe's house and demanded from her the reward she'd offered.
Alfie too was mocked endlessly, but the daft character which Danny Ross portrayed probably never understood the insults. Mr Higginbottom was also invariably mocked whenever he appeared; his house was said to be rat-infested and a dump. But Jimmy was very careful about this, as Higginbottom had a hair-trigger temper. His son, the much-maligned Ossie, was a fat kid who (despite being Jimmy's best friend) was knocked about by him a goodly number of times, and frequently suffered as a result of Jimmy's schemes. But Ossie seemed to feel it was safer to be Jimmy's friend than his enemy!
The one person who escaped Jimmy's quick wit on the radio was his mother. In real life his father had died and he lived with his widowed mother, and was devoted to her. Jimmy would not stand for his mother being mocked, even if it were only a fictional mother on the radio.
Jimmy's radio character frequently listened at keyholes, where he usually got the wrong end of the stick. Even when he tried to do good, as when he thought his grandad had stolen some money from a pub (but which grandad had actually been given to look after), he usually messed things up, with the help of Alfie Hall. After the end credits, a short piece by Jimmy was usually inserted where he winds-up the show, tying up any loose ends in the plot and often reporting that grandad had spanked him for what he had done.
In the Pilot series other members of the cast included John Broadbent, Violet Carson, Fred Fairclough, Fred Ferris, Tom Harrison, Jack Howarth, Shirley King, Eddie Leslie, Tony Melody, Bob Monkhouse, Herbert Smith, Brian Trueman, Jack Watson, Patrick Wells and Rosalie Williams.
The show (apart from the Pilot series) was written by James Casey and Frank Roscoe, and produced by James Casey.
Episodes are often broadcast on BBC Radio 7's Classic Comedy www.bbc.co.uk/bbc7/comedy.
