Background
Eric Merriman had previously written material for Kenneth Horne on Henry Hall's Guest Night and Variety Playhouse and written some stand-up comedy material for Barry Took. In June 1957 the BBC Radio Variety department asked Merriman to come up with an idea for a radio series starring Horne. Merriman devised a format for the show with the working title Don't Look Now. The original memo on the subject still exists in the BBC archives.
The proposal was for a solo comedy series based on a formula of a fictional week in the life of Kenneth Horne. Other memos from the BBC archive show how the proposed format evolved and the discussion of alternative titles (including Around the Horne).
Read more about this topic: Beyond Our Ken
Famous quotes containing the word background:
“Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“They were more than hostile. In the first place, I was a south Georgian and I was looked upon as a fiscal conservative, and the Atlanta newspapers quite erroneously, because they didn’t know anything about me or my background here in Plains, decided that I was also a racial conservative.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“I had many problems in my conduct of the office being contrasted with President Kennedy’s conduct in the office, with my manner of dealing with things and his manner, with my accent and his accent, with my background and his background. He was a great public hero, and anything I did that someone didn’t approve of, they would always feel that President Kennedy wouldn’t have done that.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)