Take IT From Here - Influence

Influence

The parody sketch, previously used in stage revues but brought to radio by Muir and Norden for Take It From Here, was very influential on comedy shows such as Round The Horne and many television programmes.

In one of the parody sketches, a take-off of the films of English north country factory owners, Muir claimed that they introduced the phrase "Trouble at t'Mill". For one series, Wallas Eaton portrayed an opinionated newspaper letter writer named Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells, another phrase that entered the language.

Many of the jokes and comic exchanges from Take It From Here were recycled in the series of Carry On films when scriptwriter Talbot Rothwell ran out of time, and Muir and Norden gave him some old TIFH scripts — for instance the line spoken by Julius Caesar on facing some would-be assassins: "Infamy! Infamy! They've all got it in for me!"

While the humour was undoubtedly parochially British, in his autobiography Frank Muir expressed gratification and wonder that the show was so well received in Australia — where TIFH's subtlety, and the show's implied confidence in the listeners' level of intelligence, were commented on in the Australian press as characteristics one would have expected to lead to the show's failure there!