HERE’S a question for you. Does Neil Innes need to be rediscovered? Innes, who died last year, was at the heart of the history of post-war British comedy as a member of the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, a substitute Python, and a Rutle, of course. And yet, he remains a slightly shadowy figure in the story. The Innes Book of Records TV series rarely gets an airing, does it?
Putting things partly right was Neil Innes: Dip My Brain in Joy on Radio 4 on Wednesday, the first of three hour-long tributes to the comedian made up of old interviews (even Radio Scotland’s Janice Forsyth turned up at one point). The result was appropriately whimsical, if a little indulgent to be honest, assuming that everyone knew why Innes mattered rather than making the case for him.
This first episode concentrated on the Bonzo years, but it was also a roundabout portrait of Innes himself, his Scottish father, his love of Dada and surrealism, his decision to make Belgium his hobby and the fact that, as presenter Diane Morgan pointed out, “he was also a really nice man.”
There was the ghost of a more interesting programme within. Innes’s obsession with the First and Second World Wars was rolled out. As he pointed out, the fact of the two World Wars proved that “clearly no one was in charge who should be in charge.” In the circumstances Innes’s comic silliness could be read as a political statement. How else do you react to the savagery of war? Why be serious. Look at where that gets you?
Maybe, though, a tribute to Innes’s gifts was not the place to make that argument. Instead, this slightly baggy gather-up of clips at least made the case for Innes’s importance. In that sense, it felt like a good beginning.
Listen Out For: Start the Week, Radio 4, Monday, 9am. Keeping with the theme, humour is the subject of this week’s programme. evolutionary ecologist Jonathan Silvertown, literature professor John Mullan and comedian Sindhu Vee are the guests.
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