ABSTRACT
The largest and most widely-known source of Polari could be found propping up a revue show broadcast on Sunday afternoons to homes up and down the UK. Julian and Sandy were two fictional characters, created by Barry Took and Marty Feldman, and voiced by Hugh Paddick and Kenneth Williams on the British BBC radio series Round the Horne. The show, which ran from 1964 until 1969, was immensely popular, attracting nine million listeners each week and winning the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain Award for the best comedy script in 1967. Round the Horne consisted of a series of comedy sketches, linked together by ‘straight man’ Kenneth Horne (hence the show’s title). Each episode tended to adhere to the same format, containing a film spoof, a musical number, a parody of a cooking or fashion programme, a folk song from the fictional character Rambling Syd Rumpo (also voiced by Kenneth Williams), and usually ending with a Julian and Sandy sketch. The fact that this sketch was almost always last suggests that it was the most popular part of the show – the part ‘worth waiting for’. Barry Took agrees with this statement:
They were the most popular part of the show. Marty Feldman got tired of them and wanted to leave them out, but I didn’t want to. So we did a sketch where we did leave them out one week, and then had them come in and complain that it was a disgrace and make all sorts of suggestions as to what we could have had them doing.
