My Great Aunt's Great (Aired May 21, 1972)
The Clitheroe Kid was James Robertson Clitheroe, Jimmy Clitheroe to most, who by some strange coincidence did come from the town of that name without having to change his family name! At his full height he was 4ft 3in, and played the naughty schoolboy from 1958 to 1972. Although plausable from a distance, he was not really able to pass himself off as a youngster close up, so a TV career did not really take off too well, but at the peak of his fame the radio show was raking in about 10 million listeners, although by the end this had dropped to a tenth of that figure. Clitheroe was a very private person, and the shows became a sort of escape for him, as well as the release from the worries of his diminutive size, but despite this, his popularity increased and increased, making this series one of the longer running on the radio - a total of 17 series. It is surprising then that with such a success, and with such a long run that the shows are rarely broadcast. The humour was very obvious and probably wouldn't stand up in todays climes, but there has been one release from the BBC radio collection, so if you wanted to hear some of the shows, you can hunt this down in the shops. The series sprang from a single show broadcast on 24-4-56 as part of a Variety Playhouse series The pilot series did not have individual names for the episodes. The producer was Geoff Lawrence, with the music supplied by the BBC Northern Dance Orchestra, conducted by Alyn Ainsworth, and broadcast in the North of England only.
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