First viewed : Autumn 1990
This became one of my favourite comedy shows of the nineties It was a sketch-based show featuring Harry as regular characters such as Wayne Slob, Mr Cholmondley-Warner and Mr-You-Don't-Wanna-Do-It-Like-That. A number of his characterisations involved others in a double ( or treble) act such as The Old Gits ( with Paul Whitehouse ), The Slobs ( with Kathy Burke ), The Scousers ( with Joe McGann and Gary Bleasdale ) and the Double-take Brothers ( with the sour-faced Rupert Holliday-Evans ).
My particular favourite was Tim-Nice-But-Dim , a particularly brainless upper class twit.
This was also the show that launched Smashie and Nicey ( with Whitehouse again ) , a parody of Radio One disc jockeys. I never thought it was particularly funny - the likes of Alan Freeman and Tony Blackburn were pretty adept at self-parody anyway - and it has been credited with clearing the ground for the Bannister blitzkrieg at Radio One three years later. The guys themselves seem to have mixed feelings about this; I remember Whitehouse saying John Birt approached him at a function and thanked them for helping him clear out the old-style DJs . Whitehouse's response was "well they're harmless, we'd sooner get rid of you !"
The programme had a rest in 1993 but came back as Harry Enfield and Chums to acknowledge the contributions of Burke and Whitehouse in particular and they now appeared in the closing sequence. There was some turnover of characters with Kevin the Teenager making the biggest impression and leading to a feature film.
The series finished in 1998 but was resurrected on Sky. My Sky-owning friend Carl refused to acknowledge that this was a demotion.
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