Frank Muir CBE (1920-1998) and Denis Norden CBE (1922-2018)
many not be familiar names to many, but they were one of the top comedy writing
duos – and successful writers, authors, presenters and entertainers – in the UK
working both on radio and television.
Muir was additionally a writer on the 1960s satire
programmes
That Was The Week That Was, which
launched the television career of David Frost (perhaps most internationally
recognised for his interview with President Nixon following the latter’s
resignation from office), and
The Frost Report., again featuring David
Frost. Muir went on to become Assistant Head of Light Entertainment at the BBC
in the 1960s, and was then
London Weekend Television‘s founding Head
of Entertainment. However, he is probably most fondly remembered in the
UK as a team captain on the long-running
BBC 2 witty comedy quiz series
Call My Bluff, and as a voice-over artist in a
number of famous
UK
television commercials.
Norden partnered in writing with Muir for more than 50
years, writing and producing radio and television shows for some of the top
entertainers in the
UK
in those mediums during the 1960s. As a writer in his own right, Norden penned
a number of Hollywood film scripts, including
Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell and
The Bliss of Mrs. Blossom, and wrote,
narrated and starred in
A Child’s Guide To Blowing Up A Car –
a behind-the-scenes featurette showing how a stunt used in the James Bond movie
Thurderball was
put together, and which now appears on the 2006 ‘Ultimate Edition’
Thunderball DVD.
Norden is perhaps most famously known for
It’ll be Alright on the Night,
his show featuring out-takes and bloopers from film and television, which ran
from 1977 through to 2006, much of the material from which was “borrowed” by
NBC in the United States for
Dick Clark’s Bloopers.
Join with Corwyn Allen. as he celebrates these two great
British writers with selections from their work.
Today we present the second of the top four Sherlock Holmes' Adventures from our recent poll: THE ADVENTURE OF THE MUSGRAVE RITUAL from "The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes" (1894).
