THE title of January’s U3A Zoom meeting was “TV Comedy: Script to Screen”.

Our speaker was Charles Garland, who was a BBC Producer and had worked for “Auntie” for more than 20 years and had been employed on many well-known comedies.

His opening scene was situated on the set of the Dad’s Army Church Hall in Walmington-on-Sea, which would have been extremely difficult to reproduce in the Boniface Centre - so yet again Zoom shows its advantages.

From his position he could point out behind him various pieces of equipment used during filming.

The writer is the pivotal person of any comedy and they must bring something which is funny, different and exciting to a producer and then “sell” it to them.

If the writer is successful the pair then has to present a sample script to the BBC upper management for approval.

Charles said that he thought the pilot episode was always the worst (as so many introductions and backgrounds had to be established) and he asked that up to episode four should be written to give characters time to develop.

Charles told the story of John Sullivan, who was a scene shifter at the time, presenting a script to a producer who was impressed but asked for another episode to be written to make sure it wasn’t a fluke.

John Sullivan went on to write "Citizen Smith", "Only Fools and Horses" and "Just Good Friends" to name but a few.

John Sullivan was such a perfectionist he even wrote and sang the theme tune to "Only Fools and Horses" “No income tax, no VAT” (is that tune now stuck in your head?).

As an aside Charles stressed that we should be grateful to Desi Arnaz, who those of a certain age will remember was Lucille Ball’s husband and produced the “I love Lucy” comedy.

Desi introduced the use of multi moving cameras on set for continuity and extremely flat studio floors that could be scooped up at the end of the day and replaced for subsequent filming.

After the go ahead from the upper echelons of the BBC several episodes of the series were written and agreed before the appointment of a director, location decisions (private houses being much cheaper than National Trust properties), booking of crew and backroom staff and then auditioning.

On many successful comedies the same team of actors appear as they were professional and could be relied upon. About a year passes between the beginning of the process to the first read-through of all the scripts, after which filming commences.

We then virtually visited the set of Cafe Rene from "’Allo, ‘Allo!" and heard that the actress who played Helga had to have a call at 5.30 in the morning so her hairstyle and make-up could be completed by start of filming at 9.30.

"’Allo, ‘Allo!" was the most widely sold BBC comedy and was aired in 14 countries including, recently, Germany. The only characters portrayed as laughable in the show were the two British Airmen: all other characters had their strengths and weaknesses, for example the policeman, who was a brave undercover agent but never mastered French, opening his appearances with “Good Moaning”.

We then returned to Dad’s Army where we heard that John Le Mesurier (Sergeant Wilson) was a brilliant technical actor who was always word perfect whereas Arthur Lowe, who played Captain Mainwaring, never learnt his lines and carried the script around with him.

The producer, David Croft, got a bit fed up with this and one day presented Arthur with three scripts: the first to leave on the train, the second to leave on set and the third to take home and learn.

Arthur quipped back “I wouldn’t have that rubbish in my house”. An example of a top producer being out done by a top comedy actor!

Many of the second row in Dad’s Army were “down on their luck” theatre actors who David Croft had worked with earlier in his career and he showed his loyalty and respect by employing them for the show.

Charles stressed that the first rule of comedy was truth and that successful shows always stick to their own convention - each character has a part to play in a piece written to create a desired effect. In "Steptoe and Son" the theme was a working class father and a son who was aspiring to be middle class and escape his roots. Each episode explored this convention.

Thank you so much Charles for a wonderful talk; my partner and I chuckled away at your asides and stories! Thanks also to Fenella for finding another great speaker.

Keep safe everyone. So glad to hear that friends and fellow U3A members are now receiving their first Covid19 vaccination - I am suffering from jab jealousy. If you are sceptical of the vaccination programme please research trusted sites, listen to real medics and don’t believe everything you read on social media.

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Jo Poulton