Thursday 9 February 2012

The Maltby Collection

4extra is just starting the second series of The Maltby Collection. Before I say anything else, I have to begin with: Series 2? Again? There are several programmes on 4extra that are looping round the first series, or occasionally the first two, over and over again without ever making it to subsequent series. I am this close to starting to gather statistics. Don't make me do it, 4extra, don't make me start a graph!

Anyway, while I was muttering to myself about the second series being on again, I also thought "I do quite like the Maltby Collection", followed closely by, "What is it I like about it?"

this is something I never really questioned until I started recommending radio programmes to my dad. And I've been questioning myself more than ever since I started this blog. Good thing? Bad thing? I'm not sure.

There's something rather old-fashioned about the Maltby Collection. Other than a few references I could imagine it coming from more or less any period in radio history. The humour is in the characters, not in specifically clever jokes. I don't think I've ever heard a clip from it in one of those incessant 4extra trails, it just doesn't lend itself to one-liners.

I think it rather washed over me the first time I heard it and there are certain characters (I'm looking at you, Stelios) that I just don't get and probably never will. But when the third series aired for the first time, something clicked and I got the joke. Perhaps that's why I'm so annoyed that I've heard series one and two half a dozen times since then but I'm still waiting for a repeat of the third.

The Maltby Collection has a slow-burning but usually engaging storyline (I really didn't warm to the idea of Susie Maltby and Walter Brimble) but the real jokes are the characters. It's so tempting to describe them as caricatured - because they are - but they're almost all studies in wanting what you can't have.

Museum guide Wilf and cleaner Eva spend the first series determinedly in love but impossibly separated by her ailing husband. Until he dies and they're faced with actually having to follow through on years of forbidden love across the exhibits. Rod's uncommitted pursuit of Prunela drives her into Julian's arms and a marriage that neither seems particularly committed to. Something that should surprise no one as they'd clearly worked together for years without anything coming of it until Rod's arrival played catalyst and muddied the waters.

At times the individual characters border on the two-dimensional (is that possible on the radio?), especially Prunela, but the dialogue between them and the constantly shifting tensions is where the humour is. It's not jokes, it's funny.

Besides, if you listen for nothing else, listen for Des, the ex-SAS security guard and his truly commendable diligence. Is there any other radio programme that would get away with having a character that repeats everything that's said? I think not. No, I think not.

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