The first of five programmes examining life in a small village, where Mrs Roberts has been head of the Parish Council for ten years and A Toll Tax has just been introduced....

(Stereo) (Repeated tomorrow 5.25pm LW)
(See David Gillard, right)

First Lady impressions
Former Footlighter and Radio 4 regular Jo Kendall takes on the guise of 'our leader' in the highly-topical political satire "Little Blighty on the Down".
In 1963 a Cambridge Footlights revue called Cambridge Circus came to the Lyric Theatre in London to introduce a then unknown young comedy team that included John Cleese, Bill Oddie, Tim Brooke-Taylor, Graham Chapman, David Hatch (now the BBC's Managing Director of Network Radio) and a sole female representative, Jo Kendall.
Looking out my old programme, I find that the jokey biographies of the cast described Cleese as 'utterly trendless.. an apostate lawyer, his only interest is food and he has an aunt called Gladys who lives in Weston-super-Mare', Hatch as '5ft 6ins and High Church... destined to teach, his ambition is to be 5ft 7ins' and Kendall as 'well-known in Cambridge for her occasional female impersonations. The BBC wants her. We've got her'.
Not any more, for today the BBC has got her. Currently a member of the Radio Drama Company, Jo can be heard in everything from "The Archers" and "Citizens" to "A Tale of Two Cities" and, this week, "Little Blighty on the Down". And she's still doing impressions - a Mrs Thatcher impersonation ('it's more in the character than the voice') as the town's chief Rotarian, Mrs Roberts.
For Little Blighty is a comic microcosm of a country not a million miles away and Mrs Roberts, says Jo, 'is she who must be obeyed'. The series, first heard last year, is the brainchild of Week Ending writers and topicality is assured because each programme is written only the day before the broadcast.
'I think you'll recognise life in Little Blighty,' says Jo. 'There's a threatened conveyance charge across the village bridge (the Toll Tax), lengthening queues outside Dr Figgers's surgery and the possibility of outside traders flooding the local market with cheap produce...'
Jo's had a varied and successful stage and TV career but radio comedy has always played its part. Her first radio show was "I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again" in 1964 with her Footlights friends Cleese, Brooke-Taylor, Oddie and Hatch and she followed that with a long stint in The Burkiss Way.
Now, to celebrate the 25th anniversary of "I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again", Jo's helping to devise a special radio reunion for later this year. When we spoke she was searching unsuccessfully for John Cleese. He was probably in Weston-super-Mare with his aunt. (D.G.)
Little Blighty on the Down, Friday 11.35pm