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BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

BBC Radio 3

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The Essay Podcast

The Essay

Discussion & Talk

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond.

Leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond, themed across a week - insight, opinion and intellectual surprise.

The Essay: British Film Comedians

The Essay: British Film Comedians: Episode 3: Terry-Thomas

Heffer on British Film

Episode 3

Episode 3: Terry-Thomas

British Film Comedians

Terry-Thomas

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Columnist and historian Simon Heffer discusses the life and work of actor Terry-Thomas.

Columnist and historian Simon Heffer discusses the life and work of actor Terry-Thomas, who was known for potraying a particular type of British 'toff'.

The columnist and historian Simon Heffer resumes his series of Essays celebrating mid-20th century British film with a new focus on five popular comic actors.

In exploring five British comic film actors from the mid-20th century, Simon Heffer's gaze has never strayed far from the British obsession with class. The double-barrelled, single-named actor Terry-Thomas - with his monocle, his cigarette holder and the hallmark gap between his two front teeth - perfected the role of a particular type of British toff. Taking star billing in a series of films such as Private's Progress, I'm All Right, Jack, and Carlton-Browne of the FO in the mid-1950s, his timing was perfect too. Simon Heffer argues that whether playing a cad, a rotten bounder or a charmer, Terry-Thomas came to represent the louche and degenerate side of the upper classes at a time when the class system was coming under full attack. With his trademark mix of celebration and historical analysis, Simon Heffer sheds fresh light on a series of once hugely popular but now often forgotten or overlooked performances. 

Producer : Beaty Rubens.

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

Columnist and historian Simon Heffer discusses the lives and work of British comic actors.

Columnist and historian Simon Heffer discusses the lives and work of British comic actors of mid-20th century cinema

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