Here's Harry

Harry Worth forged an award-winning stage and screen persona as a bumbling fusspot out of sync with a fast-changing society. After many years on the variety circuit, his first TV series, The Trouble with Harry (1960), cast him as a would-be novelist failing to make any sense of the world around him. But his second show Here's Harry (1960-65), and a writing team led by Vince Powell and Harry Driver (Love Thy Neighbour, Bless This House), went back to basics to cast an indelible mould and cement his popularity. In each episode Worth is pitted against figures of petty authority such as customs officers, railway staff, doctors, lawyers or policemen, who are increasingly exasperated by his unfathomable babbling. His amiable but bewildered persona paved the way for the equally hapless Frank Spencer (Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em), and an altogether angrier Victor Meldrew (One Foot in the Grave). Of 60 episodes broadcast, only ten from 1961 have been recovered from the BBC archives, with story lines ranging from comical attempts to book a holiday, celebrate a birthday or arrange an overdraft, to the accidental theft of a policeman's bicycle. The supporting cast includes character actors and sitcom stalwarts Gerald Anderson, Deryck Guyler, Reginald Marsh, Vi Stevens, Pat Wallworth, Leonard Williams and Jack Woolgar. Gentle, genial comedy gold from the original meddlesome muddler.