It's That Man Again

"ITMA" redirects here. For other uses, see ITMA (disambiguation).

This article is about the radio programme. For the film adaptation, see It's That Man Again (film).

It's That Man Again

The ITMA cast at rehearsal during a visit to the Home Fleet at Scapa Flow, January 1944
Other names	ITMA
Genre	Sketch comedy
Running time	30 minutes
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Home station	BBC National Programme BBC Home Service
Syndicates	BBC Forces Programme BBC Light Programme BBC Radio 4 Extra
Starring	Tommy Handley
Written by	Ted Kavanagh
Produced by	Francis Worsley
Recording studio	London (s 1, 7–12) Bristol (s 2) Bangor, Wales (s 3–6) Llandudno, Wales (s 5, one show) Manchester (Specials)
Original release	12 July 1939 (1939-07-12) – 6 January 1949 (1949-01-06)
No. of series	12
No. of episodes	305, plus 5 specials

It's That Man Again (commonly contracted to ITMA) was a BBC radio comedy programme which ran over twelve series from 1939 to 1949. The shows featured Tommy Handley in the central role, a fast-talking figure, around whom all the other characters orbited. The programmes were written by Ted Kavanagh and produced by Francis Worsley. Handley died during the twelfth series, the remaining programmes of which were immediately cancelled: ITMA could not work without him, and no further series were commissioned.

ITMA was a character-driven comedy whose satirical targets included government departments and the ostensibly petty wartime regulations. Parts of the shows were re-written in the hour before it was broadcast, to ensure its topicality. The show broke away from the conventions of previous radio comedies, and from the humour of the music halls. The shows used numerous sound effects in a novel manner, which, alongside a wide range of voices and accents, created the programme's atmosphere.

The show presented more than seventy regular characters during its twelve seasons, most of them with his or her own catchphrase. Among them were the bibulous Colonel Chinstrap ("I don't mind if I do"), the charlady Mrs Mopp ("Can I do you now, sir?"), the incompetent German agent Funf ("this is Funf speaking"), the courtly odd-job men Cecil and Claude ("After you, Claude—no, after you, Cecil"), the middle-eastern hawker Ali Oop ("I go—I come back"), and the lugubrious Mona Lott ("It's being so cheerful that keeps me going"). To keep the show fresh, old characters were dropped and new ones introduced over the years.

ITMA was an important contributor to British morale during the war, with its cheerful take on the day-to-day preoccupations of the public, but its detailed topicality – one of its greatest attractions at the time – has prevented it from wearing well on repeated hearing. The show's lasting legacy is its influence on subsequent BBC comedy. ITMA's innovative structure – a half-hour comedy with musical interludes and a cast of regular characters with popular catchphrases – was successfully continued in comedy shows of the 1950s and 1960s, such as Take It from Here, The Goon Show and Round the Horne.

Background

The comedian Tommy Handley started as a music hall comedian before becoming a regular feature on BBC radio from 1924. By the end of the 1920s he was, according to writers Andy Foster and Steve Furst, a household name in Britain; his popularity continued in to the 1930s. The writer Ted Kavanagh was a fan of Handley and wrote a script for a comedy sketch for him in 1926. Handley liked the work and bought it; it was the start of a professional relationship that lasted until Handley's death in 1949.

Although the BBC featured many comic acts in its variety programmes, it had no regular comedy series until early 1938, when Band Waggon and Danger! Men at Work began. The former, which ran for three series in 1938 and 1939, was a particular success; John Watt, the BBC's director of variety, wanted a successor and decided that Handley would be the right person to present it. In June 1939 Handley, Kavanagh and the producer Francis Worsley met at the Langham Hotel, London to discuss ideas for a sketch show to meet Watt's criteria. They decided to emulate the quick-fire style of American radio programmes such as the Burns and Allen Show, although with a much more English quality.

Initial plans were to call the new programme MUG—the "Ministry of Universal Gratification"—but Worsley preferred ITMA. "ITMA", or "It's That Man Again", referred to Hitler, and the term was used as a headline to describe him by Bert Gunn, the editor of The Daily Express.

Format

ITMA was a character-driven comedy and contained parody and satire, unlike previous radio comedy. The programme's satirical targets during the war were government departments and the ostensibly petty wartime regulations, although the programme "never challenged authority but instead acted as a safety valve for the public's irritation with bureaucracy, wartime shortages, queues and the black market", according to the cultural historian Martin Dibbs.

Handley (centre) introduces Ann Rich, a new singer for ITMA; Charles Shadwell conducts the orchestra in the background

According to Foster and Furst ITMA was "entirely new, breaking away from the conventions of both radio and music hall comedy". It relied on Handley's quick-fire delivery of the humour, with his "near-miraculous technique". The writer and producer John Fisher, in his examination of 20th century comedians and comedy, highlights ITMA's "speed of delivery, its quick-fire succession of short scenes and verbal non-sequiturs, all breaking away from the traditional music hall sketch orientation of Band Waggon". The broadcasts had an average of eighteen-and-a-half minutes of dialogue into which Kavanagh would attempt to write one hundred laughs; Foster and Furst observe that averages a laugh every eleven seconds. Between the comic scenes there were usually two musical interludes in each show: the first purely orchestral and the second featuring a song from the current resident singer.

The storylines for each week were thin, and the programme was written to have Handley at the centre interacting with a cast of recurring characters, each of whom had their own catchphrase or phrases. The catchphrases were used deliberately to allow the listening public to identify which is the characters was speaking. The programme was broadcast live each week and many of the show's numerous sound effects were done live alongside the actors. For ITMA a sound effect was not a shorthand way of setting a scene for a listener, but "as a means of punctuating the rapid progress of events ... doing the work of words, and permitting an extraordinarily economical drama for a medium that relies on words—and sounds", according to the academic Peter Davison. The variety of characters and sounds was key to Kavanagh, who wrote that he wanted:

to use sound for all it was worth, the sound of different voices and accents, the use of catchphrases, the impact of funny sounds in words, of grotesque effects to give atmosphere—every device to create the illusion of rather crazy or inverted reality.

The scripts were written during the week of broadcast to ensure topicality. The year after ITMA ended. Kavanagh reflected "I myself cannot understand some of the jokes. They were skits on a nine-days wonder—a headline of that day's paper, and dead the following week. Every programme is an accurate reflection of the war situation at the time." Some parts of a script were rewritten in the hours leading up to a broadcast as the news changed. Kavanagh visited army camps and factories to listen to the patois and slang, the current jokes doing the rounds, as well as complaints and frustration and used the material in the show. In this manner, Worsley considers that ITMA was "the closest radio had come to the everyday jokes that ordinary people have always made".

As the programme matured, Kavanagh changed the flow of the programme away from the disjointed collection of scenes or sketches and towards a more defined storyline.

Broadcasts

Pre-war

Series 1: July to August 1939

The first series of ITMA was planned to be a trial run of six shows of 45-minute duration, broadcast fortnightly. They began on 12 July 1939, performed at a BBC sound facility, either at Maida Vale Studios, or St. George's Hall. The shows were broadcast live on the BBC National Programme at 8:15 pm. The programme was set on a ship able to broadcast radio programmes, with Handley as the station controller and presenter. He was accompanied by Cecilia Eddy, Eric Egan and Sam Heppner. The show included a quiz hosted by Lionel Gamlin.

In an article in the Radio Times that accompanied the first programme, Worsley described the premise of the show: Handley "gets hold of a ship, equips it with a transmitter and studio, and sails the Seven Seas scattering broadcast culture (Handley brand) and 'commercials' (any brand)." Music was provided by the Jack Harris Band, who had been performing at London hotspots, including the Café de Paris and the London Casino. With a tense international situation in mid-1939, Kavanagh was careful to avoid writing in political jokes, or any material too topical or sensitive. Handley was known to keep to a script, with little or no ad-libbing to worry the producers.

The fourth episode of ITMA was broadcast on 30 August. When the Second World War broke out on 3 September, the remainder of the series was cancelled. The show had been of limited success, and Worsley thought it was likely to have been "another broadcasting flop".

Wartime

Series 2: September 1939 to February 1940

The BBC had planned for the outbreak of war, and once it was declared, the Variety department was moved to Bristol. The relocation meant some of the original performers were not available; a new cast was assembled from those who had moved to Bristol and who had received the requisite security clearance from the Ministry of Information. Handley was accompanied by Vera Lennox, Maurice Denham, Sam Costa and Jack Train, and the music for the second series was by the Jack Hylton Band, conducted by Billy Ternent and supported by the Rhythm Octet.

With the idea of a broadcasting ship now too improbable during wartime, the premise of the programme changed to have Handley as the head of the fictional Ministry of Aggravation and Mysteries, where he worked in the Office of Twerps. Other changes to the format included dropping the quiz section of the programme—which Worsley thought held up the flow of the show—replaced by "Radio Fakenburg", a spoof of Radio Luxembourg. A blackout was in place for evenings and nights, and all cinemas and theatres had been closed by the government; such measures provided a boost to the listening figures for the show. The writer and comedian Barry Took writes that the success also came from the programme's "self-assurance and cheerful optimism [which was] a welcome relief in that time of fear and uncertainty".

The second series of ITMA finished in February 1940 and the show went on a nationwide tour that kept it off the air for nearly 18 months, except for one special edition in May 1940. Took notes that the show lacked the impact it had on radio, as Handley's performances were more intimate through a microphone than in a theatre.

Series 3 and 4: June 1941 to May 1942

While ITMA was absent from the airwaves, the German bombing campaign had included Bristol, which triggered a move of the Variety Department to Bangor, northwest Wales in April 1941. When series three began broadcasting in June 1941, Kavanagh had introduced more characters, and set the show in the fictional seaside town of Foaming-at-the-Mouth with Handley as its mayor, renaming the programme, briefly, It's That Sand Again, before it reverted to ITMA. There were also changes in the cast. Denholm and Costa had both joined the army since the previous series; new actors were brought in, including Horace Percival, Dorothy Summers, Clarence Wright and Fred Yule.

Series 3 ran for six weeks, ending on 25 July 1941. Series 4 followed two months later, beginning on 26 September. The programme was attracting 16 million listers by this stage, and was the most popular programme the BBC Variety Department had ever broadcast. During programme five, listeners heard the explosion of two naval mines that had been dropped on Bangor, landing half a mile (0.8 km) from the studio, instead of in the River Mersey. Although the actors continued after a brief pause, the programme had been taken off the air and replaced with music.

In April 1942 ITMA provided a command performance at Windsor Castle in the presence of George VI and his queen on the occasion of the 16th birthday of Princess Elizabeth. It was, notes Worsley, the first Royal Command Radio Show. The royal family were fans of the programme; a member of the Royal Household said that if the war were to end between 8.30 and 9 p.m. on a Thursday night none of the household would dare to tell the King until ITMA had finished.

Series 5 and 6: September 1942 to July 1943

Series 5 started in September 1942 and ran for 20 weeks. One of the programmes in November was broadcast on the BBC Forces Programme to the soldiers in North Africa, the first time the show had been transmitted to the troops. The shows became increasingly topical and up-to-the-minute. Worsley began experimenting with the size of the audience to see which worked best. He tried in the theatres and cinemas of Bangor and Llandudno to get an audience of 2000, and in the studio in Bangor with 200; he also tried with no audience, and settled on 200 as the right number. The premise of the show changed again with Handley now dismissed as the mayor of Foaming-in-the-Mouth, and now the manager of a munitions factory. Several new characters were introduced, including Colonel Chinstrap, a dipsomaniac retired army officer voiced by Train.

Before the sixth series began recording, a film version It's That Man Again was released. Starring Handley and including many of the radio programme regulars, it was written by Kavanagh and Howard Irving Young and directed by Walter Forde. The Times considered it difficult to transpose a radio show format onto a cinema screen, but though Forde "manages his difficult task extremely well". As a consequence, the reviewer thought the film "achieves at least a partial success through the extravagance of its own craziness".

The scenario of programme changed again for series six, when, deciding to move the munitions factory underground, a sulphur spring was tapped and Foaming-in-the-Mouth became a spa.

Series 7 and 8: October 1943 to June 1945

The ITMA cast with some of the crew of HMS Anson (79) under four of the ship's 14-inch guns

In the latter part of 1943 the Variety Department finished a relocation back to London. Series 7 of ITMA, which began in October that year, was recorded in the Criterion Theatre at Piccadilly Circus. The show restarted without Train, whose health, which had been worsening for some time, broke down completely; he spent a year in a sanatorium in North Wales recovering. Worsley took the decision to rest Train's characters rather than have another actor portray him; although he was criticised for the decision, he said "any imitation was to my mind as paste to real diamonds". The series included broadcasts for each of the three forces: in January 1944 ITMA was broadcast from the Royal Navy base at Scapa Flow, a show for the Royal Air Force was recorded at the Criterion in February, and an Army edition from the Garrison Theatre at the Royal Artillery Barracks, Woolwich.

Series 8 began in September 1944 with a special show from the Wolseley Motors factory in Birmingham, but the show failed, and it was decided not to have any further broadcasts away from the studio. Train returned to the cast, but at the end of 1944 Worsley was hospitalised for seven months. The production duties were taken up by Ronnie Waldman until the broadcast of 10 May 1944 when Worsley returned. His first programme back was V-ITMA, the special edition show of 11 May 1945, which celebrated the end of the war in Europe. The series came to an end a month later, after a run of 39 weeks.

Post-war

Series 9 to 12, post-war: September 1945 to January 1949

Handley (centre) and Dorothy Summers recording an episode of ITMA in 1945; the conductor Charles Shadwell (right) laughs

For the start of the post-war ITMAs, Handley, Kavanagh and Worsley decided to change many of the cast to keep the show fresh; Dorothy Summers, Sydney Keith, Dino Galvani and Horace Percival were all released from the show and replaced by Hugh Morton, Mary O'Farrell, Carleton Hobbs and Lind Joyce, with Clarence Wright returning to the programme. The premise of the show changed too: Handley left Foaming-in-the-Mouth and became the governor of the fictional island of Tomtopia. The story line towards the end of series 9 centred on a government investigation of the administration on Tomtopia; the series ended in June 1946 with Handley leaving Tomtopia to return to Britain.

A prequel programme to series 10, "Whither Tomtopia?", was based in the idea that Handley had "to face an enquiry into his governorship" of the island. He faced questions from, among others, Dilys Powell—the film critic from The Sunday Times—the medical spokesman Dr Charles Hill and the author A. G. Street; the programme was chaired by Sir William Darling, MP. The remainder of the series dealt with Handley living in the fictional Castle WeeHoose in Scotland, where he was building a rocket to take him to the moon. In about week six of the series, the rocket was launched, but crash-landed on Tomtopia, where a new governor—Percy Palaver, played by Deryck Guyler—was in charge.

Series 11, which began in September 1947, had the final recruit to the ITMA cast: Hattie Jacques, who played Ella Phant and Sophie Tuckshop. She became so nervous during the audition that Handley held her hand, which she found made her more nervous. Handley's health was beginning to decline by the end of the 38-week series, and it was suggested that series 12 was delayed. He said no, and ITMA began again in September 1948. On 9 January 1949, three weeks after the sixteenth episode of the series, Handley died suddenly of a cerebral haemorrhage. The news was announced on that evening's radio, at the close of the Sunday evening repeat of ITMA by the Director General of the BBC, Sir William Haley, who insisted on making the announcement himself. Without it's star, ITMA was cancelled; Took observes that Handley "was so much the keystone and embodiment of the actual performance that ITMA died with him".

Reputation

The Times commented that ITMA "achieved a humour of universal appeal and found eager listeners in every rank of society", A 2002 history of Britain in the first half of the 20th century called the show "the most celebrated wartime radio programme ... praised by intellectuals for its surrealism and wordplay, but loved by the mass listening public for its delirious silliness". The size of the audience was unprecedented; one historian records that more than sixteen million people listened to ITMA every week", and another that "a staggering 40 per cent of the population" regularly tuned in. But the show was not without its critics. Took quotes hostile letters to Radio Times: "Why should the producers in the Variety department assume that the listeners are a body of half-wits? The puns served up last night in "ITMA" were an insult to anyone's intelligence" (1939) and "I am constantly amazed by the number of otherwise intelligent people who rave about this programme. I have tried to discover some sort of level of culture or intelligence from which ITMA fans are drawn—but in vain" (1944). In 1947 a Scottish MP, Jean Mann, referred to Handley—or his character—as a "twerp".

In the show's early days critical response was not enthusiastic. The radio critic of The Manchester Guardian wrote in December 1939 that amusing as the show could be, "it is beginning to pall by its regularity and its attachment to the same style of humour". By the end of the last series, in 1949, writers in the same paper were comparing ITMA to the comedies of Aristophanes and Ben Jonson, as "a brilliant, penetrating commentary on our times ... enlightening millions of people—a cunningly dispensed and cleverly administered medicine for the lesser ills of society". A contemporary critic observed that ITMA was entirely original and avoided stock characters:

There are neither drawling Bayswater millionaires nor drooling Aberdonian wags nor, thank Hackney, any boy Cockney. These characters are novel. They gibber, splutter, stutter, stagger, suffer from amnesia, paranoia, claustrophobia, dyspepsia, dementia, and delirium tremens. A whirling dream-world, the happy (and unhappily rare) one where no anxieties matter and where terror figures are laughed away by Daddy Handley's telephonic ridicule.

Historians of the show acknowledge that the topicality that was one of ITMA's strengths has prevented it from wearing well. Kavanagh himself admitted that reading his old scripts he could not work out what some of the jokes were about. Even while the show was still running, its producer, Worsley, said that recordings of earlier series "seem curiously dusty and faded, like an album of old photographs".

In a 2013 study of British comedy, John Fisher emphasises the influence of ITMA on later comedy shows by virtue of "its speed of delivery, its quick-fire succession of short scenes and verbal non-sequiturs, its surrealist overtones, all breaking away from the traditional music hall sketch orientation of Band Waggon, and anticipating Take It From Here, and even more so The Goon Show and Round the Horne".

Notes, references and sources

Sources

Books

• Barfe, Louis (2009). Turned Out Nice Again: The Story of British Light Entertainment. London: Atlantic. ISBN 978-1-8435-4381-7. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Briggs, Asa (1985). The BBC: The First Fifty Years. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-1921-2971-0. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Curran, James; Seaton, Jean (2002). Power Without Responsibility: Press, Broadcasting and the Internet in Britain (fifth ed.). London: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-134-82330-7. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Davison, Peter (1982). Contemporary Drama and the Popular Dramatic Tradition in England. London: Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-3332-8083-6. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Dibbs, Martin (2019). Radio Fun and the BBC Variety Department, 1922–67. London: Springer. ISBN 978-3-319-95609-1. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Fisher, John (2013). Funny Way to Be a Hero. London: Preface. ISBN 978-1-84809-313-3. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Foster, Andy; Furst, Steve (1999). Radio Comedy, 1938–1968: A Guide to 30 Years of Wonderful Wireless. London: Virgin Books. ISBN 978-0-86369-960-3. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Freedman, Jean R. (2015). Whistling in the Dark: Memory and Culture in Wartime London. Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 978-0-8131-4816-8. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help) (subscription required)
• Gaye, Freda (ed) (1967). Who's Who in the Theatre (fourteenth ed.). London: Sir Isaac Pitman and Sons. OCLC 5997224. {{cite book}}: |first= has generic name (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Gifford, Denis (1985). The Golden Age of Radio: An Illustrated Companion. London: Batsford. ISBN 978-0-7134-4234-2. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Grundy, Bill (1976). That Man: A Memory of Tommy Handley. London: Elm Tree Books. ISBN 978-0-241-89344-9. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Kavanagh, P. J. (1975). Introduction. The ITMA Years: Scripts. By Kavanagh, Ted. London: Futura Publications. pp. 9–12. ISBN 978-0-86007-245-4. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Kavanagh, Ted (1952). Colonel Chinstrap. London: Evans Brothers. OCLC 13674955.
• Kynaston, David (2010). Austerity Britain 1945–1951. London: Bloomsbury. ISBN 978-1-4088-0907-5. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Merriman, Andy (2007). Hattie: The Authorised Biography of Hattie Jacques (Kindle ed.). London: Aurum Press. ISBN 978-1-84513-817-2. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Neale, Stephen; Krutnik, Frank (1990). Popular Film and Television Comedy. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-04691-6. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Nicholas, Siân (2002). "Being British: Creeds and Cultures". In Robbins, Keith (ed.). The British Isles, 1901-1951. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 103–136. ISBN 978-0-19-873195-5. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Partridge, Eric (1992). Dictionary of Catch Phrases. London: Scarborough House. ISBN 978-1-4616-6040-8. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Rawson, Hugh; Miner, Margaret (2005). The Oxford Dictionary of American Quotations (second ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-516823-5. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Took, Barry (1981). Laughter in the Air. London: Robson Books and the BBC. ISBN 978-0-86051-149-6. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Wearing, J. P. (2014). The London Stage 1950–1959: A Calendar of Productions, Performers, and Personnel. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-0-8108-9308-5. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Wilmut, Roger; Grafton, Jimmy (1977) [1976]. The Goon Show Companion. London: Robson Books. ISBN 978-0-7221-9182-8. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Worsley, Francis (1949). ITMA 1939-1948. London: Vox Mundi. OCLC 18240961. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Episodes

• ITMA. Series 7. Episode 14. 6 January 1944. BBC. Home Service.
• ITMA. Series 10. Episode 19. 23 January 1947. BBC. Home Service.
• ITMA. Series 12. Episode 4. 14 October 1948. BBC. Home Service.

Gramophone records

• Askey, Arthur (1942). The Flu-Germ (78 rpm record). London: HMV. BD 1002.
• Memories of I.T.M.A. (LP record). London: Oriole. 1951. OCLC 155203905. MG 20032.

Journals

• Mann, Jean, MP for Coatbridge (19 February 1947). "Civil Estimates, Supplementary Estimate, 1946–47: Broadcasting". Parliamentary Debates (Hansard). Vol. 433. Parliament of the United Kingdom: House of Commons. col. 1249.
• Thurlow, Richard (January 1999). "The Evolution of the Mythical British Fifth Column, 1939–46". Twentieth Century British History (4): 477–498. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Took, Barry (2004). "Kavanagh, Henry Edward [Ted] (1892–1958)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/65823. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help) (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
• Took, Barry (2011). "Handley, Thomas Reginald [Tommy] (1892–1949)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/33682. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help) (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
• Wintour, Charles (2008). "Gunn, Herbert Smith [Bert] (1903–1962)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/48275. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help) (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)

Magazines

• "At Last! The true story of Humphrey Chinstrap (Col. Retd.)". The Radio Times. No. 1572. 25 December 1953. p. 40. ISSN 0033-8060.
• "In Town Tonight". The Radio Times. No. 678. 10 October 1936. p. 76. ISSN 0033-8060.
• "In Town Tonight". The Radio Times. No. 1147. 21 September 1945. p. 18. ISSN 0033-8060.
• "ITMA". The Sketch. 16 April 1947. p. 192.
• "It's That Man Again". The Radio Times. No. 823. 7 July 1939. p. 44. ISSN 0033-8060.
• "I want you to meet Gilhooly". The Radio Times. No. 1405. 29 September 1950. p. 5. ISSN 0033-8060.
• Kavanagh, P. J. (18 January 2019). "Round the Horne ... Revisited". The Oldie. p. 21. Retrieved 26 June 2020. {{cite magazine}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• "Our Miss Rignold". The Radio Times. No. 984. 7 August 1942. p. 11. ISSN 0033-8060.
• "Star Variety (by arrangement with George Black) 'ITMA (It's That Man Again !)". The Radio Times. No. 867. 10 May 1940. p. 38. ISSN 0033-8060.
• "Tommy Handley Introduces a Grand 'ITMA' Concert". The Radio Times. No. 971. 8 May 1942. p. 10. ISSN 0033-8060.
• "Tommy Handley in a Grand ITMA Concert". The Radio Times. No. 1010. 5 February 1943. p. 7. ISSN 0033-8060.
• "V-ITMA". The Radio Times. No. 1128. 11 May 1945. p. 6. ISSN 0033-8060.
• "Well for Santa Claus". The Radio Times. No. 1055. 17 December 1943. p. 22. ISSN 0033-8060.
• "Whither Tomtopia?". The Radio Times. No. 1197. 6 September 1946. p. 14. ISSN 0033-8060.
• Worsley, Francis (7 July 1939). "It's That Man Again". Radio Times. p. 10. {{cite magazine}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Newspapers

• "Aeroplane Dive". Liverpool Echo. 6 September 1919. p. 4.
• "B.B.C. Comedian Called a 'Twerp'". The Canberra Times. 21 February 1947. p. 1.
• "Buying ITMA a coffee". Liverpool Echo. 7 September 1944. p. 4.
• "Clarence Wright". The Times. 21 March 1992. p. 17.
• "Col Chinstrap Speaking". Birmingham Daily Gazette. 14 June 1956. p. 4.
• Davalle, Peter (5 September 1988). "Fun and fundamentals". The Times. p. 21. {{cite news}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• "Dominion Status". Birmingham Daily Gazette. 28 August 1946. p. 2.
• "Don't Forget the Diver!". Liverpool Echo. 24 January 1930. p. 5.
• Grahame, Charles (27 November 1976). "The master of the rapid-fire radio show". The Sydney Morning Herald. p. 15. {{cite news}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• "Have a Thought!". Liverpool Echo. 22 January 1929. p. 10.
• "Holiday Week Variety". Hull Daily Mail. 5 April 1947. p. 4.
• "Jean Capra of the B.B.C. ITMA Team". The Dubbo Liberal and Macquarie Advocate. 12 March 1946. p. 3.
• "London Hippodrome". The Times. 23 December 1948. p. 6.
• "The Man Who Was Thursday". The Manchester Guardian. 10 January 1949. p. 4.
• "Maurice Denham". The Times. 26 July 2002. p. 31.
• "Miss Dorothy Summers: 'Can I Do You Now, Sir?'". The Times. 14 January 1964. p. 11.
• "Miss Guided". The Daily Herald. 28 August 1946. p. 3.
• "Miss Joan Harben". The Times. 20 October 1953. p. 10.
• "Miss M. O'Farrell". The Times. 12 February 1968. p. 10.
• "Miss Vera Lennox". The Times. 15 January 1985. p. 16.
• "Mr Fred Yule". The Times. 13 December 1982. p. 14.
• "Mr Horace Percival: Gifted Actor of Radio Comedy". The Times. 10 November 1961. p. 17.
• "Mr Jack Train'". The Times. 20 December 1966. p. 10.
• "Mr Sam Heppner". The Times. 4 June 1983. p. 10.
• "Mr Tommy Handley". The Times. 10 January 1949. p. 7.
• "New Voices and Features in ITMA". Aberdeen Evening Express. 29 September 1943. p. 5.
• "Non-Stop Revue". The Times. 10 February 1943. p. 6.
• "Paula Green". The Times. 11 February 2012. p. 94.(subscription required)
• "Peter Geekie". Liverpool Echo. 7 September 1944. p. 4.
• "Review of Broadcasting". The Manchester Guardian. 20 December 1939. p. 8.
• "Seeing the fashions at New Brighton". Liverpool Echo. 14 July 1914. p. 4.
• "Sydney Keith". The Times. 22 November 1982. p. 14.
• "The Tivoli To Reopen". The Times. 18 February 1943. p. 6.
• Blewett, Denis (28 September 1956). "Train takes a sentimental journey". The Aberdeen Evening Express. p. 6.
• Grahame, Charles (27 November 1976). "The master of the rapid-fire radio pun show". The Sydney Morning Herald. p. 15.
• Harrisson, Tom (9 January 1944). "Radio". The Observer. p. 2.
• Wynn, H. H. (15 January 1949). "ITMA". The Manchester Guardian. p. 4.

Websites

• "Ann Rich". BBC Genome. BBC. Retrieved 26 June 2020.
• "Bill Stephens". BBC Genome. BBC. Retrieved 26 June 2020.
• "Cecilia Eddy". BBC Genome. BBC. Retrieved 26 June 2020.
• "Colonel Chinstrap". BBC Genome. BBC. Retrieved 26 June 2020.
• "Colonel Chinstrap and Major Mundy: Cover points at the Test Match". BBC Genome. BBC. Retrieved 30 June 2020.
• "doh". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. Retrieved 28 June 2020. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.)
• "Eric Egan". BBC Genome. BBC. Retrieved 26 June 2020.
• "Eric Egan". British Film Institute. Retrieved 26 June 2020.
• Hendy, David. "Morale and Music". BBC. Retrieved 27 June 2020.
• "Hilda Tablet". BBC Genome. BBC. Retrieved 26 June 2020.
• "I don't mind if I do". British Library. Retrieved 25 June 2020.
• "ITMA 1945". BBC Genome. BBC. Retrieved 26 June 2020.
• "It's being so cheerful that keeps me going". Newsbank. Retrieved 29 June 2020. (subscription required)
• "It's That Man Again (1943)". British Film Institute. Retrieved 1 July 2020.
• "Jack Cooper". BBC Genome. BBC. Retrieved 26 June 2020.
• "Lind Joyce". BBC Genome. BBC. Retrieved 26 June 2020.
• "Lind Joyce". British Film Institute. Retrieved 26 June 2020.
• "Michelle de Lys". British Film Institute. Retrieved 26 June 2020.
• "mind". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. Retrieved 28 June 2020. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.)
• "Mrs Mopp". BBC Genome. BBC. Retrieved 26 June 2020.
• Peters, Kevin (26 July 2002). "Aylesbury Repertory Company" (PDF). Aylesbury Town Council. {{cite web}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• "TTFN". Oxford Reference. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 29 June 2020. (subscription required)

External links

• It's That Man Again at BBC Online
• It's That Man Again at BBC Online
• It's That Man Again at British Comedy Guide
• British Comedy and Drama Website – ITMA
• Whirligig-TV article about ITMA
• "It's That Man Again". RadioEchoes. 1940–1949.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: date format (link) 59 episodes.