''My Word!'' is a British radio quiz panel game broadcast by the BBC on the Home Service (1956–67) and Radio 4 (1967–88). It was created by

Edward J. Mason Edward John Mason (born 8 May 1912 in Birmingham, England, died 3 February 1971) was a scriptwriter for radio, television and movies for both the British Broadcasting Corporation, BBC and its rival Radio Luxembourg (English), Radio Luxembourg. Ca ...

and

Tony Shryane Anthony Joseph Shryane MBE (20 January 1919 – 22 September 2003) was a long-serving producer of radio programmes for the BBC. He was born in Harborne, Birmingham. He was the first producer of ''The Archers'', in which capacity he served for 2 ...

, and featured the humorous writers Frank Muir and

Denis Norden Denis Mostyn Norden (6 February 1922 – 19 September 2018) was an English comedy writer and television presenter. After an early career working in cinemas, he began scriptwriting during the Second World War. From 1948 to 1959, he co-wrote the ...

, known in Britain for the series '' Take It From Here''. The show was piloted in June 1956 on the Midland Home Service and broadcast as a series on the national Home Service network from 1 January 1957. The series also ran on

BBC Television BBC Television is a service of the BBC. The corporation has operated a public broadcast television service in the United Kingdom, under the terms of a royal charter, since 1927. It produced television programmes from its own studios from 193 ...

for one series from July–September 1960. For decades the programme was also broadcast worldwide via

BBC World Service The BBC World Service is an international broadcaster owned and operated by the BBC, with funding from the British Government through the Foreign Secretary's office. It is the world's largest external broadcaster in terms of reception a ...

and was relayed to an international audience though the BBC Transcription Services. A companion programme, '' My Music'', ran from 1967 to 1993.

Background and first broadcasts

In 1956,

and

, respectively the writer and producer of the popular radio

soap opera A soap opera, or ''soap'' for short, is a typically long-running radio or television Serial (radio and television), serial, frequently characterized by melodrama, ensemble casts, and sentimentality. The term "soap opera" originated from radio drama ...

The Archers ''The Archers'' is a BBC radio drama on BBC Radio 4, the corporation's main spoken-word channel. Broadcast since 1951, it was famously billed as "an everyday story of country folk" and is now promoted as "a contemporary drama in a rural set ...

'', decided that by way of a change they would devise and produce what Frank Muir called "a new kind of not-very-academic literary quiz". The Aeolian Hall in London was booked for the recording of a pilot show, but at the last minute two of the four panellists were unexpectedly unavailable. Shryane sought the help of Muir and his writing partner

, scriptwriters of the popular BBC comedy series '' Take It From Here'', who were based in a nearby office. They thought of themselves as writers rather than performers, but at Shryane's urgent request they agreed to stand in for the absentees.Muir, pp. 209–210 Muir was partnered by Isobel Barnett – a panel show regular – and Norden by the journalist

Nancy Spain Nancy Brooker Spain (13 September 1917 – 21 March 1964) was a prominent English broadcaster and journalist. She was a columnist for the ''Daily Express'', ''She'' magazine, and the ''News of the World'' in the 1950s and 1960s. She also appeare ...

. Mason set the questions, and the chairman was the cricket commentator and poet John Arlott, who was billed as "umpire". The pilot was well received by the audience in the hall and by listeners to its first transmission. The BBC commissioned a series, which was transmitted in early 1957. Muir and Norden had no intention of becoming regular panellists, but Shyrane persuaded them. Arlott did not return for the second series, which began in August 1957. He was succeeded by

Jack Longland Sir John Laurence Longland (26 June 1905 – 29 November 1993) was an educator, mountain climber, and broadcaster. After a brilliant student career Longland became a don at Durham University in the 1930s. He formed a lifelong concern for the wel ...

, known to BBC listeners as the chairman of the panel show ''Country Questions'' and a regular team member on '' Round Britain Quiz'' and panellist on '' Any Questions?'' Although, unlike Arlott, Longland had no particular association with cricket he too was billed as umpire until 1962, after which he was billed as "in the chair", as were his successors."My Word: Longland: Umpire"
BBC Genome. Retrieved 2 May 2021

Later series

The programme ran for 38 series, until 1988. Muir and Norden were in every series, always on opposing teams. As Muir's partner, Barnett was succeeded during the first series by the novelist and critic

E. Arnot Robertson Eileen Arbuthnot Robertson (10 January 1903 at Moor Lodge, South Holmwood, Surrey – 21 September 1961 in Hampstead, London) was an English novelist, critic and broadcaster.Nicola Beauman: 'Robertson, Eileen Arbuthnot (pseud. E. Arnot Robertson ...

. On Robertson's death in 1961 the film critic and

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

scholar Dilys Powell took her place until the show finished, when she was aged 87. Norden's first partner was Nancy Spain; after her death in 1964 she was succeeded by the journalist Anne Scott-James, and then from 1979 by the historian

Antonia Fraser Lady Antonia Margaret Caroline Fraser, (' Pakenham; born 27 August 1932) is a British author of history, novels, biographies and detective fiction. She is the widow of the 2005 Nobel Laureate in Literature, Harold Pinter (1930–2008), and ...

. In the one season in which Fraser took the chair her place as Norden's teammate was taken by Irene Thomas."My Word!"
BBC Genome. Retrieved 3 May 2021 After 20 years in the chair, Longland retired from the programme at the end of the 1977 series. He was succeeded by

John Julius Norwich John Julius Cooper, 2nd Viscount Norwich, (15 September 1929 – 1 June 2018), known as John Julius Norwich, was an English popular historian, travel writer, and television personality. Background Norwich was born at the Alfred House Nursing ...

for four series, followed by Fraser for a single series and finally Michael O'Donnell for the last five series, from late 1983 to 1988. From time to time guests substituted for absent regulars. Neither Spain nor Powell ever missed a broadcast during their time as panellists, but Robertson and Scott-James missed one apiece, their absences covered respectively by

Pamela Frankau Pamela Sydney Frankau (3 January 1908 – 8 June 1967) was a popular English novelist from a prominent artistic and literary family. She was abandoned by her novelist father Gilbert Frankau at an early age, and she became a prolific writer. Sh ...

and

Katherine Whitehorn Katharine Elizabeth Whitehorn (2 March 1928 – 8 January 2021) was a British journalist, columnist, author and radio presenter. She was the first woman to have a Column (periodical), column in ''The Observer'', which ran from 1963 to 1996 and ...

. Lionel Hale (one of the intended contestants in the pilot show)Muir, p. 210 deputised for both Muir and Norden in 1967 as did John Wells in 1975 and Barry Took on four occasions between 1978 and 1982. Ted Kavanagh took Muir's place for two programmes in 1957, and

Edward Blishen Edward Blishen (29 April 1920 – 13 December 1996) was an English author and broadcaster. He may be known best for the first of two children's novels based on Greek mythology, written with Leon Garfield, illustrated by Charles Keeping, and pu ...

stood in for Norden in two episodes in 1985. Fraser's absences between 1986 and 1988 were covered by

Joan Bakewell Joan Dawson Bakewell, Baroness Bakewell, (''née'' Rowlands; born 16 April 1933), is an English journalist, television presenter and Labour Party peer. Baroness Bakewell is president of Birkbeck, University of London; she is also an author a ...

Victoria Glendinning Victoria Glendinning (''née'' Seebohm; born 23 April 1937) is a British biographer, critic, broadcaster and novelist. She is an Honorary Vice-President of English PEN and Vice-President of the Royal Society of Literature. She won the James Tait ...

P. D. James Phyllis Dorothy James, Baroness James of Holland Park, (3 August 1920 – 27 November 2014), known professionally as P. D. James, was an English novelist and life peer. Her rise to fame came with her series of detective novels featuring th ...

Libby Purves Elizabeth Mary Purves, (born 2 February 1950) is a British radio presenter, journalist and author. Early life and career Born in London, a diplomat's daughter, Purves was raised in her mother's Catholic faith and educated at convent school ...

and Gay Search. After Mason's death in 1971 Longland took over responsibility for compiling the questions, and was joined in that role by Peter Moore in 1972. After Longland's retirement Moore continued to set the questions until 1987. For the final season, in 1988, O'Donnell combined the roles of chairman and question-setter.

Content

The two teams faced questions devised, for the first 21 series, by Mason, of whom Muir wrote: Mason and his successors provided word games and literary quizzes covering vocabulary, etymology, snippets of poetry, and the like. In many series the opening round consisted of obscure words for the panellists to define: examples ranged from such words as auscultation, bumblepuppy, cabless and crinkum-crankum to defenestration, hebetude, hobbledehoy and katydid to lallation, macaronic, palmiped and rahat lokum, or scrimshaw, tatterdemalion, unau and widdershins. In the final round, each team was asked to give the origin of a famous phrase or quotation. In early shows, once the real answers were given, Muir and Norden were invited to explain the origin of the phrase less seriously, in the form of a

feghoot A feghoot (also known as a story pun or poetic story joke) is a humorous short story or vignette ending in a pun (typically a play on a well-known phrase), where the story contains sufficient context to recognize the punning humor. History Ferdinan ...

. An early example was the quotation "Dead! And never called me mother!" from a stage adaptation of '' East Lynne'', which became the exclamation of a youth coming out of a public telephone box which he had discovered to be out of order.Muir, pp. 210–215 Later the first part of the round was dropped in favour of having the chairman simply announce the accepted origin of each phrase, thus opening up new fields of phrases that would have been too well known or too obscure to be posed as questions. In later series Muir and Norden chose their own phrases in advance of each programme, and their stories became longer and more convoluted. The stories became a popular segment of the quiz. Examples included Norden's tale in which a young woman and a young man found themselves happily trapped in a sauna despite earlier assurances from the landlord that the faulty lock had been repaired: "Least said, soonest mended" became "Lease said sauna's mended".Muir, pp. 212–213 In another, "There's many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip" became a story about

Édouard Manet Édouard Manet (, ; ; 23 January 1832 – 30 April 1883) was a French modernist painter. He was one of the first 19th-century artists to paint modern life, as well as a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism. Bor ...

in a drunken doze in a beauty spot between a carp pond and Lover's Leap – "There's Manet asleep 'twixt the carp and the leap". In another, Muir confessed to forging fan letters purportedly from

Monica Dickens Monica Enid Dickens, MBE (10 May 1915 – 25 December 1992) was an English writer, the great-granddaughter of Charles Dickens. Biography Known as "Monty" to her family and friends, she was born into an upper-middle-class London family to Henr ...

, Val Gielgud,

Asa Briggs Asa Briggs, Baron Briggs (7 May 1921 – 15 March 2016) was an English historian. He was a leading specialist on the Victorian era, and the foremost historian of broadcasting in Britain. Briggs achieved international recognition during his lon ...

and Fay Compton, so that "I am monarch of all I survey" became "I am Monica, Val, Asa, Fay". A Norden story explaining "Charity shall cover the multitude of sins" became a lament for his diminishing capacity for alcohol and consequent need to enunciate extremely carefully after drinking spirits: "Clarity shall cover the multitude of gins".

Series history

A one-off pilot programme was broadcast by the Midland region of the

BBC Home Service The BBC Home Service was a national and regional radio station that broadcast from 1939 until 1967, when it was replaced by BBC Radio 4. History 1922–1939: Interwar period Between the early 1920s and the outbreak of World War II, the BBC ...

on 6 June 1956. When the series was launched on the national BBC network in January 1957, an edited edition of the pilot preceded the 14 new episodes. :Source: BBC Genome and Global British Comedy Collaborative."My Word!"
Global British Comedy Collaborative. Retrieved 3 May 2021

Syndication and spin-offs

Over the years ''My Word!'' was syndicated through the BBC Transcription Services in more than 35 countries including not only Anglophone locations such as Australia and the US, but in countries including Chile, Germany and Russia. A televised version of the programme ran in Britain for a series of ten episodes on

from 10 July to 11 September 1960. The team and host were the same as for the radio series of that year; the producer was

Barrie Edgar Anthony Barrie Edgar (26 April 1919 – 28 December 2012) was an English television producer. Edgar began working for the BBC when its television service resumed after the Second World War, remaining with the corporation until his retirement ...

. A companion radio programme, '' My Music'', ran from 1967 to 1993. When it was mooted, Muir and Norden told Shryane that they were too busy to take on another series, but they allowed themselves to be persuaded and became permanent features on the programme. In 1972 and 1973 the two shows joined forces to present Christmas specials, ''My Word! It's My Music'', with Longland and Steve Race as co-hosts and the regular ''My Word'' team joined by Ian Wallace and David Franklin (1972), and Wallace and

John Amis John Preston Amis (17 June 1922 – 1 August 2013) was a British broadcaster, classical music critic, music administrator, and writer. He was a frequent contributor for '' The Guardian'' and to BBC radio and television music programming. Life ...

(1973)."My Word! It's My Music"
BBC Genome. Retrieved 3 May 2021 Between 1974 and 1989, Muir and Norden published five collections of their ''My Word!'' stories, and in 1991 an omnibus edition of the five volumes was issued: * * * * * * , a collection of all five volumes.

Notes, references and sources

Notes

References

Sources

* * *

External links

BBC Ends US Distribution
*{{cite web , url=http://www.radioechoes.com/?page=series&genre=Quiz&series=My%20Word , title=My Word , location=London, publisher= RadioEchoes , date= 297 episodes. BBC Radio comedy programmes British radio game shows 1950s British game shows 1960s British game shows 1970s British game shows 1980s British game shows 1956 radio programme debuts 1988 radio programme endings