TV Pop Diaries
Pop Music on British Television 1955 - 1999

The Big Noise, Or Episodes In The Uneasy Life Of A Top Pop Disc Jockey.

Comedy legend Bob Monkhouse takes on the world of pop radio for this six-part situation comedy, and the situation is that veteran radio DJ Bob Mason, played by Monkhouse, feels that the new Beatles-led beat era will somehow be a threat to his long-established career. So we follow him around radio studios, night clubs and award shows in an attempt to improve his public standing.

The character, according to Monkhouse talking to the Daily Mirror, was "a real four-star heel, all smiles and transatlantic accent and desperately trying to remain as young as possible. Offstage his only interest in teenagers is the curvy variety."

The world of radio was not an alien one as Monkhosue together with his writing partner Denis Goodwin had hosted their own show on Radio Luxemburg in the fifties. Recently radio had become newsworthy since the introduction of offshore "pirate" radio stations the previous Easter and would become a political football for the next three years.

Real-life DJs like David Jacobs and Jimmy Savile appear as themselves, while the show even had its own resident group The Untamed Four, who would appear under aliases in each episode. Another group, The Heartbeats was specially created for one episode and featured Neville Smith, later to become a screenwriter and creator of hit eighties' BBC1 detective show Shoestring, also set in the world of radio.

The first episode sees Mason receive the Peter Noble presented "Noble Prize" on behalf of Pop Stars Confession magazine, while a teenager invited onto his radio show proceeds to take over. In another episode "The Ledge" Mason has to dangle two-hundred feet on a rope in order to talk to a suicidal teenager, played by David Hemmings.

Although long-time writing partner Denis Goodwin (who also co-stars in the show) came up with the concept, it was Frank Muir and Dennis Norden who actually wrote the scripts.

Nothing is thought to exist from the show which is a shame as just on pedigree alone it could have been a winner.

The theme by Kenny Napper was released as a single by Philips.

THE BIG NOISE

BBC1

18th September 1964 - 23rd October 1964