Wikipedia:Today's featured article/March 12, 2023
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It's That Man Again (ITMA) was a radio comedy programme that was broadcast by the BBC for twelve series from 1939 to 1949, featuring Tommy Handley in the central role. ITMA was a character-driven comedy whose satirical targets included officialdom and the proliferation of minor wartime regulations. Parts of the scripts were rewritten in the hours before the broadcast, to ensure topicality. 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. 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's innovative structure was successfully continued in comedy shows of the 1950s and 1960s, such as Take It from Here, The Goon Show and Round the Horne. (Full article...)