Jimmy & Ben

BBC Light Programme
1950-1951
Starring Jimmy Jewel, Ben Warriss, Leon Cortez, Harold Berens, Miriam Karlin, Arthur Haynes

Press publicity photo for Jimmy & Ben

Once hugely popular stage, radio, television and film comedy double-act Jewel & Warriss featured first cousins Jimmy Jewel & Ben Warriss. Despite a long career building up their name before it from the 1930s their massive radio hit that made them huge names and led to their own strip in Radio Fun was of course the post-war BBC radio comedy Up The Pole but here's a short-run radio series they put out during the run of Up the Pole in the break between Series 3 and 4 which didn't capture the same attention. 

That was a radio comedy-thriller serial called Jimmy and Ben which lasted 13 episodes on the BBC Light Programme from 3rd November 1950 till 26th January 1951.

Series 3 of Up the Pole had finished after 26 weeks on 14th April 1950. The same team including producer George Inns and then main writer Ronnie Hanbury went into creating this comedy-thriller serial which broadcast at the same time Jewel & Warriss were in the cinema with their comedy-thriller film Let's Have A Murder from December 1950. Whilst the radio series wasn't directly related to the film audiences were getting a double dose of Jewel & Warriss comedy-thriller at that time as well as being able to see them on the stage in panto Babes in the Wood at the London Palladium. They were enjoying their widest success at this time and were the Morecambe & Wise of their day as the then most successful British double act (incidentally, when M&W first went to the BBC in hopes of getting their own first starring radio show the BBC told them their act was too similar to Jewel & Warriss and to try again in five years! M&W eventually got their first starring radio series You're Only Young Once in November 1953...)

The 13 episodes were made up of two ongoing serials; with the first 6 episodes called 

Corn in Egypt and the second a 7 part serial called Up and Atom immediately following on. Featured in support in all 13 episodes are Leon Cortez and Harold Berens. Miriam Karlin was in all but one episode (Ep 6 finishing Corn in Egypt) and Arthur Haynes was also in the last 7 making up the second serial. Eric Phillips and Stephen Jack are in most episodes too but not all. All of these names also at least occasionally guest starred in Up the Pole too so it would seem very familiar to the main show listeners even though Up the Pole was standalone episodes of a broader comedy nature. Whereas Jimmy and Ben was designed to be an ongoing set of serials changing around every six weeks to a new story of the boys globe -trotting around the world getting into various adventures.

The first serial, Corn in Egypt, has a little synopsis provided from pre-broadcast newspaper features. In it Professor Cortez leads Jimmy and Ben on an expedition to Egypt to "h'educate h'ignorant in the h'art of l'Egyptology" with Harold Berens playing the villain. Sadly the second serial, Up and Atom, doesn't get any synopsis in newspapers nor Radio Times but one might guess from the subtitle that it involved some sort of atom bomb or splitting the atom atomic adventure given that was heavily in the news at the end of 1950 as the Americans geared up for their first Nevada nuclear test conducted in January 1951.

There's no indication that only two serials were planned. What usually happened was the BBC would commission x number of episodes to see how it went and if it took off immediately commission it to continue beyond those, as happened with Educating Archie and many other radio hits. But no further serials materialised for Jimmy and Ben. I know it wasn't because they had to get back to Up the Pole as the fourth series didn't come along until June 1952, 17 months later, so either Jewel & Warriss were too busy with stage commitments to do more or the serial wasn't as successful as hoped and was quietly dropped. No statements from the BBC were made either way in contemporary press.

The music providers for the series jumped around to seemingly whoever was free. Initially the BBC Variety Orchestra provided the music, conducted by Rae Jenkins for the first two episodes. No conductor is credited for the third then Paul Fenhoulhet takes over conducting the BBC Variety Orchestra from Episode 4 until the first serial ended with Episode 6. Episode 7 starting the second serial changed over to the BBC Revue Orchestra conducted by Robert Busby before Paul Fenhoulhet returns with the Variety Orchestra for Episodes 8, 9 and 10 then Robert Busby and the Revue Orchestra return for Episode 11 before it switches to Stanley Black and the Dance Orchestra for Episodes 12 and 13! All of these at one time or another provided music for Up the Pole too.

The serial ran as follows;

BBC Light Programme

Fridays at 19:30-20:00

1.1 Corn in Egypt - Episode 1 - 03/11/1950*

1.2 Corn in Egypt - Episode 2 - 10/11/1950*

1.3 Corn in Egypt - Episode 3 - 17/11/1950*

1.4 Corn in Egypt - Episode 4 - 24/11/1950*

1.5 Corn in Egypt - Episode 5 - 01/12/1950*

1.6 Corn in Egypt - Episode 6 - 08/12/1950*

1.7 Up and Atom - Episode 1 - 15/12/1950*

1.8 Up and Atom - Episode 2 - 22/12/1950*

1.9 Up and Atom - Episode 3 - 29/12/1950*

1.10 Up and Atom - Episode 4 - 05/01/1951*

1.11 Up and Atom - Episode 5 - 12/01/1951*

1.12 Up and Atom - Episode 6 - 19/01/1951*

1.13 Up and Atom - Episode 7 - 26/01/1951*

*Sadly Jimmy and Ben went out live on the Light Programme with no recording for repeats of the first series. Usually successful stars and shows would be recorded for repeats on the Home Service later in the week plus sales/broadcast abroad. Unfortunately the BBC had a lower opinion of Northern comedy acts which usually struggled to get on to the Light Programme at all, often restricted to North Region Home Service. Jewel & Warriss had become nationally famous enough to warrant the wider reach to the South on the Light but the BBC obviously thought it had little prospects for international broadcast despite the international globe-trotting here. The seven second serial episodes of Jimmy and Ben were recorded, for an unknown purpose, but they were never repeated either and were subsequently lost and no episodes survive today in the BBC archives or are known to survive in private hands. So there were never any repeats here at all. Not that Up the Pole fares much better with only 3 episodes surviving out of 110.

Whilst no episodes survive I do have the below original press publicity photo for Jimmy and Ben showing Jewel and Warriss with Leon Cortez dated 10th November 1950.

Following the fourth and final series of Up the Pole, Jewel & Warriss would return for further radio shows including Looking For Trouble for two series 1955-1956 and The Jewel & Warriss Show in 1958-1959. They went their separate ways in the early 60s when they both wanted to take their careers in different directions with Jimmy moving into TV comedy acting as he knew the old variety circuit was dying as theatres closed and he saw the end was near.

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