Harry Enfield on Gerard Hoffnung

Great Lives

BBC

History, Documentary, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.2 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 1 April 2024

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Gerard Hoffnung’s life was short. He died in 1959 at the age of 34, but this cartoonist, musician, broadcaster and raconteur achieved a lot in that time. Born in Berlin, he lived most of his life in London. His charming cartoons which often gently poked fun at musicians and conductors were printed in magazines and books. His wife Annetta said he was always on-show and even a trip to the bank could turn into an uproarious occasion. Having caught the attention of the BBC he recorded a series of interviews with Charles Richardson, and his delivery of 'The Bricklayer's Lament' to the Oxford Union in 1958 is considered a triumph of comedic story-telling. The Hoffnung concerts which combined music and comedy sold out quicker than Liberace.

Harry Enfield discovered Hoffnung when he was looking through the records in his local library. He knows it's boring for comedians to talk about timing but Hoffnung's was brilliant, and he finds it annoying that comedy wasn't even his main job. Harry got to know the family later on and his impersonation of Gerard became the inspiration for his own character 'Sir Henry'. Harry's joined in the studio by Gerard and Annetta's children, Emily and Benedict Hoffnung.

Future episodes in this series include Alice Roberts on Emma, Queen of England, Journalist Steve Richards on Bruce Forsyth and Baronness Ros Altman on Antoni Gaudi.

Presenter: Matthew Parris Producer: Toby Field for BBC Studios Audio

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know.
0:04.6	My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds.
0:08.4	As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable
0:14.3	experts and genuinely engaging voices. What you may not know is that the BBC
0:20.4	makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars,
0:24.6	poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples.
0:29.7	If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC Sounds.
0:36.0	BBC Sounds, Music Radio Podcasts.
0:41.0	Gerard Hoffung, you have one minute on the subject. podcasts. Hello, and Blue, many times.
0:55.0	I am, they usually have blown up with air, you know,
1:00.0	but I don't know whether you view that,
1:02.0	but I'm the only person in the BBC who could extract gasoline
1:07.4	And I did so about a couple of weeks ago and I blew up an enormous balloon with gas a deal. I took a deep
1:14.8	breath you know and that's what it and I blew this balloon up and my grandfather
1:21.0	is a very vicious man, brought along his catapult, and he shot at this balloon.
1:27.0	And all the air in the balloon went back inside of me and I it was yes and it was I who started to be blown up in a
1:39.6	most disgusting I it was so much of a strain for me ladies and gentlemen that I fated.
1:47.0	And I woke up...
1:49.0	Thank you, Gerard Hoffung, on one minute please in 1952i too, the precursor to the Radio 4 programme
1:59.7	just a minute.
2:01.2	Hoffung's life was short. He died in 1959 at the age of 34, but as we'll hear, this
2:08.3	cartoonist, musician, broadcaster and raconteur achieved an awful lot in that time.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.