Truly, Madly, Bletchley

High comic drama among the humble members of a local council in the Home Counties

Broadcast live from the Club Akimbo, Bletchley, this is Britain’s first public access cable radio show, presented by a group of Buckinghamshire district councillors who really should know better. Chairman of the Ways and Means committee Mr Dutton is our host as he introduces us to the items on the agenda, which include sparkling sketches, surreal escapades and musical interludes from Chilean charmer Enrico Valdez and his Orchestra with Mickey Binelli.

Pay a visit to the Ideal Funeral Exhibition; tune into Clink FM, with all the hot hits and cool gossip from Buckinghamshire’s grooviest penitentiary; listen to a clip from an early, undiscovered version of Reservoir Dogs written by PG Wodehouse; and hear Sir John Gielgud’s lost audition tape for Teletubbies. Plus, we meet jackbooted ‘Cockney’ garden-centre owner Heinrich Himmler, and go on a cultural exchange with Signor Marinetti, the Mafioso mayor of Bletchley’s twin town Las Vegas…

Written by and starring Julian Dutton, with Liz Fraser, David Battley, Toby Longworth, Simon Godley, Peter Hugo-Daly, Stephen Critchlow, Matthew Bell and special guest Cleo Rocos, this is a feast of riotous entertainment from the town they forgot in the AA Guide to Weekend Breaks.

Production credits
Written by Julian Dutton
Produced by Dirk Maggs and Andy Aliffe
Starring Julian Dutton with Liz Fraser, David Battley, Toby Longworth, Simon Godley, Peter Hugo-Daly, Stephen Critchlow and Matthew Bell
With special guest Cleo Rocos

First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 29 January-5 March 1997 (Series 1), 10 February-17 March 1999 (Series 2)

The humour in this series reflects the era in which the episodes were first broadcast.