To every British gay man of ‘a certain age’ Julian and Sandy were the very first gay icons that were worshipped even though their fame in 1965 – 1968 was a whole year before homosexuality was legalized. They were characters in the BBC radio comedy program Round the Horne that were beamed into all our homes during Sunday lunchtime.
Writer/creator (and straight) Barry Took describes the original conception of Julian and Sandy as two “old theatrical chaps” who were doing housework in the flat of Kenneth Horne (the “straight man” in the sketches), while waiting for their next acting job. However, the producer of Round the Horne, John Simmonds, did not like them and viewed the characters as “too sad” and suggested making them younger “chorus boy” types. Their first appearance was in episode four of the first series, and – although Marty Feldman apparently “got tired of them” – Julian and Sandy proved to be the most successful part of the show and appeared in every episode thereafter.
They were played by Hugh Paddick and Kenneth Williams respectively, and as well as being a successful comedy act, Julian and Sandy were notable for being two stereotypical camp homosexual characters in mainstream entertainment. They worked very well as they were not simply there to be the target of a joke: in fact most of the sketches revolved around Kenneth Horne’s presumed ignorance being the target of their jokes. Although these sketches, while mocking an oppressed gay identity, present gay people as cheerful, rather than “indexing unhappy, ashamed identities like those in films of that time.
Julian and Sandy were masters of the double entendre and introduced their own language ‘polari” a gay cant that struck home to all the gay men listening avidly, and which went over the heads of so many of the straight audience.
Each week their sketch would start off the same with Horne mentioning that he had found an advertisement in one of a selection of risqué magazines, which he would insist he bought for innocent reasons. This would lead him, more often than not, to a business in Chelsea starting with the word “Bona” (Polari for “good”). He would enter by saying, “Hello, anybody there?”, and Julian (Hugh Paddick) would answer, to a round of applause from the studio audience, “Ooh hello! I’m Julian and this is my friend Sandy!”
The openly gay Paddick was a television and radio comic actor, whereas Williams who went on to star in the very successful Carry-On films claimed publically to be asexual although because of his natural campness, everyone assumed he was gay. Even though the shows were scripted these two actors were creative geniuses, and playing the recordings now in the Queerguru Office they seem every scape such as funny. if not funnier.
Review : Roger Walker-Dack
Editor in Chief : Queerguru
Member of G.A.L.E.C.A. (Gay & Lesbian Entertainment Critics Association) and NLGJA The Association of LGBT
Journalists. and The Online Film Critics Society. Ex Contributing Editor The Gay Uk &Contributor Edge Media
Former CEO and Menswear Designer of Roger Dack Ltd in the UK
one of the hardest-working journalists in the business' Michael Goff of Towleroad