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Whicker’s World

Alan plots the route of another alarming alliterationVERBOSE VOYAGES in a double-breasted suit. “Here, the streets of Bombay team with a multitudinous morass of sociological strata, the profligate penny-pinching panjandrums rubbing skyscraper-shoulder pads with rag-clothed ruffian roisters.” Began as a well-attired segment in the middle of the TONIGHT programme, wherein our hero flew off – via BOAC – to a former colony and chatted with natives on scratchy film with the sound dubbed on afterwards at Lime Grove. Obvious spin-off potential was too good to resist, however, and so the series proper was born, replete with fantastic titles featuring a giant jet aeroplane taxiing off a runway to reveal a massive WHICKER’S WORLD logo underneath. Episodes invariably revolved around Alan earnestly trying to make sense of some new counterculture or other (“they call themselves flower children, though from what I could see, few would want this kind of fauna decorating their back garden”) or jawing with a former dictator in cloth-backed chairs on the front lawn of an imperial villa, or riding in some glamorous means of transport with an equally glamorous starlet. Defected to Yorkshire TV in 1968 taking the brand name with him, ditto an increasingly fawning, alliterative-obsessed attitude to his eponymous planet. Filmed about a million boring jaunts to the Far East. Came back to the Beeb in the 1980s for spruced up theme (the one that went nah-nah-ner-nah, nah nah nah nah nah-ner ner, BANG BANG) and incorrect title sequence that showed an aeroplane taking off and Alan not on it. Series now branded with subtitles – Living With Uncle Sam, Living With Waltzing Matilda – implying the Whicker wanderer couldn’t be arsed to travel around much anymore. Famously knocked back [cref 543 AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS], preferring AROUND WHICKER’S WORLD: THE ULTIMATE PACKAGE, a dreadful transglobal gander in the company of obnoxious zillionaires. Brand “rested” during much of the last 15 years, only to return in the form of Whicker’s War, featuring the old bugalugs revisiting his days as a journo in Italy in the 1940s. Further jaunts are promised, despite Alan now into his 80s. Britain’s finest export after The Beatles and the penny post.

2 Comments

2 Comments

  1. Glenn A

    July 12, 2009 at 10:52 pm

    Blessed with one of the greatest TV themes of all time: West End by Laurie Johnston. Whicker said that one of his scariest visits was to the psychopathic dictator of Haiti Papa Doc Duvalier, the possible inspiration for Baron Samedi out of Live and Let Die.

  2. Morgan

    August 28, 2014 at 8:07 pm

    His final series, was a revaluation that proved Alan, A) Really hated Los Angeles, a city he likened to “a hotel lobby” and B) Why he really hated Los Angeles, he was robbed by South American baggage handlers at LAX. Watch it, enjoy the anecdote and marvel at the fact he actually has something to say. Travel programming with airport arrivals footage is usually pointless padding at its worst, (we didn’t think you walked Sean Lock and Jon Richardson, to Lousianna) but Whicker makes it worth while.

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