Word processing

‘Comedy is like music,’ said Edwin Apps, one of the characters in Wednesday afternoon’s Radio 4 play, All Mouth and Trousers (directed by David Blount). ‘The words are the notes and they have to be in exactly the right place. And every line has to pull its weight, add something to the situation.’ Apps was one half of the writing partnership who created that most unlikely of TV hits in the supposedly swinging Sixties, All Gas and Gaiters, set in the cathedral close of St Oggs and featuring a laughably inept quartet of Anglican clerics. Mark Burgess’s engaging drama told the story of how the series (which ran for 33 episodes) got made, and featured Apps and his co-writer and wife Pauline Devaney playing themselves as a now divorced couple looking back on their younger selves.

Apps learnt his craft acting on the West End stage and he knew that behind every great farce there lies a tight structure and a keen understanding of timing.