47. PETER BROUGH & ARCHIE ANDREWS LAUNCHED IN NIGHTINGALE MISSION

Peter Brough

British Radio & TV Ventriloquist

Born 1916, London.

Died 1999.

Brough began his broadcasting career in 1944. His most famous creation was Archie Andrews a vexatious boy with demented eyes who wore Savile Row striped blazers. The radio series Educating Archie regularly attracted audiences of 15 million listeners. They made their TV debut in 1956 with Here’s Archie but fortunes then declined as on TV it could be seen that Brough’s lips moved occasionally when voicing Archie.

Tactics

Archie will become ill in the presence of Florence Nightingale. Brough can then plead with her for help in reviving the stricken boy.

This will pander to Nightingale’s natural character to heal and prompt her to reassess her options.

If that fails, then Brough can simply throw the voice of God and dissuade her from pursuing the route of vehicle clamping. This will occur seven years after God first called her, so hopefully she would have forgotten what God’s voice sounded like.

So how can we expect the holograms of Peter Brough and Archie Andrews to fare? Here are some previous test missions.

Test Mission 1 Score 2/5

The Swan Pub, Islington, June 1939

Their mission was to sit in a typical London pub in the countdown to war and engage in conversation with the locals.

Unfortunately, Archie Andrews spent the whole evening talking to the bar. He recognised it as being a relation of his. Carved from the same tree from the Forest of Dean. Corny jokes about family roots, branches of the family and them being sap brothers followed then Archie professed to being bad at dog impressions because he’d lost his bark.

Test Mission 2 Score 2/5

Madison Square Gardens 1929

Their mission was to persuade the trainer of Percy ‘The Grenade’ Thrower to ‘throw in the towel’ to save him getting a beating at the hands of Sailor Sharkey in their ten rounder.

Sadly, instead of shouting at the trainer to throw in the towel as the pummeling started in about round seven, Archie ‘Clever Tit’ Andrews ordered the trainer to ‘throw in the trowel’. Loads of gardening japes followed such as:

His opponent’s gone to seed!

Those gardening gloves look cumbersome!

He’s growing a tomato and a pair of cauliflowers. …Oh, I do apologize, that’s his nose and ears!

Test Mission 3 Score 0/5

1904, Weston-super-Mare.

The pair were going to be sent to watch a Punch & Judy performance on the beach at Weston-super-Mare in 1904. But the mission didn’t launch as Archie Andrews refused to go on the beach incase anyone mistook him in his striped blazer for a deck chair and sat on him.