Jacobs' ladder

By way of a slight return to this slight return, some more information about those endless David Jacobs productions. They're all true, all in roughly chronological order, and all furnished with, if not stolen from, passages from Dave's bestselling 1963 autobiography (published by David Jacobs Associates Ltd.).

Journey Into Space (Home Service)
David does sci-fi! Flying from the earth to the moon, and from there to Mars, our man plays nearly all the characters in a fleet of nine space ships and a few Martians to boot. "On at least one occasion I found myself having a conversation with myself".

Wednesday Magazine (BBC television)
A pot pourri of Jacobs japery. "And now, here is Miss Janette Scott in a scene from her latest film...her latest film...er...her latest film!"

On The Brighter Side (Home Service)
Dave spins uplifting discs and dispenses midweek merriment from a pretend coffee bar.

Curioser And Curioser (Home Service)
Peter Sellers joins Dave and others to "read lesser known gems of humour, which achieved a record low in listening figures".

Music, Music, Music (BBC television)
Members of a panel try to guess the identity of a tune tapped out with a pencil, played backwards, speeded up, or disguised in some other way. "It turned out to be overcomplicated and stupid. It might have kept a couple of schoolboys amused for part of a wet afternoon but it had no general appeal at all."

Focus On Hocus (ATV)
A fortnightly conjuring show. Not a success. David learns a couple of tricks to impress his kids.

Television Ice-Time (BBC television)
Live from the Queen's Ice-Rink in Bayswater, Dave introduces some of the country's best skating professionals. "I suggested that I should jump a row of barrels during the programme. The BBC promptly insured me for £10,000. The inevitable happened: at rehearsals I soared over those barrels like a bird; on the broadcast I clipped the last one and went scudding across the ice like a tipsy penguin".

Make Up Your Mind (Granada)
Three chairman had come and gone in five weeks. Clearly the Jacobs was needed. "The idea was simple and exciting - having contestants guess the value of various objects - and I believed I could make a go of it." Sidney Bernstein had a different idea. "He didn't like my face". Eventually differences were settled and the show became Dave's biggest success. Until...

Lucky Couple (Radio Luxembourg)
"A near-lunatic programme in which we invited newly-married couples on to the stage and asked them embarrassing questions".