TINY TIM
Radio 4, 11.30am
He was tall and thin, with a huge nose and corkscrew hair worn unusually long even for the late 1960s. He sang in a fluting falsetto — he was also capable of a mellow baritone — accompanying himself on the ukulele. He even had a freak hit single with his idiosyncratic version of the standard Tiptoe Through the Tulips. Those are the less disturbing aspects of the story of Herbert Khaury, aka Tiny Tim. The more unsettling? What about his taking six showers a day and his habit of wearing nappies? And as for his marital arrangements with wife Vicki . . . C. P. Lee (once a member of the hilariously eccentric Alberto Y Los Trios Paranoias) tells the story.
PLAYING SECOND FIDDLE
Radio 4, 1.30pm
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More musicians, as “Big” George Webley (he wrote the theme tune for Have I Got News for You) pays tribute to the honourable craft of the sessionman and woman. These are the people who show up, set up and then play, perfectly, whatever it is a composer may have written down for them or, often, has swimming about their drug-befuddled brain. An anecdote-packed half-hour.