men Cecil and Claude ("After you, Claude--no, after you, Cecil"), the Middle Eastern hawker Ali Oop ("I go--I come back"), and the lugubrious Mona Lott ("It's being so cheerful that keeps me going"). To keep the show fresh, old characters were dropped and new ones introduced over the years.

ITMA was an important contributor to British morale during the Second World War, with its cheerful take on the day-to-day preoccupations of the public, but its detailed topicality--one of its greatest attractions