My Word!
| Genre | Literary humorous panel game |
|---|---|
| Running time | 30 mins |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language(s) | English |
| Home station | BBC Home Service and BBC Radio 4 |
| TV adaptations | 1 Season (1962) |
| Starring | (Chair) John Arlott (1956-57) Jack Longland (1957-77) John Julius Norwich (1978-82) Antonia Fraser (1982-83) Michael O'Donnell (1983-88) (Panellists) Frank Muir (1956-88) Isobel Barnett (1956-57) E. Arnot Robertson (1957-61) Dilys Powell (1962-88) Denis Norden (1956-88) Nancy Spain (1956-64) Anne Scott-James (1964-78) Antonia Fraser (1979-88) Irene Thomas (1982-83) |
| Created by | Tony Shryane and Edward J. Mason |
| Produced by | Tony Shryane, Bobby Jaye, Pete Atkin, Neil Cargill |
| Air dates | 1956 to 1988 |
| No. of series | 39 |
| Opening theme | Alpine Pastures, by Vivian Ellis |
My Word! was a long-running radio panel game broadcast by the BBC on the Home Service (1956–67) and Radio 4 (1967–88). It was created by Edward J. Mason and Tony Shryane, and featured comic writers Denis Norden and Frank Muir, famous in Britain for the series Take It From Here. The show was piloted in June 1956 on the Midland Home Service and first broadcast as a series on the BBC Home Service on 1 January 1957.
For decades it was also broadcast worldwide via BBC World Service shortwave. In the United States, the show was syndicated on the WFMT Fine Arts Network until 1 October 2013, when BBC ended US distribution.Australia's Radio National had also been airing reruns for years but discontinued them in July 2014.
A companion programme, My Music, ran from 1967 to 1993.
The host of the show was originally the cricket broadcaster John Arlott, but he was soon replaced by Jack Longland, who spent over twenty years as chairman. Longland was succeeded by John Julius Norwich and finally Michael O'Donnell.
Muir and Norden were always on opposing teams. Muir's partner was initially Isobel Barnett, but she was soon replaced with the film critic E. Arnot Robertson. On Robertson's death in 1961, the film critic and Greek scholar Dilys Powell took her place until the show finished, when she was in her ninetieth year. Norden's first partner was the journalist Nancy Spain; after her death in 1964 she was succeeded by journalist Anne Scott-James, and then in 1979 by writer and historian Antonia Fraser. Fraser took the chair for one season in the 1980s, when her place on the panel was taken by Irene Thomas.
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