Old Harry's Game
The cover of the first volume collection of Old Harry's Game.
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| Genre | Sitcom |
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| Running time | 29 minutes |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language(s) | English |
| Home station | BBC Radio 4 |
| Starring |
Andy Hamilton James Grout (Series 1-Christmas Special 2002) Jimmy Mulville Steve O'Donnell (Series 1) Robert Duncan (Series 2 onwards) David Swift (Guest appearances) Annette Crosbie (Series 6 onwards) Philip Pope (Regular guest appearances) Felicity Montagu (Regular guest appearances) Michael Fenton Stevens (Regular guest appearances) Nick Revell (Regular guest appearances) Claire Skinner (Christmas Special 2002) Geoffrey Whitehead (Series 5) Timothy West (Series 7) |
| Created by | Andy Hamilton |
| Written by | Andy Hamilton |
| Produced by | Paul Mayhew-Archer |
| Air dates | since 27 November 1995 |
| No. of series | 7 (as of 2010) |
| No. of episodes | 46 (as of July 2012) |
| Opening theme | Musical motif from Christopher Young's score for Hellraiser (1987) ('Resurrection'/ Main Theme) |
| Website | At BBC Radio 4 |
Old Harry's Game is a UK radio comedy written and directed by Andy Hamilton, who also plays the cynical, world-weary (or rather, underworld-weary) Satan. "Old Harry" is one of many names for the devil. The show's title is a humorous play on the title of the 1982 TV series Harry's Game.
Beginning in 1995, four series, of six half-hour episodes each, were aired by 2001, and a two-part Christmas special followed in 2002. A fifth full series was frequently delayed because of a cast member's illness, but recording of the four episodes of series five took place in April 2005 (postponed from January). The first episode of that series was broadcast on 20 September 2005 on BBC Radio 4. James Grout (the Professor during the first four series) did not take part. Series 6 (comprising a further six episodes) began on BBC Radio 4 on 27 September 2007, and Series 7 aired on BBC Radio 4 in 2009. Christmas and New Year specials were broadcast on 23 and 30 December 2010 respectively, and a two-part Olympics special on 12 and 19 July 2012.
Apart from series 3 and 4, the episodes were not given official titles.
One notable point regarding casting for the series: Andy Hamilton (Satan), Robert Duncan (Scumspawn), and David Swift (God) had all worked together previously, in the UK television comedy series Drop the Dead Donkey between 1990 and 1998, which had been co-written by Hamilton. Both of the latter were written into the 1998 series by Hamilton when the run of Donkey ended that year.
A 30 minute animated version was created in 2012, as the pilot for a possible television series, by the UK animation house Flickerpix, but in the event a series was not commissioned.
The series is set mainly in Hell, and the plot usually centres on the relationships and conflicts between Satan, his various minions, and the damned with (occasionally) interventions by God and other denizens of Heaven. Satan himself is identified with the fallen angel in Christian mythology and portrayed as somewhat jaded from millennia in charge of Hell and the expectation that he will continue to be so for eternity. Although he enjoys some aspects of the job, such as the opportunity to play pranks in the world of the living, and devising ironic torments for those damned souls whom he believes deserve it, his greatest wish is to someday be accepted back into Heaven, and he often wistfully recalls his past as an archangel.
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