Magazine content is available exclusively for TIME subscribers.Radio: Steady, Barker
What most Britons wanted from radio when the cold closed in, they had: a jolly, cozy blanket of comedy, a good piece of it provided by a red-hot young (35) comic named Eric Barker.
In only six months on the air, "Heart Throb" Barker's Merry-Go-Round had built an audience of 20 million (fully as large as that of Tommy Handley, long Britain's No. 1 radio funnyman). There were two good reasons for Heart Throb's success: 1) he had won a wide following among British servicemen as a wartime overseas entertainer; 2) Britons love their...
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