dubious vendor Ali Oop, and the ultra-polite broker's men Claude and Cecil. The supposed locale and the cast of characters changed over the years, but the formula – Handley as the benign master of ceremonies beset by a gallery of comic eccentrics – remained constant. ITMA became an enormous success, popular with all classes of society. By the middle of the war, an unprecedented forty per cent of the British population was tuning in to ITMA. It had the distinction of becoming the first radio show to give a royal command performance: early in 1942 a special edition of ITMA was performed at Windsor Castle for Princess Elizabeth's birthday. In between seasons on air, Handley and his colleagues took ITMA on tour in live shows round the country. The last edition of ITMA – the 310th – was recorded on 5 January 1949; four days later Handley died suddenly of a cerebral haemorrhage. His death was announced on air by the Director General of the BBC, Sir William Haley, who insisted on making the announcement himself. The King and Queen sent a message of sympathy to Handley's widow. Thousands of people lined the route of Handley's funeral procession from the chapel near his London home to Golders Green Crematorium, and packed memorial services were held in two cathedrals: St Paul's on 27 January and Liverpool three days later. Reputation Handley and the ITMA team were widely credited with boosting morale during the war, and were unmissable listening for millions. A member of the Royal Household said that if the war were to end between 8.30 and 9 p.m. on a Thursday night none of the household would dare to tell the King until ITMA had finished. Although Handley was a leading star in Britain, his material in ITMA was so topical and local, and delivered at such speed, that it was incomprehensible to many outside the UK. Nonetheless, it was popular in Australia: a writer in The Age commented that Handley's "roguish Liverpudlian twang could have made a stock-exchange report sound funny". A Canadian newspaper quoted an American who heard the show: "I can't understand a word the guy is saying, but it sure sounds like great radio". It was said that Bob Hope, though British-born, found ITMA "too fast" for him. Haley said of Handley, "He was not only broadcasting's greatest but also its most natural comedian. … He