Editing It's That Man Again (section)

==Format==
''ITMA'' was a character-driven comedy and contained parody and satire, unlike previous British radio comedy. The programme's satirical targets during the war were government departments and the ostensibly petty wartime regulations, although the programme "never challenged authority but instead acted as a safety valve for the public's irritation with bureaucracy, wartime shortages, queues and the black market", according to the cultural historian Martin Dibbs.{{sfn|Dibbs|2019|p=126}}{{sfn|Hendry, "Morale and Music"}}

[[File:The Laugh!- the Recording of the Radio Comedy 'itma', London, England, UK, 1945 D24424.jpg|thumb|upright=1.4|alt=Photograph taken at a live performance, featuring two performers at the front of the stage backed by the band and conductor|Handley (centre) introduces Ann Rich, a new singer for ''ITMA''; [[Charles Shadwell (musician)|Charles Shadwell]] conducts the orchestra in the background.]]
According to Foster and Furst ''ITMA'' was "entirely new, breaking away from the conventions of both radio and music hall comedy".{{sfn|Foster|Furst|1999|p=28}} It relied on Handley's quick-fire delivery of the humour, with his "near-miraculous technique".{{sfn|Foster|Furst|1999|p=28}} The writer and producer John Fisher, in his examination of 20th-century comedians and comedy, highlights ''ITMA''{{'}}s "speed of delivery, its quick-fire succession of short scenes and verbal non-sequiturs, all breaking away from the traditional music hall sketch orientation of ''Band Waggon''".{{sfn|Fisher|2013|p=167}} The broadcasts had an average of eighteen-and-a-half minutes of dialogue into which Kavanagh would attempt to write one hundred laughs—an average of a laugh every eleven seconds.{{sfn|Foster|Furst|1999|p=28}}{{sfn|Curran|Seaton|2002|p=133}} Between the comic scenes there were usually two musical interludes in each show: the first purely orchestral and the second featuring a song from the current resident singer.{{sfn|Kavanagh|1975|pp=47 & 54; 73 & 77; 123 & 129}}

The storylines for each week were thin, and the programme was written to have Handley at the centre interacting with a cast of recurring characters, all of whom had their own catchphrase or phrases.{{sfn|Hendry, "Morale and Music"}}{{sfn|Curran|Seaton|2002|p=133}} The catchphrases were used deliberately to help the listening public to identify which of the characters was speaking.{{sfn|Davison|1982|p=35}} The programme was [[Live radio|broadcast live]] each week and many of the show's [[sound effect]]s were done live alongside the actors.{{sfn|Barfe|2009|p=36}} For ''ITMA'' a sound effect was not a shorthand way of setting a scene for a listener,{{efn|For example, at the time BBC Radio used a seagull as a shorthand way of letting listeners know the action was taking place at the seaside or on a cliff top.{{sfn|Davison|1982|p=57}}}} but "as a means of punctuating the rapid progress of events&nbsp;... doing the work of words, and permitting an extraordinarily economical drama for a medium that relies on words—and sounds", according to the academic [[Peter Davison (professor)|Peter Davison]].{{sfn|Davison|1982|p=57}} The variety of characters and sounds was key to Kavanagh, who wrote that he wanted:
<blockquote>to use sound for all it was worth, the sound of different voices and accents, the use of catchphrases, the impact of funny sounds in words, of grotesque effects to give atmosphere—every device to create the illusion of rather crazy or inverted reality.{{sfn|Neale|Krutnik|1990|p=222}}</blockquote>

The scripts were written during the week of broadcast to ensure topicality. The year after ''ITMA'' ended, Kavanagh reflected "I myself cannot understand some of the jokes. They were skits on a nine-days wonder—a headline of that day's paper, and dead the following week. Every programme is an accurate reflection of the war situation at the time."{{sfn|Foster|Furst|1999|p=28}} Some parts of a script were rewritten in the hours leading up to a broadcast as the news changed. Kavanagh visited army camps and factories to listen to the patois and slang, the current jokes doing the rounds, as well as complaints and frustration, and used the material in the show. In this manner, Worsley considers that ''ITMA'' was "the closest radio had come to the everyday jokes that ordinary people have always made".{{sfn|Curran|Seaton|2002|p=133}}

As the programme matured, Kavanagh changed the flow of the programme away from the disjointed collection of scenes or sketches and towards a more defined storyline.{{sfn|Neale|Krutnik|1990|p=222}}