Editing It's That Man Again (section)

{{Short description|BBC radio show (1939–1949)}}
{{italic title}}
{{About|the radio programme|the film adaptation|It's That Man Again (film){{!}}''It's That Man Again'' (film)}}
{{Redirect|ITMA}}
{{Featured article}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=July 2014}}
{{Use British English|date=July 2014}}
{{Use shortened footnotes|date=May 2023}}
{{Infobox radio show
| name          = It's That Man Again
| other_names   = ''ITMA'', ''It's That Sand Again'', ''V-ITMA''
| image         = The British comedian Tommy Handley rehearses with actors from his ITMA show (cropped).jpg
| image_size    = 325
| alt           = A group of performers in 1940s clothes, dressed warmly for a visit to northern Scotland
| caption       = The ''ITMA'' cast at rehearsal during a visit to the Home Fleet at [[Scapa Flow]], January 1944
| format        = [[Sketch comedy]]
| runtime       = 30 minutes
| country       = United Kingdom
| home_station  = {{ubl|[[BBC National Programme]]|[[BBC Home Service]]}}
| syndicates    = {{ubl|[[BBC Forces Programme]]|[[BBC Light Programme]]|[[BBC Radio 4 Extra]]}}
| starring      = [[Tommy Handley]]
| announcer     =
| writer        = [[Ted Kavanagh]]
| producer      = [[Francis Worsley]]
| rec_location  = {{ubl|London (s 1, 7–12)|[[Bristol]] (s 2)|[[Bangor, Gwynedd|Bangor]], Wales (s 3–6)|[[Llandudno]], Wales (s 5, one show)|[[Manchester]] (Specials)}}
| first_aired   = {{Start date|1939|07|12|df=y}}
| last_aired    = {{End date|1949|01|06|df=y}}
| num_series    = 12
| num_episodes  = 310, including 5 specials
}}

'''''It's That Man Again''''' (commonly contracted to '''''ITMA''''') was a [[BBC]] [[radio comedy]] programme which ran for twelve series from 1939 to 1949. The shows featured [[Tommy Handley]] in the central role, a fast-talking figure, around whom the other characters orbited. The programmes were written by [[Ted Kavanagh]] and produced by [[Francis Worsley]]. Handley died during the twelfth series, the remaining programmes of which were immediately cancelled: ''ITMA'' could not work without him, and no further series were commissioned.

''ITMA'' was a character-driven comedy whose satirical targets included [[official]]dom and the proliferation of minor wartime regulations. Parts of the scripts were rewritten in the hour before the broadcast, to ensure topicality. ''ITMA'' broke away from the conventions of previous radio comedies, and from the humour of the [[music hall]]s. The shows used [[sound effect]]s in a novel manner, which, alongside a wide range of voices and accents, created the programme's atmosphere.

The show presented more than seventy regular characters during its twelve seasons, most of them with his or her own [[catchphrase]]. Among them were the bibulous Colonel Chinstrap ("I don't mind if I do"), the charlady Mrs Mopp ("Can I do you now, sir?"), the incompetent German agent Funf ("this is Funf speaking"), the courtly odd-job men Cecil and Claude ("After you, Claude—no, after ''you'', Cecil"), the Middle Eastern hawker Ali Oop ("I go—I come back"), and the lugubrious Mona Lott ("It's being so cheerful that keeps me going"). To keep the show fresh, old characters were dropped and new ones introduced over the years.

''ITMA'' was an important contributor to British morale during the [[Second World War]], with its cheerful take on the day-to-day preoccupations of the public, but its detailed topicality—one of its greatest attractions at the time—has prevented it from wearing well on repeated hearing. The show's lasting legacy is its influence on subsequent BBC comedy. ''ITMA''{{'}}s innovative structure—a fast-moving half-hour show with musical interludes and a cast of regular characters with popular catchphrases—was successfully continued in comedy shows of the 1950s and 1960s, such as ''[[Take It from Here]]'', ''[[The Goon Show]]'' and ''[[Round the Horne]]''.

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