Sir David Hatch obituary from the Liverpool Daily Post
24/06/2007 00:00 GMT

Posted by lisa

An obit from The Liverpool Daily Post:

David Hatch
Jun 20 2007

by Liverpool Daily Post

 
THIS son of a country vicar found himself stretched between God and jokes.

Finally, jokes won because he had a love of words, their delicate timing and endless possibilities. Anyway, there were those who felt that his sense of humour had been blessed from above.

Drawn into the management of BBC Radio, he will be remembered fondly by the wider public for his deadpan style, the sole voice of sanity in the asylum and the safe pair of hands in a tank of eels.

David Hatch’s diplomacy, wit and quick-step is illustrated by the following exchanges on I’m Sorry, I’ll Read That Again in 1965 when Auntie Beeb still wore a starched petticoat and the Home Service had yet to become Radio 4,

Hatch: “What is that certain something that first attracts a boy to a girl? No one can say.”

Bill Oddie: “I can.”

Hatch: “Not on radio you can’t. I suppose the allure of a women was probably best summed up by an eminent psychoanalyst when he said . . . ”

The interruption from John Cleese could be loosely translated as “phhhwooooar”.

Silly voices, puns and wit where the order of the day. Hatch admitted from the start that silly voices were beyond his range, modulating his own style accordingly.

As the master administrator, always recognising that creative people were the most important, Hatch steered the way for such shows as Just A Minute, Weekending and I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue.

Hatch read theology at Queen’s College, Cambridge, but was lured by the chaps in Footlights including Oddie, Cleese, Graham Chapman and Tim Brooke-Taylor, finally graduating in Education.

He then appeared in a touring revue called Plinths, where his managerial style immediately asserted itself, bringing some order to his anarchic pals.

In 1964, he was taken on by the BBC, moving seamlessly from performance to production. His senior appointments included head of Light Entertainment (Radio); controller Radio 2, controller Radio 4, director of programmes (radio), vice-chairman BBC Enterprises, advisor to the director-general. He was knighted in 2004.

He knew the game well and, at a festival in 1993, he said: “You have two chances to make this speech, once on the way up and once on the way down.

“Welcome to my second speech.”

He married twice and had three children.

David Hatch, radio man; born May 7, 1939, died June 13, 2007