The Mouse Problem

The current-affairs programme The World Around Us opens with tabloid headlines, seedy Soho mouse clubs and a man in a mouse suit being led into a police station before its grave linkman introduces this week's subject. In a dimly lit confessional interview, the anonymous Mr. A recalls a party where cheese was handed round and costumes and squeaking followed, and the programme then helpfully broadcasts his full name, address and telephone number. A consultant psychiatrist who is also a stage conjuror, The Amazing Kargol, performs a card trick with his glamorous assistant Janet before cheerfully admitting to every urge he describes. Julius Caesar and Napoleon are exposed as secret mice, vox pops from the man in the street propose ever more savage punishments, and grainy footage shot by a cameraman posing as a vole reveals a mouse party complete with cheese, a clock to run up and down, and the farmer's wife. The linkman decides the subject may not need further study and signs off by shooting a sheep out of the sky.

The sketch parodies the solemn television documentary exposés of the late 1960s, borrowing the Rachmaninoff theme then used by the BBC's Panorama. It was originally written for the film The Magic Christian. The telephone number read out for Mr. A belonged to David Frost's production company, and the line was cut from the August 1970 repeat after the company received a flood of calls.