In the first episode of the year we embark on another journey through the golden age of radio, beginning with Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce in The Reluctant Tobacconist.
Friday Number Five | Episode 20
January 30 | 2026
HOST Owen Kelly
COMMENTARY
On months that have a fifth Friday we break from our normal schedule and produce something else related tangentially to questions of cultural democracy. In 2026 we dive once more into the golden age of radio to bring back some historical examples of serials and comedies that let us hear unfiltered aspects of the world as it seemed to our grandparents.
We begin with a fine example of the ways in which motion pictures and radio worked together. Many movies became radio series, either as adaptations or as sequels or extensions. Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce had made a series of succesful movies as Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson, and they turned this into an equally successful radio series: The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.
Here we listen to The Reluctant Tobacconist, first broadcast on April 30, 1945.
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