The Big Business Lark

The Big Business Lark is a radio comedy sitcom of partly satirical form broadcast in 1969.

It stars Jimmy Edwards and Frank Thornton and was written by Lawrie Wyman as a spin-off from The Navy Lark, although no characters crossed over between the two shows.

The show is set in the boardroom of fictional company British United Plastics, and concerns with the business machinations of the chairman, Sir Charles Boniface (Edwards), and his son and deputy chairman, Frank Boniface (Thornton).

Plots included landing an order to provide the Red Army with plastic tents, a trip to America to make a good deal from another board member's mistake and an attempt to find a plastic novelty made by the firm for breakfast cereal boxes.

The comedy was more broad farce than subtle satire with Edwards playing a bluff, hard-drinking, chauvinist old rogue character and Thornton his more proper sidekick, analogous to the same role he played against Derek Francis in the other Navy Lark spin-off, The Embassy Lark.