KNALLI   JA   SATEENVARJO The Men From The Ministry Knalli ja sateenvarjo ("Bowler and Brolly") is a Finnish language adaptation of the BBC radio comedy The Men From The Ministry. It is broadcast on Radio Ylen Ykkönen by the Finnish national broadcaster YLE. For most of its twenty-year history, the episodes of this long-running and popular series have been adapted from the scripts by Edward Taylor and John Graham, originally written for the BBC. Starting with Season 20 in 2000, Edward Taylor has written entirely new scripts specifically for Knalli ja sateenvarjo. The stereotype of British bowler-hatted twittery continues to be popular in Finland. The Finnish version of The Men From The Ministry now surpasses the original BBC series both in terms of longevity and number of episodes.

Pekka Autiovuori, Heikki Nousiainen, Aila Svedberg and Yrjö Järvinen.

The participants in Knalli ja sateenvarjo include:

Mr Richard Hieronymus Valentino Canterbury Lamm	Pekka Autiovuori
Mr Hannibal Herodotos Hamilton-Jones	Kauko Helovirta
Mr Roland Lennox-Brown	Heikki Nousiainen
Miss Mildred Murfin	Aila Svedberg
Sir Henry Longfellow Pitkin	Yrjö Järvinen
Sir Clive Swift	Antti Pääkkönen
Lord Stilton	Ismo Kallio
Newscaster	Tuomas Mattila
Announcer	Asko Sarkola
Producer	Rauni Ranta
Director	Lars Svedberg and Rauni Ranta
Translator	Kersti Juva
Music	Jani Uhlenius

Episodes of The Men From The Ministry originally found their way to Finland via script translations made into Swedish. Fourteen of these scripts were further translated into Finnish and produced for the first broadcast season in 1979/80. The programmes were immediately successful, and further episodes were adapted from the English originals. Bruno Helenius sent the following account of the early history of the series:

I didn't find any evidence of MFTM really being produced or broadcast in Sweden. Yet, there is circumstancial evidence: some of the episodes had been translated into Swedish and the translated scripts had somehow found their way into archives of YLE in Finland, only to be lost and forgotten for years. Then, in spring 1979 YLE was moving to larger premises. At the same time YLE radio theatre department was desperately looking for some new shows for next autumn. Rauni Ranta, another one of the to-be-MFTM-directors stumbled into these scripts when she was clearing the paper stacks for removal. She found the show funny and feasible for radio production. The 14 scripts were translated into Finnish, the copyrights were checked and sorted out and the show became instant success. More episodes were purchased straight from Edward Taylor over the years and the last two seasons have been written by request of YLE. I bet Edward would let others use them too if there was enough interest ...

Knalli ja sateenvarjo is well documented in Finnish Language sources. Seaflower Oy has published a mini-bibliography. Simo Sjöblom also maintains an extensive web site giving full details about the series. Tape copies of several Knalli ja sateenvarjo episodes are available from YLE.

The following episode list is adapted from the schedule published by YLE. It has been augmented using information from Simo Sjöblom's site. Where known, the corresponding BBC episodes are indicated. (Thanks to Bruno Helenius for substantial help with this listing). The serial numbers indicate the Finnish recording sequence, as published by YLE. This sequence often differs from the order in which the episodes were broadcast. The omission of number 127 appears to be a clerical error.

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