The Outsider

Britain's weekly Punch, then 112 years old, was acting its age when ex-Newsman (Daily Telegraph) Malcolm Muggeridge became the first outsider to take over the editor's chair in 1953. Muggeridge swept out the stale sweets of fuddy-duddy whimsy, reverted to an older Punch tradition by installing tartly satiric views on topical issues (and late deadlines to keep right up with them), brought in name contributors and able critics, all but abandoned the moss-grown cover for bright and varied modern ones. He even succeeded frequently in making Punch what Englishmen never expected the old humor magazine to be, i.e., funny. Last week, at 54, Editor Muggeridge announced that he was resigning. Reason: there is nothing left to change if the magazine is still to be Punch.

While building Punch into its readable and financially hale condition circ. (132,000), Muggeridge has also built Muggeridge into a major TV personality. As commentator and interviewer on the BBC (a favorite Punch target), he treats sentimentality, mediocrity and many a sacred cow with waspish wit, which, coupled with his upper-crust air, has made the popular press bill him as "the man you love to hate." Muggeridge will go on being fascinatingly hateful on TV, plans a novel and a biography of George (1984) Orwell. At Punch, where Muggeridge's brisk ways produced some sparks as well as sparkle, the management still mulled over his successor, but insiders were sure that no outsider would be needed again for a long time.

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