Goon Pod (Goon Pod)

Over a career spanning seven decades the composer and arranger Angela Morley brought something special to every project she was involved with, be it movie soundtrack, record, radio show or television programme. Working with such heavyweights as John Williams, Shirley Bassey, Noel Coward, Scott Walker, Andre Previn and Frankie Vaughan she gained a reputation as a talented, reliable and resourceful musical collaborator.

Although her latter career based mainly in the US was primarily focused on film scores (including Watership Down, Star Wars, Home Alone and Schindler's List) plus TV shows such as Dynasty and Dallas, it is for her earlier work that listeners to this podcast are probably most familiar with her - on The Goon Show and Hancock's Half Hour. 

Writer Louis Barfe joined Tyler to talk about the life of Angela Morley and some of the standout work and notable musicians with whom she collaborated. 

Plus: the generosity of Harry Secombe, being told off by Ken Dodd and a warm tribute to the recently departed Bernard Cribbins. 

Fill up your horses with three gallons of hay as we welcome guest John Dredge to the podcast!

We're talking about the classic Series 9 Goon Show episode The Call of the West but also find time to talk about The Phantom Raspberry Blower of Old London Town, The Magnificent Seven Deadly Sins, dying in Coventry, laughs filched from I Love Lucy and even Tiswas!

We also address the burning question - who WAS that at the beginning of The Ying Tong Song?

Please rate and review on iTunes and all comments welcome @goonshowpod 

Laura Grimshaw is this week's guest, the producer behind some of BBC Radio 4 Extra's landmark deep-dives into legendary figures from the world of comedy, including Les Dawson, the Bonzos, Barry Humphries and, notably, Neil Innes. She is also a regular host on Podcast Radio Hour, showcasing the wide world of podcasts, and contributor to 4 Extra's Comedy Club. 

From an early age she developed a love of comedy, thanks to her mum and grandparents exposing her to such classics as The Goon Show, Monty Python and Round the Horne and this has informed her career ever since. 

Laura joined Tyler to talk about the Goons, Python, Neil Innes and much more, including how older comedy is received by modern audiences and why sometimes compromises have to be made, the proliferation of podcasts and how important they can be in giving a platform to talent, and how she feels blessed to have been able to meet and share with so many astonishing figures from the worlds of comedy and popular entertainment.

*** NOTE: This episode was recorded in mid-May 2022, shortly before the announcement that Radio 4 Extra was to be moved to BBC Sounds, with its future after that uncertain as of the time of writing. 

This week Chris Diamond returns to discuss Ghost In The Noonday Sun, a film in which Peter Sellers in a bad wig and bad accent fannies about for ninety minutes.

Goon Pod has clocked up 91 episodes - good grief - and so far we’ve talked about a dozen or so films either starring or featuring Peter Sellers and mostly they’ve been pretty good– true, The Blockhouse, Down Among The Z Men and The Great McGonagall are not universally loved (and it still surprises me the number of people who get wound up by The Magic Christian) but none of them are total stinkers. 

Is GITNS really THAT bad? It's certainly up there as one of the worst films Sellers was ever attached to but it's no Where Does It Hurt. 

The film features some great actors and performers such as Spike Milligan, James Villiers, Murray Melvin, Clive Revill and blink-and-you'll-miss-him Peter Boyle as well as Anthony Franciosa (described by Chris as being like one of those uncles you had as a kid who wasn't really your uncle) and Dave Lodge with very little to do. The script is pretty wretched, even though it was Milliganised, and had the film actually been released in cinemas at the time no doubt it would have sunk quicker than a pirate ship foundered on rocks. 

But of course it did result in a memorable telly advert for gaspers. More on that in the show. 

Pull up a chair and cock an ear to the latest episode of Goon Pod! This week Tyler is joined by Paul Abbott of the Head Ballet and Big Beatles Sort Out podcasts to rhapsodise about one of the best-known and most fondly remembered Goon Shows of all time: The Whistling Spy Enigma from 1954.

We explore the show itself, the characters and gags and acknowledge how this show marked the beginning of a new chapter for the Goons. As Paul is a huge music enthusiast we naturally spend some time talking about Ray, Max and the orchestra and we even at one point stray dangerously close to a proper conversation about football! There’s also an intriguing insight into how American children reacted to hearing the Goon Show for the first time!

Please follow on Twitter @goonshowpod and rate and review on iTunes to help spread the good word!

John Williams returns to talk about one of the strongest - and confusing - Goon Shows from Series 8!

This episode of Goon Pod goes out literally days after Larry Stephens' centenary and Treasure in the Tower sees the debut of an enduring phrase he gifted to the Goon Show - you'll have to listen to find out!

Set in the year 1600 and the year 1957, Sir Walter Raleigh brings back treasure from the New World and wants to bury it at the Tower of London while at the same time Seagoon of the Ministry of Works tries to dig it up! Throw in a pair of scheming steamers who scam Seagoon out of £10,000, a couple of elderly treasure-divining experts, a lowly sentry conversing across the centuries with a spotty nit in National Health spectacles and three soldiers occupying one battledress and you've got a show they could never do on television!

John and Tyler discuss the show and events surrounding it plus possible influences - Nigel Kneale, JB Priestley and Iggy Pop all get a mention!

Also: the problem the Goons had holding down producers at this period, 'smut by stealth' and a tribute to the late Lord Hailsham!

"He opened the door and there he was standing in just a pair of gold boxer shorts..."

This was how a young BBC Radio producer named Griff Rhys Jones met Frankie Howerd for the first time!

Sometimes on this podcast we like to open it up and talk more generally about comedy - and especially when we get a special guest of Griff's calibre! Rude not to. 

Griff - who will be touring his new show from May and filming Griff's Vietnam Adventure this year - joined Tyler to talk about his career (which does include a prominent role in the film adaptation of Spike Milligan's Puckoon) and was more than happy to reminisce about his time on the likes of Not The Nine O'Clock News, Alas Smith & Jones and The Young Ones, as well as university revues, radio, plays and his subsequent documentaries and travel shows over the last twenty years.

Includes chat about:

* Mel Smith and their long comedy partnership 

* Some favourite S&J sketches (including Porno & Bribeasy)  

* The Homemade Xmas Video

* The Two Ninnies and Ronnie Barker's reaction to it 

* Being Bambi 

* Alexei Sayle 

* Douglas Adams 

* John Lloyd

* Chris Langham 

* Beryl Reid flirting with him 

* The post-war generation of comedians

* Almost appearing in Blackadder the Third 

* Restoration 

* Cleaning skyscraper windows in New York 

* Performing in Australia and New Zealand 

* The television landscape

* Reacting to critics

* And working with Frankie of course!

As well as his thoughts and observations on Spike and the Goons in general.

Griff was extremely generous with his time and tickets for his forthcoming tour are available here: https://www.chortle.co.uk/comics/g/34307/griff_rhys_jones

If there's one thing the public cannot reach agreement on it's what was the greatest British black & white Peter Sellers film of all time.

There is obviously a strong groundswell of support for that popular favourite, I'm All Right Jack, while trendier types (sneering metropolitan elites looking down on the hoi polloi) insist that Only Two Can Play is far superior. Others argue for The Naked Truth, with some justification, while a handful of nitwits push for The Ladykillers, completely misunderstanding the notion of 'black & white' as opposed to 'colour'. 

However, they are all wrong. Sensible people everywhere acknowledge that the correct answer is Two Way Stretch from 1960, a film which has only gained in popularity over the years. 

Directed by Robert Day from an original screenplay by John Warren & Len Heath (and with additional dialogue by Alan Hackney, writer of I’m All Right Jack), the working title for the film was Nothing Barred and it clearly provided inspiration for one of the greatest British sitcoms of all time - Porridge. 

It reunites Sellers with his 'Jack co-stars Irene Handl and Liz Fraser and teams him up with David Lodge and Bernard Cribbins, but the film's most memorable performance is delivered by the peerless Lionel Jeffries as Chief Officer Crout. 

Joining Tyler this week to do a bit of stir is returning guest Jeremy Limb - musician, actor and one third of The Trap. 

When blackmailer Dennis Price threatens to dig the dirt on Peter Sellers, Terry-Thomas, Peggy Mount and Shirley Eaton the four of them do everything in their power to stop him!

Wee Sonny McGregor (Sellers) risks irreparable damage to his reputation as a cuddly television personality if his second job as a slum landlord is revealed; Lord Mayley (Terry-Thomas) has been indiscreet in a park and his wife must never find out; author Flora Ransom (Mount) fears book sales will suffer should her wild past in Shanghai be exposed; and model Melissa Right (Eaton)… well, we don’t actually find out what she did but all she wants is the love and affection of her Texan boyfriend!

The Naked Truth (1957) was Sellers’ first opportunity to really showcase his talents as a comedy chameleon, assume different personas and build upon his Goon Show reputation as the man of a thousand voices. Written by Michael Pertwee and directed by Mario Zampi it is a wonderful ensemble piece with terrific performances from all the leads, especially Sellers and the formidable Peggy Mount.

Joining Tyler to discuss the film is returning guest, podcaster Scott Phipps (Reel Britannia, Talking Pictures TV) whose knowledge of this era of British films makes for a highly entertaining and informative hour or so of chat.

Originally formed in 1972, The Goon Show Preservation Society (GSPS) has for over fifty years championed all things Goon and achieved remarkable success in keeping the show fresh and relevant into the 21st century. One of its patrons recently got fitted for a crown so it can count among its supporters folk from the highest echelons of society right the way down to poor wretches kipping in dustbins!

Over the course of Goon Pod we have played host to a number of former and current members of the GSPS, many of whom were or are active participants in society events and meetings, but this week's guest is undoubtedly one of the society's most significant figures: Chris Smith.

Chris, among other things, found time to put together the quarterly GSPS newsletter, overseeing its transition from rather rudimentary, stapled together A4 sheets to a much more professional A5 booklet form. He was a key co-organiser of major GSPS events down the years (including the Fred weekends) and was fortunate enough to spend time with the three surviving Goons on a number of occasions.

Chris joined the GSPS soon after its formation, while still in short trousers, and there could be nobody better to help navigate through the society's history - its highlights and (sometimes) lowlights, from the earliest days corresponding with founder Mike Coveney and putting on regional shows with the legendary Steam Count, right up to the present day (with a few gaps here and there).

The GSPS would have been nothing without the enthusiasm and support of its members and has done more than most to keep the Goon Show alive, and by extension reminding us, especially in the crazy times we live in now, of mankind's capacity for idiocy.

goonshow.org

@TheGSPS

In 1979 Peter Sellers released Sellers Market, an LP of all new material which was recorded mostly in Paris and included contributions from the likes of Alan Clare, June Whitfield and Irene Handl.  

While it failed to reach the heights of his previous hit records The Best of Sellers and Songs For Swinging Sellers, Sellers Market does contain some good stuff – notably The Whispering Giant (featuring Irene Handl on top form) and The Eaton Square Blues.

Perhaps most intriguingly is what wasn’t included on the album – a couple of tracks Sellers recorded as Fred Kite up against June Whitfield’s Margaret Thatcher. Fearing her displeasure, Sellers nixed these tracks as he hoped the real Mrs T might confer upon him a knighthood. As it was, he was dead less than a year later.

Joining Tyler to talk about the making of the LP and what works and doesn’t work is returning guest and Sellers expert Mark Cousins, who thinks it could have been a much better album had more time and effort been devoted by all involved; as it was it was a bit of a rush job and comes across a bit baggy and unfocused.

This episode is sponsored by Muc™ - it cuts down trees!

Actor, musician and comedian Jeremy Limb is this week's special guest as we discuss the Goons' foray into television in the mid-fifties, specifically A Show Called Fred. 

Although few of the Fred shows survive (and none of its immediate predecessor Idiot Weekly Price 2d) Tyler and Jeremy worked with what they could get and what results is (we hope) an enjoyable and informative conversation about something the like of which which had never been seen on television up to that point, and which shows a clear line to future Python material (coconuts standing in as horses etc).

We also celebrate Kenneth Connor, The Alberts and the ubiquitous (for this podcast in any case) Valentine Dyall.

Jeremy also talks about his dad who was a notable figure within the BBC Radiophonic Workshop and composer of music for the likes of Box of Delights and Doctor Who. 

Jeremy is on Twitter @jeremylimb

@goonshowpod

"Happens to all of us y'know... being born."

Between 1970 and 1975 Peter Sellers made films which mostly fell flat commercially, and some of which didn't even get released, but there was the odd little gem and The Optimists of Nine Elms, directed by Anthony Simmons and based on his novel, is perhaps one of Sellers' most personal films. The task of embodying Sam, a washed-up old music hall entertainer, prompted Sellers to channel both his father and his great hero Dan Leno and look back to his youth, trailing around theatre after theatre with his parents, soaking up the patter and the hoary old routines, the songs and the stagecraft.

Joining Tyler this week is writer and presenter Bob Fischer to talk about the film, released exactly 50 years ago. It centres around Sam, who is reluctantly befriended by two children seeking a distraction from boredom. With their parents both too busy working to give the children much in the way of attention, by contrast Sam has all the time in the world to keep the children occupied and entertained in his own slightly irascible fashion. The three, along with Sam's beloved dog Bella, form such an unusual bond that occasionally you are left wondering who are the children and who is the adult.

Shot through with some great songs and a terrific score by George Martin, plus really great performances by the young actors and Sellers, not to mention the ever reliable and slightly shifty David Daker, The Optimists of Nine Elms is well worth a watch - a sweetly melancholy tip of the hat to an entertainment tradition that had all but passed from memory, as well as showing the last knockings of London's slum culture and the general post-war malaise.

As well as talking about the film Bob & Tyler's chat includes a whole bunch of conversational diversions, taking in the Simon Park Orchestra; Behind the Fridge; Tucker's Luck; Bowie; Boon; Cheggers AKA 'Passion in Pants'; The Ladykillers; The Ballad of Sam Hall; Fulham FC; Coronation Street and much much more!

"Do you want a taste of the lash?"

"No thanks, I've just had some cocoa."

In 1974 the BBC issued the first Goon Show Classics LP. On one side was The Dreaded Batter Pudding Hurler of Bexhill-on-Sea and on the other side was the show we're talking about today: The Histories of Pliny the Elder, Spike Milligan's attempt to pen a sword-and-sandals Goonish epic.

It has become one the most beloved Goon Shows ever, with some highly memorable gags and an end-of-term looseness about it. They all sounded like they were just having a lot of fun.

Joining Tyler is returning guest James Page and as well as discussing the show itself pay tribute to a couple of the backroom boys, examine the difference between Cyril and Lew and give mention to Mark Kermode, Terry Scott and the Asterix books.

A new play about Spike Milligan opens on Thursday 27th January at the Watermill Theatre in Newbury. Written by Ian Hislop and Nick Newman (The Wipers Times, Trial By Laughter) SPIKE stars John Dagleish, Margaret Cabourn-Smith, Jeremy Lloyd, George Kemp and Stephen Fry.

Focusing on arguably Spike’s most consistently creative period of his career – the 1950s and The Goon Show – the play examines his somewhat fractious relationship with the BBC drawn from reams of often hilarious correspondence which passed between Milligan and Corporation executives over the course of the show’s run and to which the writers were given exclusive access. There were very often threats and fireworks but it wasn’t always one-sided – sometimes BBC producers could give as good as they got.

Joining Tyler to talk about the play is co-writer Nick Newman, who also talks about his history with The Goon Show – he grew up listening to it in Singapore – and contrasts this with Ian’s relatively limited knowledge of the show prior to embarking upon the project, which significantly changed as he became more immersed in the material. There’s also some stuff to be said about Spike’s relationship over the years with Peter Cook and with Private Eye magazine and much much more.

As you’d expect from writers of their pedigree the play promises to be ‘an absurdly funny new play that delves into the inner workings of one of our most unique and brilliantly irreverent comedy minds’.

Details here: https://www.watermill.org.uk/spike

Twitter: @goonshowpod

Novelist and scriptwriter Eddie Robson is this week's guest and we discuss the stone cold classic from Series 7, "Wings Over Dagenham" in which Seagoon & McChisholm invent the aeroplane (at a stroke putting the horse-drawn zeppelin market out of business), Henry Crun builds an aerodrome at Croydon and a flat-earther from the Geographical Society sets up a classic Goon Show gag.

The conversation, as ever, veers hither and yon and includes chat about Stanley Kubrick, Kenneth Connor, Die Hard (yes, really), George Martin, why the Coens remade The Ladykillers and we tip the hat to that top-notch trombonist and a man with a reasonable claim to the title of 'Fifth Goon': George Chisholm.

We also talk about the positioning of characters in the show, the effective use of sound effects, underrated gags and a sequence recycled from Series 1. 

This all hopefully will provide you with a mental picture of a particularly fine podcast episode. 

Eddie's new novel 'Drunk On All Your Strange New Words' is published soon: Drunk on All Your Strange New Words: Amazon.co.uk: Robson, Eddie: 9781250807342: Books

@EddieRobson

@goonshowpod

This week we’re turning our attention to Peter Sellers’penultimate film (if we disregard those pesky ‘flogging a dead Panther’ posthumous farragoes), and the film for which he came closest in his career to carrying off a Best Actor Oscar: Being There from 1979.

Very much a passion project for Sellers, the film, directed by Hal Ashby (Harold & Maude) and based on the novel by Jerzy Kosiński, centres around the character of Chance, a gardener and late middle-aged ward of an elderly man whose death throws Chance’s entire world into disarray, if he didbut know it. Chance has the mental age of a child and is cut off from the outside world; his limited understanding of anything outside his immediate surroundings is entirely informed by what he glimpses on TV.  Through a series of incidents, Chance (now rechristened Chauncey Gardiner after a misunderstanding) is thrust into the world of the American political establishment when he is invited to stay at the home of dying billionaire Ben Rand (Melvyn Douglas) and his wife Eve (Shirley Maclaine). He meets the President (Jack Warden) and somehow he is assumed to be some sort of oracle, with people believing his every banal utterance to be invested with great truth and meaning.

Podcaster Antony Rotunno (host of Glass Onion podcast) joins Tyler to talk about the film and tries to work out quite why it gets under his skin.

Phil Cannon from the Who's He? podcast joins Tyler this week to discuss a film unfairly overlooked by the Academy - Spike Milligan's The Great McGonagall from 1974. 

Written by Spike and Joe McGrath (Casino Royale, Digby the Biggest Dog in the World, Not Only But Also) and starring Milligan as the titular poet & tragedian, the film also featured Peter Sellers as Queen Victoria (kneeling on a skateboard), John Bluthal, Victor Spinetti and Julia Foster.

Considered by many to be the worst poet who ever drew breath, William Topaz McGonagall had long been a favourite of Sellers and Milligan and indeed had been woven into the fabric of The Goon Show, turning up as a character in occasional episodes (notably The Tay Bridge in 1959). This film takes constant liberties with the truth and is about as far away from being a faithful account of the poet's life as any biopic could credibly claim to be. That said, several of his poems were used and a handful of scenes were at least partly based on actual events. 

The film was shot over three weeks entirely at Wilton's Music Hall and was not a success, receiving only limited release. It did garner a few fairly favourable notices (Richard Eder, writing in the New York Times, described it as a "radiant failure") but most reviewers were chilly towards it. 

Time Out thundered: "The humour is forced and the social/political comment embarrassingly exposed... it looks like some tiresome theatrical junket brought out in the wake of the departing Lord Chamberlain, crammed full of previously vetoed references to the Royal Family!" Calm down Time Out, it's a low-budget British comedy, it's not trying to be Pather Panchali.

Despite this (or perhaps because of it!) Tyler and Phil had an enjoyable time chatting about it and would welcome listeners to check out the film if they haven't already seen it: available for a few quid on DVD and for free on YouTube (as of time of writing).

Who's He?: http://www.whos-he-podcast.co.uk/

In 1976 a Neil Simon-scripted movie called Murder By Death was released which cleverly spoofed the detective fiction genre and featured one hell of a cast, including Peter Sellers, Alec Guinness, Peter Falk, David Niven, Maggie Smith and Truman Capote. Five world-famous ‘tecs accept an invitation to stay at the crazy house of the mysterious Lionel Twain and over dinner are informed that someone will be murdered! Hilarity ensues!

While there may be some content which hasn’t exactly aged well there are also genuine laughs to be had and joining Tyler this time round to discuss the film is Jon Morris - cartoonist, writer and one-half of the Just One More Thing podcast, which is all about Columbo and incredibly funny.

Download and listen now!

Check out Jon’s website: http://www.calamityjonsave.us/

Just One More Thing podcast: http://thecitydesk.net/justonemorething/

Twitter: @goonshowpod @calamityjon

The award-winning master of spoken word audio, this week's guest is the endlessly entertaining Dirk Maggs.

Dirk has been overseeing the production of The Sandman: Act III, the latest in a long line of collaborations with Neil Gaiman. He was first introduced to Neil via a mutual friend at DC Comics, as Dirk had been involved in audio productions of The Adventures of Superman, Batman: The Lazarus Syndrome and other projects and it was also due to the DC connection that Dirk met Douglas Adams and so began the protracted process of bringing The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy 'back home to BBC Radio' as Adams put it. Dirk has also produced adaptations of Agatha Christie, Stephen King and Arthur C Clarke works.

But it is for his work in comedy that we are focusing on this week - Dirk devised and produced At Last The Go On Show in 1991 to mark the 40th anniversary of The Goon Show; he later was the brains behind Goon Again in 2001, a special one-off restaging of The Goon Show starring Jeffrey Holland, Andrew Secombe, Jon Glover and Christopher Timothy ('a genetically-engineered tribute band' was how he described it).

We also talk about his early break in BBC Radio comedy producing The News Huddlines and shows such as The Long Hot Satsuma starring Graeme Garden and Barry Cryer, and later programmes like Inside Sasha and Flywheel, Shyster & Flywheel which introduced The Marx Brothers to new generations.

It's a terrific conversation about a wide-ranging and never-dull career. More on Dirk here: www.dirkmaggs.com 

"Good heavens! It's Evans!"

Jon Auty from Behind The Stunts returns this week to discuss the 1972 fish-out-of-water comedy film Sunstruck, starring Harry Secombe as Welsh schoolteacher Stanley Evans. His romantic intentions towards a colleague stymied by a beefier rival, Stanley sees a poster offering jobs to British schoolteachers in New South Wales. Stanley applies, imagining a life of sun, sea and Sheilas, but reality brings him back to earth with a bump. Posted to remote Kookaburra Springs Stanley soon discovers that a new life Down Under is not all it's cracked up to be, with irritants including mozzie bites, beer-swilling barflies and an obnoxious child called Stevie... however, a burgeoning romance and the chance to win a national schools singing competition restores Stanley's sense of purpose.

It's an interesting and gently humorous film featuring some fine Australian acting talent and Secombe acquits himself well in a rare leading role. Jon and Tyler have a lot of fun talking about it - we decide it definitely ISN'T suitable as part of a double bill with Wake In Fright (1971) - tip the hat to Network DVD (RIP) & remember the time that Baldrick met John Wayne.

ALSO: LISTENERS' QUESTIONS! Feedback from listeners is always important and the opportunity to interact is something we at Goon Pod Towers are keen to do as much as possible! A few hours before recording the Sunstruck episode Tyler asked people on social media if they had any questions about the podcast, the Goons or comedy in general. There was a good response and unfortunately not enough time to answer everybody but maybe in the future we'll do an entire show of listeners' questions - let's see how this goes down.

Do please let us know via Twitter, Facebook or email (tyler.adams1974@gmail.com) if this is a feature you enjoy...

@goonshowpod

https://www.facebook.com/groups/2537487143226771

BEHIND THE STUNTS: https://linktr.ee/behindthestunts

"There was only one man for the job... there was only one man available!"

And so begins The Case of the Vanishing Room, the earliest Goon Show we've covered so far on this podcast, from 1954. It was later remade for the Vintage Goons series and that is the version most people will be familiar with but it stuck very closely to the original script.

This week returning guest Mike Haskins joins Tyler to examine both and try to fathom what this 'murder mystery' was all about! Did Spike lose interest halfway through the writing? Did he like the title and try to write a show around that? Who exactly WAS the murderer? And how did the room vanishing and turning up in Paris actually resolve itself? All these questions and precious few answers!

Also: Tyler's great new game "From Peter To Piper" which we are confident will never return for a further round.

Plus: dog lovers are well catered for as Huxley the hound makes his podcast debut!

In 1966, at the height of World Cup fever, an unassuming little British comedy film came out and caused nary a ripple despite a stellar cast of well-known faces.

Michael Bentine stars as Horace Quilby, the titular Sandwich Man, who walks the streets of London and seems to know everyone he passes.

Without anything so distracting as a plot the film meanders somewhat and is essentially a series of sketches loosely linked together, an indication perhaps of Bentine's lack of experience in long-form storytelling, having come off the back of his hugely successful television series It's A Square World.

The film features a host of well-known figures from the world of comedy including Norman Wisdom, Terry-Thomas, Bernard Cribbins, John Le Mesurier, Fred Emney, Harry H Corbett, Stanley Holloway and Ron Moody and has possibly the most incongruous ending to a film ever!

Joining Tyler this week are Rob & Guy of the podcast Britcom Goes To The Movies, a show in which they examine big-screen spin-offs of small-screen comedy series and characters - ko-fi.com/britcomgoes

In 1975 David Dimbleby conducted an interview on television with Spike Milligan, and as the Fates would have it Spike was in the perfect frame of mind for such a probing and personal interrogation.

They talked about his childhood, the war, his career, his mental health, the breakdown of his marriage in the fifties, his hopes and regrets and even touch on (then) contemporary events - the boy he shot in his garden and the fallout which resulted in him being dropped from several animal charities.

The conversation is punctuated by a series of filmed sequences in which people who knew Spike well give their views on the ex-Goon, such as his fellow ex-Goon Peter Sellers, writer and collaborator John Antrobus and old friend and mentor Jimmy Grafton.

As indicated, Spike takes it all largely in his stride, with only very occasional flashes of annoyance or irritation and the odd bemused frown and it remains one of the most insightful and honest portraits of the great man we have.

Our guest this week is actor & writer Lee Moone who previously has adapted Milligan's Phantom Raspberry-Blower of Old London Town for the stage.

"... Must admit he was very funny. I laughed. I laughed a great deal. Thought I was going to cry. I did."

A Visit to Swansea was the fourth episode of the second series of Hancock’s Half Hour and was originally broadcast on 10th May 1955, two days before Tony Hancock’s 31st birthday.

It was long considered one of the missing Hancocks until it was discovered last year by Richard Harrison of the Radio Circle and came from the same collection of recordings as The Marriage Bureau – the only episode of HHH to feature Peter Sellers and one we covered on Goon Pod previously with the guys from the Very Nearly An Armful podcast.

It’s intriguing as this is another formerly missing show to feature a Goon – in this case Harry Secombe in a cameo, and it followed on from the three previous episodes of HHH in which Secombe stood in for Hancock who had undergone some sort of breakdown and gone off to Italy.

Naturally it warranted an evaluation on Goon Pod and who better to talk all things Hancock than friend of the show Scott Phipps, host of such shows as Reel Britannia and the Talking Pictures podcast.

"There once was a beautiful moon,

"It was up in the sky, chum,

"When he said “What’s the time?”

"They replied ‘What?’

"And the horse departed leaving spon."

With poetry like that it's no wonder we lost the Empire. And it stands out as one of the most memorable bits of a Goon Show episode which is rather unfairly overlooked: The Moon Show from January 1957.

Neddie is a tramp poet, who buys a poetic licence from those chiselling spivs Grytpype Thynne & Moriarty and through further trickery believes himself to be the rightful owner of the moon. Then he realises that the moon is a forgery and pursues the villains across Europe. Joining Tyler this week is Ian Winick, co-host of the Lord Of Adders Black podcast: https://shows.acast.com/lord-of-adders-black

This week's guest is a man more used to asking the questions - the writer and broadcaster Clive Anderson.

A former barrister, Clive turned to comedy and wrote for the likes of Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jones before gaining radio & television fame as the host of top improvisational comedy series Whose Line Is It Anyway?

He then went on to present a series of chat shows and interviewed some of the biggest stars on the planet, including Spike Milligan, and it's this that we take as our starting point.

Clive talks about his career and many of the shows and people he's been involved with, including WLIIA, Loose Ends, If I Ruled The World, Peter Cook, Tony Slattery, John Sessions, Graeme Garden and Keith Allen.

He also talks about his reaction to the Brass Eye segment claiming he'd been shot dead by Noel Edmonds, remembers seeing Harry Secombe miming on stage and shudders as he recalls *that* interview with the Bee Gees.

On the 8th September 1921 Harold Donald Secombe entered the world and the world was never quite the same again! To mark his centenary Tyler and comedy writer Mike Haskins present this special episode of Goon Pod as a tribute to the multi-talented Ned of Wales whose legendary voice, infectious giggling, kindness to others and unfailing good humour held him high in the public’s affection for over five decades.

We touch on pretty much every aspect of his career post-war and take a more detailed look at some of his seventies television appearances; along the way we find time to talk about his family and friends, contrast his life with his fellow Goons and there’s a fairly in-depth examination of his starring feature film debut Davy (1958).

It’s 70 minutes of Secombe and we hope you come away having maybe learned a few things about Harry you didn’t know before – if not then (raspberry)!

Please follow @goonshowpod and @MikeHaskins11

Have a gorilla!

Napoleon’s Piano is one of the most loved Goon Shows of all time and joining Tyler this week to talk about it is Angie Budd.

Angie has a lot to say about the show and among other things we discuss Wallace Greenslade’s ripe French accent, the art of piano leg sawing, Anthony Eden and the Cambridge Spies, the ubiquity of Maurice Ponk, Britain claiming ownership of a final piece of soil (well, rock), the launch of Associated-Rediffusion and the technical pitfalls of performing a Goon Show in a pub – not to mention the Goons getting nuked!

Please follow on @goonshowpod and rate & review in the right places!

“Then I submit, Inspector Ballon, that you arrived home, found Miguel with Maria Gambrelli and killed him in a rit of fealous jage!”

The Pink Panther received its world premiere in Italy in December 1963 and was officially released in the US in March 1964. Despite David Niven topping the bill, the character of Inspector Jacques Clouseau - played by Peter Sellers - stole the film.

Just three months later, in June 1964, Inspector Clouseau returned and this time in the lead. A Shot In The Dark was brought forward for a summer release, to capitalise on the success of The Pink Panther. It would be released in the UK in January 1965.

A Shot In The Dark was adapted for the screen from an original French play and changed almost beyond recognition, thanks to the combined talents of Blake Edwards and William Peter Blatty (who would later go on to pen The Exorcist).

Maria Gambrelli, a maid employed in the service of the millionaire Benjamin Ballon, is accused of murdering chauffeur Miguel Ostos. Clouseau is assigned to the case and almost immediately is smitten by Maria. A series of subsequent murders occur and even Clouseau himself becomes a target. What we get is an almost perfect comedy film, with Sellers at the peak of his powers - just months away from his series of heart attacks in Hollywood - and crisp, tight direction by Edwards.

The film also marks the first appearances of Herbert Lom as Clouseau's long-suffering boss, Commissioner Dreyfus, André Maranne as Dreyfus's assistant François and Burt Kwouk as Clouseau's devoted manservant Cato.

So, as it is the 60th anniversary of ASITD's release what better excuse than to talk about it at length for Goon Pod? It's your host's favourite Peter Sellers film of all time and he spends what seems like the show's entirety giggling and chuckling so it falls on this week's guest - newly published novelist Adam Leslie - to inject a bit of professionalism to proceedings!

Lost In The Garden can be ordered here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lost-Garden-Adam-S-Leslie/dp/1915368480

President Fred of Argentina owes the South Balham Gas Board four pounds, nineteen shillings and sixpence and thus begins a thrilling tale of international intrigue, replete with revolutionaries, counter-revolutionaries, forged money, real money, red sacks, blue sacks and even coercion by liquorice allsorts! 

Joining Tyler to unpack this awfully knotty Goon Show from 1955 is Jeffers, the man behind the new podcast Podcasto Catflappo!

Jeffers is doing God's work by scrutinising the unfairly overlooked Rik Mayall & Ade Edmondson one-series sitcom penned by Ben Elton: Filthy, Rich & Catflap - an important link in the chain between The Young Ones and Bottom. He's also co-host of Sitcom Showdown and waaaaay back in the day cut his teeth on The Goodies Podcast. 

He's also Australian but we won't hold that against him. 

It's fair to say that Jeffers saved Tyler's bacon on more than one occasion during the recording of this episode, having made copious notes and being properly organised. He was able to navigate through Milligan's peasouper of a plot whenever the hapless host got lost, however, thanks to judicious editing and money down to buy Jeffers' silence the listening audience will remain blissfully unaware of this fact. 

https://t.co/SMjiQkp5Gm

Two stories for the price of one with The Sock Jelly Murders and Ned the Miser in a show called The £1,000,000 Penny? All rather confusing really. 

Harking back to earlier series formats, this excellent show from Series 9 begins with a mystery crime caper which then makes way for the episode's 'proper' drama, involving Miser Ned, a certain penny, two perfect scoundrels on a stagecoach pulled by chickens, a troop of boy scouts, some old jokes, Granny Min from Eastbourne, a cup of coffee with a bomb in it and Eccles giving Major Bloodnok the glad-eye, as well as some knotty dialogue for Peter Sellers to deliver which he manages to do with aplomb. 

Our guest this time round is Nick Reeve, the brain behind the excellent Goon Show blog The Seagoon Memoirs - Home | The Seagoon Memoirs - which is helping to keep the Goons' flame burning and well worth an intense scrute. 

He's very good you know. Very good indeed.

Well now, here’s a thing – a Goon Pod Bonus Episode for New Year’s Eve!

Back in early November, with special guest and host of the Beatles Books podcast Joe Wisbey, we examined the landmark 1995 BBC documentary The Peter Sellers Story (see episode 24)

Now Joe has been talking to the director of that documentary, Peter Lydon, exclusively for Goon Pod and the resultant conversation is here.

Peter shares plenty of insights into the making of the Sellers documentary with its predictable (and unpredictable) challenges and general behind-the-scenes hoopla.

Many thanks to both Peter and Joe and thanks to everyone who has supported the podcast during its first six months or so – here’s to an even better 2022!

According to Peter Sellers: “It all started because Spike Milligan and I once said we wanted to experiment in visual humour. We got as many friends together as we could and went and found a field. That was all we had – friends, a field, a roll of film.”

What resulted was 'The Running, Jumping & Standing Still Film' (1959), directed by the up-and-coming Richard Lester, a friend and collaborator of Sellers and Milligan.

The short film soon became a word-of-mouth hit and was even nominated for an Oscar. It helped pave the way for Lester to work with the Beatles several years later and Spike Milligan claimed that it was one of the very few true visual representations of Peter Sellers' sense of humour.

Although accounts vary it has become accepted that the total budget for the film was £70 (including the rent of a field) and the entire cast was made up of - as Sellers says - friends. So we see Graham Stark, Leo McKern, David Lodge, Mario Fabrizi, Bruce Lacey and Johnny Vyvyan, as well as the two Goons themselves.

This week film academic Dr Adrian Smith joins Tyler to talk about this highly influential 11 minutes of mayhem.

Comedy writer, author, podcaster and musician Joel Morris is our special guest this week and what could be more Christmassy than a chat about The Phantom Raspberry Blower Of Old London Town? (Plenty - Ed.)

Originally conceived by Spike Milligan as a vehicle for him, Peter Sellers and Harry Secombe, this proposed Goons special was stymied early on by Sellers' filming commitments elsewhere. A couple of years later Milligan dusted off the script and repurposed it for an episode of Six Dates With Barker, Ronnie Barker's 1971 series of one-off plays (similar to the Comedy Playhouse format which spawned a number of sitcoms) and if it had been left at that then it's highly likely that few people would remember it today. 

However, in 1976 Ronnie Barker collaborated with Milligan to expand the length of the play and serialise it in weekly episodes for the fifth series of The Two Ronnies. It is this version that is most fondly remembered by the public and is generally considered to be the strongest of the Ronnies' serials.

Joel joins Tyler to laud the lost art of the comic play and talks about Milligan's genius, with a few caveats (Joel presents a strong argument that when writing without the grounding influence of collaborators Spike’s ideas were often in danger of becoming loosed from their moorings) and there's also plenty of time to talk about other comedy too, including Peter Cook, The Office and Python. 

Joel is currently writing a book about comedy and is the host of the podcast Comfort Blanket: https://pod.link/1614879928

This week Tyler chats with Richard Usher, actor, performer and voiceover artist, who as a member of the Fred Theatre Company has brought the magic of The Goon Show to new audiences, appearing as part of The Birmingham Comedy Festival. Richard has taken on the role of Peter Sellers in a number of sell-out live Goon Show performances in recent years (staging such shows as The Phantom Head Shaver of Brighton and The House of Teeth) as part of a highly-skilled troupe and he talks about the highlights and challenges involved in such an undertaking! How did he manage to master the likes of Bluebottle and Bloodnok?

He also explains how he came to discover the Goons in the eighties and there’s some marvellous tales of meeting the Goons in the flesh, including being invited to Spike’s house for a cup of tea and being a hedonistic teenager attending Harry Secombe concerts.

Richard also speaks warmly about Michael Bentine and how he had a real influence and impact on Richard’s life growing up.

It’s an all-too-short conversation with a fascinating man and Richard’s website can be found here: www.richardusher.co.uk 

"Mrs Wilberforce..? I understand you have rooms to let."

And so we are introduced to the sinister and mysterious Professor Marcus, performed with brio by Alec Guinness as a sort of unhinged Alastair Sim grotesque, in Alexander McKendrick's sublime 1955 Ealing comedy The Ladykillers.

The film – described by McKendrick as a film about Britain in subsidence - was the first major film role for Peter Sellers, after a string of low budget and mostly forgettable little comedies. Although his role as the aging Ted and spiv Harry Robinson is very much a supporting one, it did get him noticed, and his subsequent career in films grew steadily with a BAFTA for Best Actor five years later and international super-stardom in less than a decade.

Alongside Guinness and Sellers are the splendidly menacing Herbert Lom as Louis Harvey, Cecil Parker as Major Courtney and Danny Green as 'One Round', posing as members of a string quintet who have robbery on their minds. Playing the role of her lifetime as the titular 'lady' is Katie Johnson in her penultimate film as Mrs Wilberforce, a performance which won her a BAFTA.

Joining Tyler to talk about the film is Graeme Lindsay-Foot, for whom this film remains one of his all-time favourites after having first seen it as a teenager. Together they break down the film from its earliest beginnings, as fragments of a dream occurring to the writer William Rose, to the production process. casting, plot and - yes- there WILL be spoilers. Fans of Frankie Howerd are duly warned that he comes in for a bit of flack.

We answer these questions:

WHY did Herbert Lom wear a hat throughout the film?

WHO was the inspiration for the look of Professor Marcus?

WHAT bits of the film were cut out, causing Sellers much annoyance?

HOW did Sellers commemorate the film in the form of a gift for cast and crew?

WHERE was Mrs Wilberforce's lopsided old house actually situated in London?

... And much more!

60 years ago the Labour Party won the UK General Election, booting the Conservatives out of office after thirteen years. It is not known if Harold Wilson listened to the LP 'How To Win An Election (Or Not Lose By Much)' but even if he had it is highly unlikely he would have found it instructive.

Leslie Bricusse brought together Spike Milligan and Harry Secombe to record this album one afternoon in early 1964 after a lunch in which vast quantities of wine had been dispatched. Peter Sellers recorded his parts a number of weeks later and very soon after technically died (he did, however, recover).

This week Brett Tremble - @agnes_guano on Twitter - joins Tyler to tell the tale behind the making of the LP. The conversation includes predictions about the forthcoming General Election and as such could leave them with red faces should opinion polls turn out to be wrong!

******** Sign up for Goon Pod Film Club here: www.patreon.com/GoonPod - first episode on Kind Hearts & Coronets out Saturday 6th July! **********

"In the little Essex hamlet of Great Bardfield, a tiger with influenza is mounting guard over a mysterious white box. What is the secret of the box of Bardfield—does it contain the dreaded International Christmas Pudding or is it really full of priceless Essex snow?"

So ran the Radio Times listing that week for the show we are discussing, which has nothing whatsoever to do with the International Christmas Pudding but has everything to do with selling snow to Sudan.

It's Tyler's favourite Goon Show of all, the third he ever heard and one which had been 'trailed' to him in a way by his father as he was growing up. His dad would occasionally mention the plotline of The White Box of Great Bardfield without naming it specifically; he merely considered it a quite genius idea for a comedy plot.

Joining Tyler to try and unpick it all is returning guest Molly McDade who thinks it's a show you should never expose to a newbie and was looking forward to seeing Coogan in Strangelove - which, by the time this goes out she will have done!

Everyone at Goon Pod Towers is very excited this week as this is the first time we've ever covered a Best Picture Oscar winner on the show, and this one features everybody's favourite beadle Harry Secombe who's in fine voice for this tremendous 1968 film based on the hit Lionel Bart stage musical!

Joining Tyler are those incorrigible urchins Chris Webb & Robert Johnson from Still Any Good podcast and among other things they discuss:

• The magnificent Ron Moody
• The novel vs the film
• Harry hits it out of the park
• That villainous Bill Sikes
• The wonderous Oliver! set
• Jack Wild's tragic life
• Max Bygrave's nice little earner
• The songs they dropped
• Carol Reed's Flap!
• Fagin puts in his 10,000 hours
• Leonard Rossiter's drunken turn
• Corrie does Oliver!
• Bullseye the dog in makeup
• Mark Lester's gift to Jacko
• Brucie as Fagin?
• Catflap's nod

Plus much much more!

Consider yourself entertained!

STILL ANY GOOD: https://stillanygood.buzzsprout.com/

The telly equivalent of a bumper Beano summer special, the 1995 BBC Arena documentary about Peter Sellers was stretched over three episodes and clocked in at nearly three and a half hours. Made up of extensive home movie footage and interviews with most of the key players in Sellers’ life, as well as clips from his career and some wonderfully atmospheric music, it was arguably the second-most important multi-episode popular culture TV retrospective of 1995, behind The Beatles Anthology series. Obvs.

And *speaking* of The Fab Four, this week’s guest is Joe Wisbey, a man who spends an awful lot of time chatting to authors of Beatles books (paperback writers, if you will) for his marvellous Beatles Books podcast – available here: https://beatlesbooks.podbean.com/

Joe has probably watched the Sellers documentary more times than is strictly seemly but it holds an enduring fascination for him and he spoke eloquently about how he came to discover it and what it means to him.

How to salvage London's sunken Westminster floating Pier? Simple. Don't raise the pier - lower the river!

And so begins another (mis)adventure in which the two arch fiends Grytpype-Thynne and Moriarty hoodwink the hapless Neddie Seagoon in what was probably one of the most topical shows the Goons ever attempted - The Sinking of Westminster Pier, broadcast the week after that historic landmark had indeed sunken into the Thames in early 1955. Spike was amused by a photograph in the newspaper of an 'Out Of Order' sign sticking out of the river and so, fired by inspiration, wrote this episode to replace the scheduled show, The Six Ingots of Leadenhall Street. Much to Wallace Greenslade's chagrin. 

Having previously come on Goon Pod to investigate The String Robberies, Molly McDade returns to talk about piers, oysters, farting mules, Russian frogmen, television police procedurals, David Attenborough, George Raft and even Winston Churchill! Along the way she performs an impressive Willium 'Mate' impression, delivers a heartfelt plea for more Goon-type animation and, most importantly, talks in some detail about seeing the recent Hislop & Newman play 'Spike' a total of three times last year!

Molly is on Twitter @AuthorOfNebulae

In the fifth episode of Goon Pod it's the welcome return of Adam from RetroTube podcast - despite concerns that he’ll see the big board! 

We have a right old chinwag about what is arguably Peter Sellers’ second greatest cinematic performance(s) – in the 1964 Stanley Kubrick Cold War satire Dr Strangelove.

Among many other things we talk about the fact that Spike Milligan was possibly partially responsible for Quentin Tarantino’s career and how one of the most memorable lines of dialogue in the film could have been inspired by Eccles. We also discuss Kubrick’s oeuvre, Sellers’ six best films (as voted for by the good burghers of Twitter), 'precious bodily fluids', George C Scott tripping over and even Slim Pickens’ winning turn in The Black Hole.

So join us as we celebrate Peter Sellers lighting up the screen as Group Captain Lionel Mandrake, President Merkin Muffley & the titular (and rather Goonish) Dr Strangelove!

In summer 2022 listeners to Goon Pod were asked what their favourite episodes of The Goon Show were and the response was brilliant - so many of you voted that it took Tyler and a team of unpaid interns several weeks to collate the data, interpret the results, hem and haw and finally prepare THE definitive list of Listeners’ Top 20 Goon Shows.

Tyler is joined by Mike Haskins & Sean Gaffney to run down the list, tease out interesting titbits and generally grumble like middle-aged men tend to do.  

Where is YOUR favourite show placed? Will it be in the Top 10? The Top 5? Will it be the coveted Number 1?! 

You’ll have to cancel all plans and strap in for ninety minutes of frenetic Goon chart chat to find out!

Comedy writer, novelist and playwright Jon Canter joins Tyler this week. He talks about Spike Milligan and some of the people he's had the pleasure of working with over the course of his career, including Miriam Margolyes, Stephen Fry & Hugh Laurie, Douglas Adams, Lenny Henry, Richard Wilson, Mel Smith & Griff Rhys-Jones and John Lloyd.

They also discuss Margaret Thatcher trying comedy and Prince Charles dancing to Hot Stuff.

It's a packed show folks!

If you want it, here it is, come and get it!

This episode, the first of 2022, looks at the hugely ambitious if not entirely successful 1969 film adaptation of Terry Southern’s satirical novel The Magic Christian, starring Peter Sellers and Ringo Starr and a cast of familiar faces including Spike Milligan, Hattie Jacques, John Cleese, Richard Attenborough, Patrick Cargill, Roman Polanski, Raquel Welch and even Fred Emney!

Joining Tyler on the pod this week, having just done several laps of a vat full of animal waste, is the writer Jem Roberts whose latest book Fab Fools examines the Beatles and comedy and has recently been released as an audiobook. Jem has also written books on Blackadder, I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue/ISIRTA, Douglas Adams and Fry & Laurie. We found a lot from the film to talk about and it was a highly enjoyable and entertaining conversation. 

Jem’s website:  www.jemroberts.comand he’s on Twitter @JemRoberts

Our guest this week is podcaster and producer Tilt Araiza, who joins Tyler to talk about Michael Bentine and his ground-breaking television series It’s A Square World.

Written by Bentine and John Law, It’s A Square World ran on the BBC from 1960-64 totalling 57 episodes and was a clear influence on later comedy series, notably Monty Python’s Flying Circus. As well as Bentine the programme featured the likes of Clive Dunn, Frank Thornton, Deryck Guyler, John Bluthal, Benny Lee, Dick Emery, Ronnie Barker and Sherie Winton. It won the Press Prize at the Rose d’Or Festival in Montreux in 1963 and scooped a Light Entertainment BAFTA award the year before.

This week’s show is roughly divided into two parts: the second half mainly focuses on It's A Square World but firstly Tilt & Tyler talk more generally about Bentine’s extraordinary life. 

Having grown up enjoying many of the trappings of privilege his early years were marked by an inability to communicate properly, thanks to some avoidable home-surgery on his tonsils. Later he faced innumerable barriers to entry into the Second World War due to his Peruvian roots and when he finally did enter the services he was almost killed due to a mistake during a routine typhoid vaccination and was in a coma for several weeks. He later recovered and joined Military Intelligence and was among those who helped liberate Bergen-Belsen. 

Despite all this he retained an optimistic, positive disposition and swept away on the currents of his imagination and facility for invention he found success as a comedian and performer in the late nineteen-forties. He met Harry Secombe who in turn introduced him to some friends of his, Spike Milligan and Peter Sellers, and the seeds of The Goon Show were planted.

Bentine would later go on to find fame on television with shows like It’s A Square World and also his childrens’ series such as the much-loved Potty Time in the seventies.

A committed believer in the paranormal he became President of the Association For the Scientific Study of Anomalous Phenomena and somehow found time to sail yachts, shoot, practise archery and go on hovercraft expeditions up the Amazon.

As for It’s A Square World, producer Barry Lupino told the Radio Times in 1961: “It has been called a diversion for the low in brow – but I wonder? The topics are lofty enough. What could be more uplifting than the opening of the Royal Academy?... Nor of course shall we overlook the situation in Volcania, of the effects of children’s television on the adult viewer, and the arrival and departure of distinguished personages in the great metropolis.”

The series also has the distinction of likely producing the first Dr Who parody – with Clive Dunn turning up barely a month after DW began dressed in an unmistakably Hartnellesque fashion.

All this and more is up for discussion in what is likely to be the first of a two part Bentine retrospective (Tilt will return next year).

"Ah, here is is Christmas Eve and still no offers of pantomime!"

One of the best-known Goon Shows ever, Dishonoured - Again went out in January 1959 and before the year was at an end was commercially released (with Tales Of Old Dartmoor) on the LP The Best Of The Goon Shows. It was subsequently repeated more frequently than most Goon Shows and its script was published in a Roger Wilmut book.

A remake (superior in every respect) of a Series 5 episode, due to Spike Milligan and Larry Stephens both being unwell and unable to produce an original script, it positively pops and the cast are clearly having a ball.

Steve Hatcher joins us this week to talk about this very fine episode which somewhat gives the lie to the lazy belief that by this late point in the show's run the team were coasting and looking to their own individual careers and future success.

As well as the episode itself they discuss Harry on stage in Large As Life, Sellers' major film commitments and Spike's rather muddled version of some tragic events.

Released 69 years ago this week, The Cockleshell Heroes was a heavily fictionalised account of the real-life WW2 Operation Frankton, in which a group of marines, headed by Herbert ‘Blondie’ Hasler, covertly entered Bordeaux Harbour in kayaks (or ‘Cockles’) to sabotage German cargo vessels. The film starred actor/director Jose Ferrer and Trevor Howard, with Anthony Newley and… drum roll… DAVID LODGE providing solid support as Marines Clarke & Ruddock respectively.

Although The Cockleshell Heroes was a hit with audiences and looks gorgeous in Technicolour it doesn’t tend to get talked about as much as other similar WW2 films of the period and perhaps this was partly down to the almost anti-climactic third act. However, thanks to shameless plugging by David Lodge on a frequent basis some two decades later as part of Spike Milligan’s Q series the film is still regarded affectionately by some people, particularly listeners to this podcast, and it seemed a nice idea to put it under the scrutinising gaze of your host and his special guest this week.

Joining Tyler is Warren Cummings, host of The Cinematic Sausage podcast and someone with a very direct link to the true events which this film depicts – his grandfather served alongside the ‘Cockleshell Heroes’ in WW2.

It’s a great chat with tons of fascinating factual information about Operation Frankton and how the film reflected the true events, plus there’s a long-deserved tribute to David Lodge, without whom this podcast would be poorer.

2023 is the centenary of Larry Stephens, writer and collaborator with the Goons and Tony Hancock, a unique comedy creator whose life was cruelly cut short in 1959.

To celebrate Larry's contribution to British comedy this year, as part of the Birmingham Comedy Festival, the team who previously breathed new life into the Goon Show by restaging a handful of classic episodes has come back together for one night only to perform two shows which Larry co-wrote with Maurice Wiltshire: The Moriarty Murder Mystery and The Seagoon Memoirs.

Joining Tyler to talk about it all are Richard Usher (Sellers), Jimm Rennie (Secombe) and Mark Earby (Milligan), as well as producer/director Dave Freak and Julie Warren, author of the recent Larry Stephens biography 'It's All In The Mind' - Julie will be holding a Q&A ahead of the shows on Sunday 8th October 2023.

As well as talking about the creative process involved in putting together such a performance, the team talk about Larry's life and his relationship with the Goons and Hancock, including the scripting of a pre-Hancock's Half Hour vehicle for the lad himself: Vacant Lot, performed live in 2017 as part of the Festival.

It promises to be a magnificent show and tickets are on sale now for £15 - please visit Birmingham Comedy Festival presents The Goon Show. (bhamcomfest.co.uk) or phone the box office on 0121 780 3333

If this week’s guest and I were to find ourselves in a post-apocalyptic dystopian wasteland in which only twenty or so people survived, and podcasts didn’t exist anymore, we’d no doubt agree that our lives no longer had any purpose and head off to ask Nurse Marty Feldman for a couple of death certificates. On our way we’d be careful to avoid uxoricidal Shelter Man Harry Secombe, bewhiskered GPO Man Spike Milligan and barber-for-hire (& rubber fetishist) Roy Kinnear. 

Above all we’d make sure to KEEP MOVING!

Yes, this episode Adam from RetroTube joins Tyler to talk about Richard Lester’s big screen adaptation of Milligan and John Antrobus’s acclaimed stage play, surreal Cold War satire The Bed Sitting Room (1969) featuring Milligan, Secombe, Kinnear and Feldman as well as Peter Cook & Dudley Moore, Ralph Richardson, Michael Hordern, Arthur Lowe, Rita Tushingham and Frank Thornton (as “The BBC”)

The Third World War was the shortest war in history at 2 minutes 28 seconds in duration and left 40 million dead but almost everyone left in London is trying to put a brave face on it. Everyone, that is, apart from Lord Fortnum. He’s convinced he’s turning into a bed sitting room. What follows is a bewildering but often hilarious series of events, at times veering off towards some pretty bleak moments. Did Tyler enjoy it? Did Adam? Tune in to find out!

Adam is co-host of the all-conquering RetroTube podcast and can be found on Twitter @retro_tube

Tyler is @goonshowpod

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The British sitcom film of the seventies - doesn't the very mention of the genre make your heart sing?

Sure, there were some stinkers, but this week we're talking about one which we consider to be a fairly successful adaptation: Man About The House from 1974.

Why is this being covered on Goon Pod? Two reasons. Firstly, Spike Milligan is in it, playing himself. Secondly, it's Tyler's podcast and he likes MATH, so there.

Joining him to talk about the film and wander down countless conversational backstreets are three chums: Gary Rodger & Tilt Araiza from The Sitcom Club and Jaffa Cakes For Proust podcasts and Andrew Hickey from A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs.

Among other things they consider John Inman's career down under, speculate as to what exactly happened on George & Mildred's honeymoon and ponder the possibility of Harry Nilsson recording the theme tune to Porridge!

Comedy writer, novelist and Goon Show fan David Quantick is Tyler’s guest this week. With Spike Milligan being one of David’s earliest influences as a writer he was keen to explain how, for him, the Goons had more of an impact than the Pythons and helped sharpen his comic sensibilities, along with the likes of absurdist playwright NF Simpson.

As well as general Goon chat there are conversational meanderings such as: Meeting Spike on Saturday Zoo; the brilliance of Barry Cryer; bringing back Dangermouse; Chris Morris on ‘aardvark comedy’; John Cleese; The Beatles (for a change); David freaking out his mother with his first typewritten script; Sabrina in Stoke Newington and noddin’ along to Val Doonican on Pam & Tony’s old Dansette record player.

Please follow the show on The Twitters @goonshowpod and rate & review on iTunes!

If you are listening to this show on the day it goes out - Wednesday 5th October 2022 - then it is exactly 60 years since the Beatles' first single, Love Me Do, was released*. It's also exactly 50 years to the day since The Last Goon Show Of All was broadcast!

We've previously dedicated a show to the connections between the Beatles & The Goons and an argument could be made that were it not for the Goons the Beatles (as we know them today) may not have existed.

Had an EMI producer named George Martin not made a children's record called Jakka and the Flying Saucers in 1953 with an up-and-coming radio comedian then he may not have gone on to oversee Peter Sellers' (for it was he) subsequent hit comedy LPs at the end of the decade. He also may not have met and worked with Sellers' colleague Spike Milligan, and were it not for Martin's involvement with those two Goons on records which had entertained the teenage Beatles then he may have failed to have impressed them much when he met them in 1962. Things could have been so different...

... Ok, maybe that's a stretch but the importance of George Martin in British - in world - popular culture is undeniable. And without his experience creating those comedy & novelty records in the fifties and early sixties it is possible that much of the Beatles' later work may have lacked the levels of inventiveness and technical complexity that they achieved.

This week Tyler is joined by Andrew Hickey - from the hugely popular podcast A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs - to talk about George Martin and specifically his work with Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan, as well as some of the other records he had a hand in, pre-Beatles.

We talk about The Best of Sellers, Songs For Swinging Sellers, Unchained Melody, You Gotta Go Oww, the Sellers Beatles covers, Milligan Preserved, Bridge On The River Wye, Peter & Sophia and much more!

* We're now as far away from that day as the Beatles were from the funeral of Émile Zola. 

A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs: 500songs.com/

It’s another general chat about the Goons and much else besides with podcaster Martin Holmes this week!

The conversation took so many twists and turns that I confess I got quite giddy but we managed to squeeze into an hour or so’s chat a lot of Goon-related nattering. Martin briefly adopted an Australian accent at one point during a conversation about British sitcoms Down Under and it was so convincing Tyler briefly thought that Paul Hogan himself had walked in the room. The poetry of Milligan has affected us both in different ways and we talk a bit about that as well as Tony Hancock, Associated London Scripts and even, briefly, the 1983 series The Black Adder.

Martin can be heard at Vision On Sound here https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/vision-on-sound/id1535571103 

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Can you believe that for half a century student bars the length and breadth of the land have resounded to the excruciating cries of "Nii!"?

Yes, the film the Spanish call 'The Knights of the Square Table and Their Crazy Followers' turns 50 and to mark the occasion here's a bonus episode with Tyler and writer, podcaster & performer Tom Salinsky in which they talk at length about the film.

Tom thinks that Life of Brian has more to say but Monty Python and the Holy Grail is the most consistently funny of their films, with barely a moment left gagless, from the inspired opening titles to the demonic camp of Tim the Enchanter.

They discuss highlights such as the cartoonish violence of the King Arthur vs Black Knight sequence; Brave Sir Robin and his minstrel Neil Innes; Gilliam the gatekeeper of the Bridge of Death (later rented out to William Friedkin for Sorcerer?); Dennis the mud-ridden firebrand decrying systems of government; Carole Cleveland as Zoot, Mistress of Castle Anthrax; the weakly insipid Prince Herbert and his overbearing dad; the witch trial; Brother Maynard and the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch and, of course, Frank the TV historian who suffers a violent slaying.

Tom also talks of his love for the LP and compares the film to the script book – whither Brian the Wild from the final cut? – and reveals that parts of the original script were later repurposed for the fourth series of Monty Python. He also touches on Spamalot and springing from that there’s an interesting overview of the recent Dr Strangelove production starring Steve Coogan.

Also: the coconuts for horses gag – A Show Called Fred got there first! So that ticks the box marked 'Goon Content'!

Tom is co-host of Best Pick podcast: https://bestpickpod.com/

This week's guest is John Williams, who joins Tyler to examine a couple of classic telly interviews from the seventies hosted by Barnsley's favourite son Michael Parkinson.

In 1972, fresh from their triumphant return in The Last Goon Show Of All, Harry Secombe and Peter Sellers joined Michael Parkinson for a special show, with Spike Milligan on VT and Ray Ellington providing the music. A couple of years later, shortly before his big comeback as an international superstar via The Return of the Pink Panther, Sellers joined Parky again and chatted about his life and career for over an hour. Both shows were subsequently issued on LP and are considered among the very best of Parkinson's interviews.

In this week's podcast we discuss:

* The many iterations of the solo Sellers show: the original broadcast was 1974, with an edited tribute repeat in 1980, a further truncated repeat in 1996 and the LP version. Does the original still exist?

* The ubiquitous German army helmet

* Sellers' list of ex-wives

* Warrington Minge

* Harry Secombe's nervous energy

* Fred Roper and his Midgets

* The Spirella Corset Factory

* Ghostwatch!

* Sellers' childhood touring the theatres

* Spike in Australia

* "I seen him! I seen him!"

* Impersonating officers in the army mess

* Michael Caine

* Who else appeared with Parky on the cover of Band On The Run

* The Goon Show Scripts

* Derek & Clive

* Thora Hird

... And much much more!

It is June 1970. Ted Heath is days away from becoming British Prime Minister. Mungo Jerry are riding high at the top of the charts. And popular television personality Simon Dee's career is just about to collapse in a spectacular fashion.

How ironic then that Dee should co-star in the film we're discussing this week, playing a popular television personality!

Doctor In Trouble was the last of the Doctor film series, which by 1970 had fully committed to aping the Carry Ons. As well as Dee, Harry Secombe is one of the principle cast, and the star is Leslie Phillips playing Dr Tony Burke, who somehow manages to stow away on a luxury cruise liner and spends much of the voyage trying to evade the clutches of Master-At Arms-Freddie Jones!

Oh, and Robert Morley's in it too.

Secombe is brilliant, as you would expect, and Dee (although not given a huge amount to do) puts in a fairly creditable performance. Leslie Phillips is, well, Leslie Phillips and how did we forget to mention that the peerless Irene Handl pops up too?

Joining Tyler this week is writer, director and actor John Hewer. John has been behind some tributes to and revivals of classic British comedy performers and shows, including The Bed Sitting Room, Tommy Cooper and Steptoe & Son.

They talk about the history of the Doctor series, the sad decline of James Robertson-Justice, the rise and fall of Simon Dee, problematic gay stereotypes from around this period, seventies posh nosh and consider the prospect of a nude Welshman on the film set!

You'll really dig it!

"... Sellers is very funny. Unfortunately, the movie’s general approach to hippiedom is what we’ve come to dread. Hippies wear funny clothes, sleep on the stove, don’t wash, read the Los Angeles Free Press, bake pot brownies, put up posters everywhere and operate with a sort of mindless, directionless love ethic. So the movie becomes conventional after all. If they’d dropped Sellers into a real hippie culture, we might really have had a movie here." (Roger Ebert, 1968)

Despite the misgivings of the exalted Mr Ebert, I Love You Alice B. Toklas is a pretty good film generally. This week's guest, the writer John Williams, and Tyler both had fun watching it and talking about it, and were particularly impressed by Peter Sellers' winning turn as lawyer Harold Fine who undergoes a mid-life crisis and embraces the patchouli-scented hippy lifestyle.

With solid support from the likes of Joyce Van Patten and Leigh Taylor-Young, the film is a fine showcase for Sellers' talents and despite dated fashions more or less holds up. So turn on, tune in, drop out and enjoy Goon Pod this week!

"Excuse me, what is the price of sliced ham per portion?"

And so this enigmatic enquiry opens the first episode of Series 7 of The Goon Show - and to launch the new series of Goon Pod Graeme Lindsay-Foot returns to talk about it!

Broadcast in October 1956 as the situation in Suez was worsening, it was a busy period for the Goons - The Ying Tong Song was riding high in the Hit Parade, Son Of Fred was showing on ITV and Harry had a song in the charts. Producer Pat Dixon was too busy to helm the first couple of episodes of the new series so former producer Peter Eton agreed to briefly return. There were also tensions between co-writer Larry Stephens and the BBC.

As well as discussing this and the show itself, Graeme & Tyler touch on Morecambe & Wise, Bob Dylan, Little & Large, George Harrison, Anita West and others!

Plus: Goons in rehearsal, Bentine vs Dawson and the best Goons theme tune!

This week writer and journalist David Quantick on Ned's Atomic Dustbin.

As someone who spent time with the band while writing for the NME and a former member of the GSPS, David was the ideal person to tackle NAD.

The band took their name from a Goon Show episode, with band member Jonn Penney suggesting it after flicking through the More Goon Show Scripts book.

The Goon Show itself was from the 9th Series in 1959 and contained vague Cold War themes as well as digs at BBC censorship and notably featured the debut of the Radiophonic Workshop-devised sound effect Bloodnok's Stomach.

The conversation veers from the indie music scene of the early nineties to a joke about a talking dog and John Snagge working with the Sex Pistols.

We also touch on 'terrible band names', Spike Milligan's complicated attitude to racial depictions in comedy, about Peter Sellers possibly inspiring Peter Cook with a thinly-veiled Harold Macmillan impression and consider whether the scripting of this particular episode was Spike 'on autopilot'.

You can listen to the Goon Show episode Ned's Atomic Dustbin here: https://open.spotify.com/track/6pGHhb9SLNeBoy20AMTg9L

More about the band here: http://www.nedsatomicdustbin.com/

David is on Twitter @quantick and follow the podcast @goonshowpod

It's 50 years since Spike Milligan recorded an LP version of his children's story Badjelly the Witch, with music by Ed Welch.

The story is simple and hilarious. Two children, Tim & Rose, go in search of their lost cow Lucy and along the way have adventures with characters such as Binklebonk the tree goblin and his grasshopper Silly Sausage, Mudwiggle the worm and Dinglemouse, a former banana. Peril is just around the corner however, as they are captured by the terrifying witch Badjelly who wants to eat them up for breakfast!

The record was a huge hit with kids in New Zealand, thanks to radio broadcasts in the seventies and eighties, and even today the mere mention of the name 'Badjelly' will elicit broad grins of recognition across generations, yet oddly it barely registers with people in Britain.

Hoping to put this right is cartoonist and writer Roger Langridge (who also designed this week's delightful artwork) who chats to Tyler about the history of Badjelly and shares favourite moments.

There's also a lovely return visit from Jane Milligan who talks warmly about the baddest witch in all the world and hints at what the future holds.

In 1977 BBC Records released Goon Show Classics Volume 4. It became one of their biggest sellers and no wonder: on the A-side was the episode considered the greatest Goon Show of all time (as voted for by people of impeccable taste, breeding and judgement - Goon Pod listeners) - Napoleon's Piano; on the B-side was the show we're talking about today: The Flea.

You heard her back in January talking about The Greenslade Story and back by popular demand is Donna Rees, trying to get her head around the plot of this stone cold classic from December 1956 set in 1665. Samuel Pepys, never one to pass up the opportunity to sport with Mrs Fitzsimmons, is the target of a dastardly ruse by Grytpype-Thynne and Count Jim 'Thighs' Moriarty (Minister Without Underpants to the Principality of Monte Carlo), who claims to have been bitten by a flea while lodging with Pepys. With Pepys being sued for damages and the prospect of war, the guilty flea, a lively fellow named Francois, is detained in a prison cell and guarded over by a formidable duo - Eccles and Bluebottle. However, they are easily overpowered by the villains and with a daring switcheroo the nationwide hunt for the fugitive flea is soon on!

As well as discussing the show itself other topics include Tony Hancock in The Man Who Could Work Miracles, Charlie Brown and a football, the genius of Peter Cook and a whole lot more... and remember: You Gotta Go Owww!

A darkly comic satire about an increasingly deranged leader of a Western power, tensions with Russia and the threat of World War 3 breaking out – sound familiar? That’s the premise of Whoops Apocalypse, the 1986 feature film very loosely based on the sitcom of the same name, created by David Renwick and Andrew Marshall. Sadly where the film fails to imitate real life is the presence of a female President in the White House and she’s the (relatively) sane one, while her British counterpart (played by Peter Cook) believes unemployment is caused by pixies and is quite happy to encourage those without jobs to leap to their deaths off Beachy Head. The film also features Loretta Swit (M*A*S*H), Richard Wilson, Michael Richards (pre-Seinfeld), Rik Mayall, Alexei Sayle, Ian Richardson, Herbert Lom and John Sessions.

Last December for Goon Pod Film Club Tyler spoke to Renwick & Marshall at length about Whoops Apocalypse and how it all came about and he decided to share it with the general Goon Pod listeners as a bonus episode before world events rendered its plot totally tame and entirely plausible. Andrew and David talked warmly about the film and revealed how it was chiefly the lousy scheduling of their earlier television show End Of Part One which compelled them to write the Whoops Apocalypse sitcom, which in turn led to producer Brian Eastman proposing a big-screen repurposing, involving a new storyline and characters. They discussed the writing process, the challenges of casting, the difference between what made critics laugh and audiences laugh and things they wish had worked a little bit better.

Goon Pod returns in late March. Goon Pod Film Club can be found here: patreon.com/GoonPod and you can sign up free for a seven day trial. Shows include Kind Hearts & Coronets, A Hard Days Night, Bedazzled (1967), Monty Python & The Holy Grail, Guest House Paradiso (aka the ‘Bottom movie’),Carry On Screaming, Billy Liar and, most recently, It’s Trad Dad.

"Things had been going too smoothly to continue as they were. It really was time we had another bout of applied chaos."

In 1971 Spike Milligan published the first volume of his war memoirs: Adolf Hitler - My Part In His Downfall. The preface to it anticipates that it would be the first of a trilogy; in actual fact six further books were written over the next twenty years. Although AHMPIHD is shot through with Milligan's trademark humour there are moments of sadness and melancholy. Milligan writes: "There were the deaths of some of my friends, and therefore, no matter how funny I tried to make this book, that will always be at the back of my mind: but, were they alive today, they would have been the first to join in the laughter, and that laughter was, I'm sure, the key to victory."

Joining Tyler to talk about this wonderful book is Walter Dunlop and together they tease out the highlights, including:

• Commanding Office 'Leather Suitcase'
• 'Postern blasts'
• Gunner Naze and the high jump
• Throwing a brick at the enemy
• Putting up a tent
• The unique way the soldiers kept their boots soft and supple
• Chamberlain doing Prime Minister impressions on the wireless
• 'Jankers'
• The sheer artistry of Gunner Plunger Bailey
• The faint stirrings of the Goon Show as Spike collaborates with Harry Edgington
• Playing jazz to keep sane
• And, of course, the BLOODY AWFUL Warsaw Concerto

They also examine how the war informed Spike's worldview and subsequent career. If the war hadn't occurred, would we be talking about Spike Milligan today?

Adolf Hitler: My Part In His Downfall remained one of Milligan's proudest endeavours and as he wrote to his friend Robert Graves: "... It sold 30,000 copies and it had to reprint almost at once. I can't tell you how good it feels, for a person whose education ended at 14, to be a bestseller."

In the wake of Storm Eunice a special fun-filled BONUS episode to listen along to as you pick up your roof slates off the lawn and extract next door’s cat from the trellis!

Tyler talks with actor John Dagleish, who is currently wowing audiences as the eponymous Spike in Ian Hislop & Nick Newman’s new play which is enjoying packed houses at the Watermill Theatre in Newbury (on until 5th March so book soon!)

As listeners to last month’s Nick Newman episode will know, ‘Spike’ explores Spike Milligan’s often fractious relationship with the BBC during the height of his Goon Show fame. John talks about the challenge of bringing such a complex and multifaceted character to life on the stage, discovering the Goon Show as a child, learning to master a tricky musical instrument for the role, the joy of working alongside such talented fellow performers as Jeremy Lloyd, George Kemp and Margaret Cabourn-Smith, and even throws in a funny voice or two. We also discuss his Olivier Award-winning role as Kinks frontman Ray Davies in the hit show Sunny Afternoon and John draws some comparisons between playing Ray & Spike.

Normal service (no pun intended) will be resumed on Wednesday with special guest Henry Normal talking about his love of the Goons, Spike and in particular Spike’s poetry.

Details about ‘Spike’ here: https://www.watermill.org.uk/spike

A special Christmas bonus edition! As part of Goon Pod Film Club - www.patreon.com/GoonPod - every month Tyler and a special guest discuss a British comedy film and in August this year Tim Worthington came to talk about his favourite: Billy Liar from 1963. Here's the full episode for Goon Pod listeners to get a taste.

As you’d expect from Tim the conversation takes many twists and turns – as well as analysing the film itself, its themes and ideas, its stars, its production, its position in the pantheon of British New Wave cinema, there are also nods aplenty towards popular culture connected with the film, including Ken Russell, the Four Yorkshiremen sketch and Saint Etienne!

Tom Courtenay is the titular Billy Liar, or, more accurately, William Fisher, a grammar school boy on a scholarship from a working class environment who finds himself constantly at odds with distant parents, girlfriends expecting greater commitment, a mocking colleague and a rather foolish boss. He is a provincial dreamer with aspirations to better himself but is somewhat lacking the drive. Prone to lapsing into fantasies in which he is a big wheel in a fictional state called Ambrosia, Billy’s doing a job he hates working as a clerk in a funeral directors firm. However, he almost finds a way out of it all,  a chance to escape and spread his wings and soar, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to shake off the cloying ordinariness of his Northern town and leave it all behind.

Other films covered on GPFC this year include A Hard Days Night, Carry On Screaming and Guest House Paradiso!

For a free 7-day trial of Goon Pod Film Club head over to patreon.com/GoonPod

Roger McGough, John Gorman and Mike McCartney first performed together sixty years ago and very quickly found fame and success as The Scaffold, combining comedy, poetry and music. With Top 10 singles (including a Number One with Lily The Pink in 1968), a slew of acclaimed live shows, albums, television appearances and collaborations with the likes of the Bonzos (as Grimms), The Scaffold proved to be a unique creative force who could count the Queen Mum and Harold Wilson among their fans. 

They've reunited for a special show in October at the Everyman Theatre in Liverpool: An Audience With The Scaffold (more details at: An Audience with The Scaffold | Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse theatres (everymanplayhouse.com) )

Like many of their peers and contemporaries they were influenced by The Goons and were happy to talk about growing up listening to the show as well as later encounters with Spike Milligan. 

We also discover how they first got on TV, why Mike's name went through a few variations, beating Richard Burton to the bar, hobnobbing with Royalty and an explosive evening with Vivian Stanshall. 

Also: memories of working with Graham Nash, Jack Bruce and Elton John and the time Mike had to give musical direction to Jimi Hendrix!

All this and much more!

Exactly two weeks before his first encounter with the band which was to change his life, producer George Martin, assisted by Stuart Eltham, recorded a parody of the 1957 film The Bridge On The River Kwai at EMI Studios in London. Featuring the vocal talents of Peter Sellers, Spike Milligan, Peter Cook, Jonathan Miller and an uncredited Dudley Moore, Bridge On The River Wye was released on LP in November 1962.

The script was a revised and expanded episode of a Goon Show which had been broadcast in late 1957, 'African Incident'.

Bringing together the hottest young satirists of the moment with two men who had been such an indelible influence upon them was a stroke of genius and their producer - Martin - was largely instrumental in making everything happen. Up to this point in his career he was well known for comedy and novelty records and it's highly possible he would have continued down this path had the fates not conspired to have him meet and agree to record the Beatles, however reluctantly at first.

Writer Jason Kruppa, host of the Producing The Beatles podcast, joins Tyler to talk about the creation of the LP, drawing on documentation derived from EMI vaults and other information provided by the likes of Mark Lewisohn.

https://www.producingthebeatles.com/

"All trams have been melted down and made into melted-down trams."

In 1952 London's last tram rolled into the depot. Two years later the Goons decided to mark the occasion with a show - better late than never!

At the London Pleasure Transport Board, Redundant Tram Department, Inspector Ned Seagoon receives a phone call informing him that there’s still a tram at large on the Highgate-Kingsway route, and, indeed, the tram map still has one flag pin stuck in it, for a number 33.

Driver Henry Crun refuses to move the tram unless he is afforded a proper last tram ceremony. Seagoon has to negotiate with the corrupt Chairman of the Country & Town Planning Society who agrees to the ceremony, but on the cheap.

Writing was credited to Spike Milligan & Eric Sykes but it seems fairly certain Eric took the lion's share of work that week.

The Last Tram (from Clapham) is a real gem of a Goon Show - well structured, well-paced, with some interesting one-off characters, a nice pay-off and the odd unusual choice of sound effect (such as the otherworldly harp).

Joining Tyler to talk about it is our Welsh-language correspondent from Down Under, Andy Bell!

As well as chatting about the show they discuss Britain's Rudest Man, the length of Alan Ladd, the Telegoons version of the show, Spike in Australia, the history of London's tram network and... Menace Strain Bullshine?

Andy can be found on Twitter/X: @obelloz

The Goons made China Story twice: once as part of the fifth series and a year or so later as part of The National Radio Show at Earls Court. It was producer Peter Eton's favourite show and a Spike Milligan/Eric Sykes collaboration although exactly who had the lion's share is unclear - probably Spike but Eric must have had a hand in the overall structure. 

It's a firm fan favourite, despite perhaps a number of 'of it's time' moments! 

Notable for the memorable appearance(s) by Adolphus Spriggs, a frustrated balladeer, whose attempts to earn some coin by singing I'm Only A Strolling Vagabond are doomed to failure, it also contains one of the show's greatest sound gags of all time.

Joining Tyler this week to talk about both versions of the show is Roger Stevenson, who among other things raises a very interesting point about Spike's generosity with gags. 

It was a fun conversation. Enjoy!

Chris Diamond returns once again to examine one of Peter Sellers' most beloved earlier films, the 1957 Basil Dearden-directed The Smallest Show On Earth. As well as Sellers the film features winning turns from Margaret Rutherford, Bernard Miles and Francis De Wolff, with stolid support from the film's nominal stars, husband and wife Bill Travers and Virginia McKenna.

Matthew & Jean Spenser inherit a crumbling old cinema - The Bijou Kinema (aka 'the fleapit') - and as well as the fixtures and fittings soon discover that they've also inherited a trio of elderly, shambling staff: Mrs Fazackalee (Rutherford), the cinema's cashier, bookkeeper and pit pianist; Mr Percy Quill (Sellers), a projectionist with a powerful thirst; and Old Tom (Miles), whose exact role is undefined but encompasses general caretaker and commissionaire duties.

Meanwhile Mr Hardcastle (De Wolff), the owner of The Grand (the town's other cinema which far outclasses the Bijou in terms of size and sophistication), offers the couple a derisory sum to sell the Bijou to him so he can knock it down for a carpark. The Spensers decide to attempt to run the fleapit as a going concern, hoping this will persuade Hardcastle to up his offer.

It's a wonderfully warm film with particularly delightful turns from Sellers and Rutherford and a rather surprising ending.

Chris and Tyler talked so much that it's been split into two halves (part two next week) - in this first part we establish the characters, talk about the gradual decline in cinema attendance at the time, our memories of going to the pictures as kids and even spend a fair chunk talking about a different Sellers film: Heaven's Above!

Who were the key figures in getting the Goon Show to radio? Which people were pivotal to the Goons' success? Join Tyler and Roger Stevenson as they rank those within the Goon Show's orbit in order of importance and show their working.

Roger took the brief seriously and put a lot of thought and care into his choices; Tyler slightly misunderstood the brief and went more down that 'Who was the Fifth Goon?' route. What resulted was an interesting mix of names, and increasingly desperate attempts by Tyler to justify his ranking system.

Among the names bandied about are such worthies as Dennis Main Wilson, Valentine Dyall, Jimmy Grafton, Larry Stephens, Dick Emery and John Snagge.

Comedy writer Andrew Marshall is this week's special guest. Andrew, along with former writing partner (and Goon Pod guest) David Renwick, wrote for Spike Milligan in the eighties but is perhaps best known for the television programmes 2.4 Children, Alexei Sayle's Stuff, Whoops Apocalypse (and its film spinoff), Hot Metal and The Burkiss Way for radio. More recently he and Rob Grant have created the Quanderhorn series for Radio 4.

He talks about the relationship he and David developed with Spike and what influence Milligan has had on him. Having sold his first comedy idea at a very early age, Andrew has barely stopped working and we discuss many of the best-known (and some lesser-remembered) projects he's been attached to.

Andrew talks about the sheer joy he experienced making Alexei Sayle's Stuff, the relative freedom he was given to make 2.4 Children and the challenges he, cast and crew faced making Health & Efficiency in the early nineties.

He also acknowledges his own unwitting contribution to the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy universe, his friendships with both Douglas Adams and John Lloyd and speaks at length about his working relationship with David Renwick.

And fans of the film Wilt will be pleased to hear that we talk about that too!

"I remember he once castigated me for picking up a wine bottle by its neck."

That's David Renwick talking about dining out with Spike Milligan, and in the early eighties Renwick, along with his regular writing partner Andrew Marshall, worked on Spike's 'Q10-by-another-name' There's A Lot Of It About. 

David joins Tyler this week to talk about Spike the man, the comic, the creative juggernaut, and how to a certain extent the incorrigible Milligan acted as a sort of self-appointed patron to the two younger writers. 

That said, by this point in their careers they were well on the way to becoming household-name comedy writers with hit shows such as The Burkiss Way on the radio and End Of Part One on television, and Whoops Apocalypse just around the corner. David also had regular writing responsibilities on other shows, notably The Two Ronnies, and within a few years Renwick and Marshall would be the driving forces behind shows such as Alexei Sayle's Stuff. 

However, it is for two major series in the 1990s (and into the 2000s) that David Renwick is best known: One Foot In The Grave and Jonathan Creek.

As well as discussing Milligan, David talked at length about other aspects of his career, in particular One Foot In The Grave (including an explanation as to how the series is shot through with Neil Simon's creative DNA), as well as his early comedy influences, attending recordings of I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again and Monty Python's Flying Circus (and is it any wonder that Tim Brooke-Taylor from the former and Eric Idle from the latter were both involved with One Foot In The Grave?), his short-lived career as a journalist on a local newspaper, writing for Mike Yarwood, Bruce Forsyth's Big Night, working with David Jason again in the 2010s on the radio show Desolation Jests and... Bill Cosby. 

Tyler's only regret? That he forgot to ask about *that* episode of Father Ted.

"One small brown pot containing... another small brown pot."

With its memorable cover, photographed by Angus McBean and voted Number 25 in the NME's list of Genuinely Disturbing Record Sleeves, Milligan Preserved was released in late 1961 and featured a series of songs and sketches written and performed by Spike Milligan, with assistance from the likes of Valentine Dyall and Graham Stark.

It was produced by George Martin and as such our guest this week is Jason Kruppa, host of Producing The Beatles podcast. Jason is a big fan of the record and shares a lot of interesting background information.

The LP includes three tunes which were originally featured in Goon Show episodes – interestingly, all were shows from Series 8 and all were broadcast between January & February 1958.

There's also some joyful flights of nonsense such as Another Lot, Word Power and Underneath It All (coming to you live from a nudist colony) and aside from the occasional jarring note (we're looking at YOU, Hit Parade!) the album stands the test of time.

All together now! "Sideways, through the sewers of the Strand..."

Recipe for a riotous sixties romp? Take two aging thespians, mix in a dozen dependable character actors, add three or four comic geniuses to bind it all together and season with a generous pinch of psychedelic Victoriana. Top it off with a rising young star and the director's wife and the result is a complex confection full of surprises which the whole family can enjoy!

Joining Tyler this week is writer, podcaster and occasional broadcaster Tim Worthington to talk about a film which he (rightly) argues is unfairly underappreciated: Bryan Forbes' 1966 ensemble comedy The Wrong Box.

It qualifies for this podcast owing to a film-stealing turn by Peter Sellers as Doctor Pratt, but he is only one of many delights - it also features Peter Cook & Dudley Moore as a pair of hissable villains, Wilfrid Lawson as a butler on the verge of collapse, Michael Caine as the dashing, if naive, romantic lead, Tony Hancock as a rheumy-eyed troubled 'tec and Ralph Richardson as an increasingly erratic epistemophilic uncle! Also in 'blink-and-you'll-miss-'em' terms, Valentine Dyall, John Junkin, Leonard Rossiter and Graham Stark! (Graham Stark appears by kind permission of Mr Sellers). And, of course, the Lovely Nanette Newman as Miss Julia Finsbury.

It's a fun, rambling conversation which, like the film itself, takes a lot of surprising turns!

Tim is on Twitter @outonbluesix 

Mesel': @goonshowpod 

We Need To Talk About Larry: In this episode the special guest is Julie Warren, author of the wonderful new book It's All In the Mind - The Life & Legacy of Larry Stephens. 

We talk about the man who was one of the most important figures in helping shape and develop the Goons, as well as being a close friend and collaborator of Tony Hancock. Stephens was of the hardest-working comedy scriptwriters in the country, writing also for television (notably The Army Game) yet he has all but been forgotten as one of the leading creative forces in British radio comedy. 

We discuss Larry's often eventful and never dull relationship with Spike Milligan, his close friendship with Hancock and Peter Sellers, the many struggles he faced in terms of receiving credit where it was due and some of the shows he worked on (including the infamous UFO show), as well as examining Larry's comedy writing style, his early life, wartime experiences and his tragically early death in 1959.

It's a fascinating and illuminating conversation and one which any serious radio comedy enthusiast should download and listen to immediately!

Sean Gaffney returns to talk about a favourite Goon Show episode from 1956 - Six Charlies In Search Of An Author, loosely based on a play by Fred Pirandello.

Was it a cry for help from Spike? A thinly-veiled portrait of a man whose life was beset by the weekly demand for a funny script, pouring scorn and contempt upon the very characters he created? Or was it just a neat idea for a particularly shambolic (and funny) episode?

We shall see.

Plus: an AI-generated 80,000-word examination of Series 7 of The Goon Show which leaves a LOT to be desired!

Mark Cousins returns to look again at the radio career of Peter Sellers, this time concentrating on the 1950s and largely eschewing his Goon Show activity.

Sellers was constantly in demand, and nowhere more so than on the wireless; indeed, it wasn't until the latter half of the decade that he began to wind down his appearances behind the microphone and focus more on the silver screen.

He more or less abandoned radio completely as the sixties dawned, apart from interviews or promotional appearances - and the odd thing like The Last Goon Show of All.

Hear Mark talk about some forgotten - and mostly lost - radio series in which Sellers cropped up such as Finkel's Cafe, Curiouser & Curiouser, Paradise Street, Happy Holidays, Ted Ray Time, Me And My Shadows and many more!

"Who would have suspected him? I mean, nobody ever noticed him. I never did."

In 1969 Canadian director Alvin Rakoff directed a big screen version of his successful television play Call Me Daddy, which had starred Donald Pleasance and Judy 'Keeping Up Appearances' Cornwell. Now renamed Hoffman, the film starred Peter Sellers and newcomer Sinead Cusack. Benjamin Hoffman, a manager at a cigarette company, blackmails one of the office girls into staying with him at his flat for a week. His intentions are never wholly made explicit but Janet Smith (Cusack) has a pretty good idea and very reluctantly agrees. As the days go by very gradually the power dynamic shifts and we come to recognise Hoffman for what he really is: a rather sad, pathetic figure.

Sellers famously hated this film, or didn't hate this film, depending on who you spoke to - but in any case he saw in the character of Hoffman too many traits which sat uncomfortably close to home. Some good did come out of it, in a way - he enjoyed a brief romance with Cusack which ended almost as soon as it began. And the film is quite absorbing, even if some of the content and themes are problematic when viewed from a 21st century perspective.

It is pretty much a two-hander (the supporting cast, including Jeremy Bulloch and David Lodge, don't get much to do) and hardly full of belly laughs but is amusing enough in its own way.

Joining Tyler to talk about it is actor Patrick Strain and among the many questions raised is "Could you make it today?"

Patrick was introduced to Sellers' film work via three relatively cosy black & white British comedies and then this film - QUITE the gear change! As he explains, it's a film he's fond of as much for the history and background of its production as for the finished product.

The film was recently released on blu-ray with oodles of extra features including an essay by former Goon Pod guest and host of Smersh Pod John Rain.

A chaotic naval lieutenant, who cannot be discharged due to his connections, is transferred from the Admiralty to a mothballed destroyer whose crew is running dodgy Bilko-esque money-making schemes.

David Tomlinson stars as Lt Fairweather and Peter Sellers, with a whiskery Irish brogue, plays Chief Petty Officer Doherty.

Returning guest Graham Rinaldi discusses Val Guest's 1958 comic romp - does it still hold water after all these years?

October 2023 marks the 60th anniversary of the first broadcast of The Telegoons, a television spin-off of The Goon Show which ran for two series and 26 episodes between 1963 and 1964.

Each fifteen-minute show was adapted by Maurice Wiltshire from an earlier Goon Show episode, many of which were firm fan favourites such as Napoleon's Piano, The Canal and Lurgi Strikes Britain, with new soundtracks specially recorded by Spike Milligan, Harry Secombe and, straight off Dr Strangelove, Peter Sellers.

This week's special guest is Alastair Roxburgh, and few know more about The Telegoons than him - having first viewed them via a grainy 1964 New Zealand television screen they became a lifelong passion and he has done a huge amount to keep the memory alive (see his website: http://roxburgh.org/telegoons/index2.htm)

Alastair talks about the origins of the series, the technical challenges, the people behind the puppets and much more.

The Telegoons have come in for a bit of stick due to many Goon Show fans complaining that trying to realise the characters and situations from a series which fully exploited the limitations - and possibilities - of radio was doomed to failure, sentiments reinforced by the pretty poor copies of the show which did the rounds for years.

However, as Alastair argues, The Telegoons should not be compared to the show whence loins it sprang but judged as a television programme in its own right - and if somehow it could emerge blinking into the sunlight from the bowels of Copyright Hell and warrant a decent HD restoration and DVD/blu ray release it would surely be time for a reappraisal and who knows? A Telegoons Renaissance perhaps!

"Let those undisciplined sprites, The Goons, do their worst - he, Wallace Greenslade, will be true to BBC traditions!"

Officially voted listeners' second favourite Goon Show episode of all time, The Greenslade Story is a love letter to the Goons' beloved announcer, 'The Massive Greenslade' (as a colleague nicknamed him) who joined the show in 1953 and stayed with it right to the end in 1960. Big in every sense, Wal fitted right into the show and had no qualms about joining in, often playing odd characters as the script required alongside his official announcer responsibilities.

Joining Tyler to talk about this wonderful show is Donna Rees and the pair had a great time talking all things Greenslade! 

Also: Sellers' vocal fireworks; why they remade The Pevensey Bay Disaster on the same night; Irene Handl swearing; Ray Ellington barking; some Eccles continuity; Wallace in chains; the Coventry disaster; whatever happened to Morecambe & Wise?.... and Stanley Unwin.

This week Tyler is joined by the delightful Katy Secombe, who talks warmly about her dad Harry and reveals what it was like growing up as the daughter of a Goon.

They discuss Harry's career and family life: how he met Katy's mum Myra under rather inauspicious circumstances; his alter-ego Neddie Seagoon; health issues in the 1980s; his relationship with the other Goons and various leading figures of British light entertainment; his general disapproval of boyfriends; female admirers; occasional 'darker' roles and much more!

What comes across is a portrait of a man blessed with an incredible talent but also given of tremendous warmth and generosity of spirit.

Timed to go out exactly a month too late for Halloween, this week’s episode details the saga of the dread Spectre of Tintagel and joining your genial host is another ex-pat Kiwi now living in Blighty – cartoonist and comic book writer Roger Langridge.

The Spectre of Tintagel is not one of the better-remembered Goon Shows yet it remains powerfully atmospheric (well, as atmospheric as a Goon Show can get!) with some wonderful twists and turns and a winning performance by Mr. Valentine Dyall, AKA The Man In Black, as ‘The Butler’.

Join Tyler and Roger as they talk about growing up listening to Badjelly the Witch, Roger reminisces about ‘unlocking the Goon Show code’ and seeing Spike on stage in the early 80s, as well as Liberace laughing all the way to the bank, the unworkability of a notional Goon Show cartoon series, subverting catchphrases and, er, Roger’s feelings about the musical numbers (Paddington hard stare)

Check out Roger’s work here: http://hotelfred.blogspot.com/

Please follow on Twitter @goonshowpod and @hotelfred (spot the GS reference folks!)

Joining the pod this episode is Barnaby Eaton-Jones – celebrated writer, producer and actor – to talk about the much lauded and garlanded audio drama There Used To Be A Me, starring the mighty Alfred Molina as Peter Sellers, Peter Sellers and Peter Sellers (and, er, Peter Sellers). Written by Ian Billings and directed by Barnaby it is a rambunctious and at times moving reimagining of the life and inner thoughts of the former Goon as he contemplates his mortality.

Along the way Barnaby talks about his rather short-lived stint as an ersatz Harry Secombe, his triumphal revival of I’m Sorry I’ll Read That Again and audio releases including the return of The Goodies and some up-to-the-minute breaking news about Chelmsford 123! Plus much more besides!

There Used To Be A Me: Peter Sellers is available in most places you get audio books but maybe try these guys because I think they need the business: https://www.amazon.co.uk/There-Used-Be-Me-Sellers/dp/B095XHZ531

We’re on a slightly more literary tip this week as actor, composer & voiceover artist (and YouTube sensation!) Darrell Maclaine steps into the pod to talk about growing up on a steady diet of Spike, such as A Book of Milliganimals and his books & poetry in general, and how it helped him ignore his draughty portacabin classroom & nurtured his comedy sensibilities. He also talks about Spike the man and how he perceived him as a child of the nineties.

There’s also a chance to hear Darrell’s stirring clarion call for the preservation and championing of the past, which is in part a demand that our cultural heritage not be easily dismissed because it’s ‘old’ - a rousing declamation which I’m sure will swell in the breast of every dedicated tapehead, archive enthusiast and listener to this podcast.

All this and much more!

Check out Darrell’s wildly inventive and eerily convincing videos – TV Themes Go Pop! – here: https://www.youtube.com/c/darrellmaclaine

This week Tyler talks to voice actor and restorer Keith Wickham about his history with the Goons, about a show he has produced for Radio 4 called Raiders of the Lost Archive (which is being broadcast the day after this podcast goes out, on the 13th October) and a recently discovered Hancock's Half Hour featuring Peter Sellers. 

One of this country's most in-demand voice artists, Keith discovered Sellers at a tender age thanks to an indulgent schoolteacher and was immediately hooked. He soon abandoned his ambition to become a surgeon to focus on comedy and he recounts visits to watch classic radio comedy series being recorded, including I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue and Just A Minute. 

He also developed an interest and talent for restoring radio shows, and as well as The Goon Show one of his proudest achievements in this field has been the complete I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again. He talks about collaborating with people like Ted Kendall, Richard Harrison and Steve Arnold and how he went about sourcing material - old tapes, discs etc - and the challenges he faced. 

Raiders of the Lost Archive tells the story of the audio engineers, enthusiasts and hobbyists who have spent years tracking down lost radio shows, dusting them off, cleaning them up and releasing them back into the world. Of particular note is the recently unearthed Hancock's Half Hour episode 'The Marriage Bureau', long thought lost forever, which featured Peter Sellers in a one-off appearance standing in for Kenneth Williams. 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001cxx2

This week we remove our legs from the vulgar gaze of public and refuse to have a haircut as we pay tribute to the quite wonderful Michael Bentine’s Potty Time!

First there was the Goon Show, then The Bumblies, then It’s A Square World and then, erm, Rentadick, but after that there was Michael Bentine’s Potty Time which enchanted children and adults alike in the 1970s with Potty adaptations of classic works of literature and famous events from history.

Guesting on the show this week are Andrew Trowbridge and Lisa Parker, hosts of the ever-popular retro television podcast Round The Archives, who joined Tyler (who’s actually seen episodes of The Gnomes of Dulwich on New Zealand TV don’t you know) with tales to tell of Potty Time and the semi-Peruvian polymath.

Please follow on the Twitters @goonshowpod – Lisa and Andrew can be found @lisacartman and @Roundthearchiv1

Well, we know what it is, we know who done it but for heaven’s sake tell us where it is!

This episode of Goon Pod we’re joined by Scott from the Reel Britannia & Talking Pictures podcasts (among others) to cast an ear over the Series 9 episode ‘I Was Monty’s Treble’ which is a near as damn it faithful scene-by-scene tribute to the 1958 John Mills feature film I Was Monty’s Double (not really!)

Along the way we discover just what the Goons mean to Scott and how Adrian Juste changed his life!

What we cannot promise is an answer to the burning question of the moment: Who is Eccles? 

Returning guest Sean Gaffney is back to talk about the Series 9 opener The Sahara Desert Statue - the one about what would happen if a nude Welshman holding a rice pudding in the middle of the desert got hit by an atom bomb. 

We talk a great deal about the events and circumstances leading up to the beginning of Series 9 and how it almost didn't get made. Spike Milligan was in Australia issuing demands to the BBC, Peter Sellers was making his first faltering steps in a legitimate stage production which famously collapsed under the weight of its star's self-indulgence, Harry Secombe was also appearing in a stage show and preparing for the Royal Variety Performance, while Max Geldray narrowly avoided the chop!

Sean and Tyler discuss the episode itself, and Sean explains why it is his go-to show when he needs a bit of comfort listening. 

There's also a slightly wince-making recording of Wallace Greenslade trying to do Goon voices... hats off to the old man for trying but wiser counsel should have prevailed!

"In ye year of Grace, Mary and Uncle Fred, 1190, Wallace Greenslade, an itinerant announcer, was bounde for Nottingham when ye coach was stoppd inne Sherwood Forest by Robin Hood who did persuade himme to join hys bande as second sackbuttist and part-time dustman. Greenslade did don Lincoln Green and did assiste ye outlaws in their recklesse adventures."

(Radio Times listing for 'Ye Bandit of Sherwood Forest', December 1954)

This week Tyler and guest Chas Early look at the Robin Hood-themed episodes of The Goon Show - Ye Bandit of Sherwood Forest from Series 5 and the special from 1956, Robin Hood, as well as some brief chat about the earlier Christmas Pantomime of Robin Hood from Series 3 which only exists now in script form.

All three shows share some similar dialogues and scenes and each featured special guests: Charlotte Mitchell in Ye Bandit; Dennis Price and Valentine Dyall in the 1956 Robin Hood; and Dick Emery & Carole Carr back in 1952.

There's a lot to unpick so splug yourself on a gillikin spike and tune in!

In 1963 a film was released which, had its original casting remained intact, would probably be barely remembered today - The Pink Panther, directed by Blake Edwards. With Peter Ustinov as a sure-footed and dependable French police inspector on the trail of a notorious jewel thief it would doubtless have made respectable money and garnered warm reviews but would hardly have spawned a slew of spin-offs - while in fact, the follow-up film, A Shot In The Dark, came out a mere three months after The Pink Panther opened in North American theatres.

All this was due to the last-minute casting of Peter Sellers as Inspector Jacques Clouseau, following Ustinov's departure from the project. Between them, Sellers and Edwards totally revised the character of the inspector, making him much more comedic, and what emerged was one of the most beloved and memorable characters in cinema history.

Although the film was a starring vehicle for David Niven as Sir Charles Lytton AKA The Phantom – described by Clouseau as “the surest, cleverest most ingenious criminal in all the world” - and very much in the style of one of those undemanding frothy sixties romps set in glamourous international locations, Sellers went into it a supporting actor and emerged as the standout star.

This week one half of The Sitcom Club and Jaffa Cakes For Proust Gary Rodger joins Tyler to talk about The Pink Panther. Some questions arise:

... How did Clouseau rise to prominence in the French Sûreté?

... What motive did Mme Clouseau have for marrying him in the first place?

... Would the film have benefitted from 100% less Wagner?

... What was an original Pink Panther?

... Who might have had a hand in the famous car chase sequence?

... How did the Princess change ethnicity?

... Who are the audience meant to root for?

... How is this a sex comedy if nobody gets any?

... Just who WERE in those gorilla suits?

... Why was Michael Trubshawe in this film?

... And wasn't Colin Gordon marvellous?

Plus much more!

The Sitcom Club: https://www.podnose.com/the-sitcom-club

Recorded recently during his latest tour as The Pub Landlord – Gig For Victory – Al Murray joined Tyler to talk comedy and revealed how The Goon Show formed the foundations of his comic sensibilities. Al explained why he considers Spike Milligan’s war memoirs to be among the greatest of their kind – brutally honest while blisteringly funny and as fine a testament to the day-to-day life of soldiers during World War II as anything ever written. 

It’s a conversation which took in a lot of topics including Peter Cook, Denis Norden, Spitting Image, Monty Python, Al’s podcast We Have Ways Of Making You Talk, Vic & Bob, Britain’s satire tradition and even prog rock. There's also an impromptu book club as Tyler asked Al for some reading recommendations!

https://thepublandlord.com/

In 2022 Spike Milligan’s family opened up his archive to selected guests – and what an archive it is! Hundreds of tapes, film rolls, scrapbooks, photographs, unpublished novels & scripts, box files and albums, much of it meticulously documented and annotated by Milligan himself, including bound volumes of family history, wartime journals and assorted paraphernalia covering his earliest childhood memories right up until his final years.

Sky Arts filmed a documentary which originally aired in December last year where viewers saw the likes of Joanna Lumley, Ian Hislop, Eddie Izzard and Sarfraz Manzoor (as well as former Goon Pod guests David Quantick and Al Murray) nosing around this treasure trove.

Spike’s whole life is under the spotlight, from his early days in India to his underwhelming introduction to a Britain of fog, cold baths and terrible food, a world away from what he’d been used to; the wartime highs and lows (a whirlwind romance, being blown up); The Goon Show; his marriages and children; his post-Goons career on television; his campaigning and activism; his books, poetry, music and much more.

Joining Tyler is Simon Meddings - Meds - from Waffle On podcast – a trailblazer in terms of telly and film review podcasts and certainly one of the few to have covered such diverse topics as School For Scoundrels, Fight Club and Donald Sinden! Meds and Tyler talk at length about Spike and his life as filtered through the documentary but find plenty of time to go off on tangents (within the first four minutes they've talked about Michael Caine and The Smiths, for instance) so there's plenty here for everybody who likes a good natter about old films, old telly... and old comics.

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/waffle-on-podcast/id298729068

Mark Cousins, Mike Haskins & Sean Gaffney join Tyler for a very special New Years Eve bonus episode!

Earlier this year listeners to Goon Pod were asked to nominate their favourite Peter Sellers films and they didn't disappoint - hundreds of people responded and thus a Top Twenty list emerged.

The chaps count down the list and although most of Sellers' more notable movies appear there are a few surprises! The maddening suspense as our guests await Ghost In The Noonday Sun is palpable!

They also consider those that just failed to make the Top 20, any notable omissions and find out which actors appeared alongside Sellers the most.

Tune in to see if your favourite made the chart!

As it's Christmas this week we wanted to shake things up and try something a little different... so we decided to talk about a British comedy film which doesn't feature a Goon!

A change is as good as a rest and anyway, the film is a cracker.

In 1986 John Cleese starred in a Michael Frayn-scripted comic farce called Clockwise, in which he plays headmaster Brian Stimpson who needs to get to far-flung Norwich in order to deliver a speech.

Having missed the train, Stimpson enlists the help of one of his pupils to drive him and what follows is a series of hilarious mishaps and misunderstandings with countless laws being broken along the way.

It was the film that inspired Cleese to embark upon A Fish Called Wanda and is one of the greatest - if sometimes overlooked - British comedy films of the eighties.

Chris Diamond of TV Cream returns for a fourth time and finally gets the key to the executive washroom. Having not seen the film since it was released he had a lot to say and props are given to the supporting cast including Stephen Moore, Joan Hickson, Tony Haygarth and Penelope Wilton. As for Stimpson: is he, as Tyler suggests, a 'less Tory' Basil Fawlty? This and many more questions are asked, and some of them are even answered!

What happens when one man, a criminal mastermind, who is desperate for immortality and will stop at nothing to achieve it, comes up against his greatest foe - a weary pensioner with a lawnmower fixation?

As if out of a Trap, this week actors & comedians Paul Litchfield & Jeremy Limb join Tyler to hem and haw and (occasionally) howl at Peter Sellers' final film, The Fiendish Plot of Dr Fu Manchu from 1980.

Released two weeks posthumously, Sellers plays both the title role and that of Nayland Smith, a dogged detective who has foiled many a Fu Manchu scheme over the years and who is called out of retirement for one last job. Assisted by a cast which includes Helen Mirren, David Tomlinson and Sid Caesar, Sellers oftentimes cannot help coming across as tired and jaded and the parallels between his real life health problems and Fu Manchu's desperation to cling onto life are too obvious to go unobserved.

Jeremy and Paul have been fascinated by this film for many years and have a lot to say about it - Jeremy in particular delivers an impassioned argument in its defence!

Carry On Stre@ming: https://pod.link/1641768797

It’s good to be alive in 1985!

Joining Tyler this week - after finishing his shift operating the pornograph machine in the Forbidden Records Dept – is Sean Gaffney, who was keen to talk about the Goons’ celebrated take on Orwell’s 1984 which had been dramatized for BBC Television merely weeks earlier. 1985 was received so warmly by listeners that it was swiftly followed by a restaged episode but the show we will be focusing on is the first (and best) version. We talk about how closely it follows the narrative of the source material, how its overwhelming topicality did not hinder the laughs and speculate as to the reasons for some script and performance decisions – what happened to the Ben Lyon gag? Was the old antique shop owner meant to be Crun or not? Plus we find out about Ronnie Waldman, Maurice Winnick, Len Hutton and Issy Bonn.

Available in the usual places – please rate & review on iTunes!

Sean is on Twitter @Toukochan

GoonPod: @goonshowpod