The Goons

Q. Why are we still on about a radio show that finished over 40 years ago

A. Because, directly or indirectly, almost all the most cutting-edge British comedy of the last 40 years, that which has absurdity as its central ethos, can trace its ancestry back to the first Goon Show, broadcast on the Home Service more than half a century ago in 1951.

�

Q. A bit of a big claim, isn't it

A. Not really. If it can be stated that the likes of Alexei Sayle, Eddie Izzard, the League of Gentlemen and Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer take a great deal from Monty Python, then it follows that, because the Pythons were by their own admission influenced more by the Goons than anyone else, modern British comedy of this ilk owes a great debt to them.

�

Q. What were they all about then

A. The cast was Spike Milligan, who wrote it all, Peter Sellars, Harry Secombe and - for the first two series - Michael Bentine. The first series was called Crazy People, because the BBC top brass thought people would wonder what this 'Go On' show was all about. However, after the first series was so successful they relented and it was The Goon Show from then on.

�

A typical episode would consist of Neddie Seagoon (Secombe) falling foul of a dastardly plot by Hercules Grytpype-Thynne (Sellers) and his hapless French accomplice Count Moriarty (Milligan). Additional surreality could be found in the form of Bluebottle and Eccles, two naive characters often to be found playing soldiers. Bluebottle was the one who ended up 'deaded' every episode (think South Park's Kenny). There were a host of other supporting regulars within the show, all voiced by Sellers and Milligan, such as 'Mate' - an old cockney so called because ended nearly every sentence with the word - Min and Major Dennis Bloodnok.

�

As with a great deal of comedy, the Goons relied on a host of catchphrases, and Milligan's already absurd plots would twist and turn to fit as many of them into the script as possible. In the 1950s and 1960s playgrounds across the BBC-listening world would ring to 'He's fallen in the water', 'Needle-nardle-noo', 'How's yer old dad ' and Harry Secombe's trademark raspberry.

�

The show finally finished in 1960, at which point Milligan was so burned out by writing and performing the shows that he had to be hospitalised.

�

Q. So what was the inspiration for all this

A. When Spike Milligan was asked about where all the lunacy came from - Kafka or Dada, perhaps - he replied it was simply from hearing the sort of discussions that went on in the House of Commons every day. More likely it was Milligan's deeply disturbing experiences during the war and lifelong tendency to clinical depression that informed his imagination.

�

Q. And TV and recordings

A. As early as 1951 the Goons had appeared in film doing some of their routines in the very low-budget Down Among The Z Men. In the early 1960s there was a BBC TV series called The Telegoons, in which the characters were played by puppets. Most of the scripts were rehashes of the original radio shows. There was also a one-off TV special in 1972 called The Last Goon Show of All, which was performed as part of the BBC's 50th anniversary celebrations.

�

Their forays into vinyl were more notable. In 1956 the 'Ying-Tong Song' (named after Milligan's wartime buddy Gunner Edgington) backed with 'I'm Walking Backwards for Christmas' and 'The Major Dennis Bloodnok Rock-and-Roll Call Rhumba' first hit the charts, which it has done on a number of occasions since.

�

George Martin, the man responsible for recording and producing the Beatles - who were, like most of their generation, die-hard Goons fans, something which was apparent in much of their early film work and in interviews - also worked on some of the early Goons recordings. On these recordings Martin had to come up with innovative methods to make studio-bound comedy sound like it was recorded in various locations or to have four Peter Sellers engaged seamlessly in conversation, techniques that would prove useful in later years. So it is a nice little twist that in 1965 Sellars - whose solo recording career had taken off in 1957 and carried on through the early 1960s with numbers such as 'Goodness Gracious Me' - performed a spoken version of 'A Hard Day's Night' in the manner of a Larry-like Shakesperean thesp.

�

To continue the Beatles theme, Sellars starred with Ringo Starr in The Magic Christian in 1970 and George Harrison bankrolled Monty Python's Life of Brian, in which Milligan made a cameo appearance, thus giving the Pythons a chance to check one of their comic heroes.

�

Significantly, tapes of the Goon Shows are some of the highest sellers in the spoken-word market.

�

Q. How about a little about the performers

A. Milligan's very successful post-Goon career included his humorous wartime reminiscences, beginning with Adolf Hitler: My Part In His Downfall (1971), poetry for children and other novels. He has also had a successful British TV series throughout the 1970s, the Q series, ending with Q9 in 1980. He was an outspoken environmentalist since the 1960s and actively involved in CND and Greenpeace campaigns amongst others.

�

Sellers had the greatest international success, with a very high-profile film career - including Inspector Clouseau and the idiot savant Chance Gardener in the award-winning Being There - and relationships with some of the most glamorous women in the world.

�

Secombe made many singing appearances as a tenor, including work with Welsh male voice choirs, and he played a number of film roles, his best known being Mr Bumble in the 1968 film version of the musical Oliver! He later became a fixture of British TV as the presenter of Highway during the Sunday God-slot.

�

Bentine wrote hundreds of shows for both radio and television both before, during and after the Goons. He was also a successful performer and had hit TV series in the 1960s, including The Bumblies and It's A Square World, and also in the 1970s with his children's show Potty Time.

�

Q. So now they've all gone

They have. The last to go was Milligan in 2001, while Secombe had died earlier the same year. Sellars died in 1980 and Bentine in 1996.

�

See also the answerbank articles on audiobooks, catchphrases and nonsense poets and the answerbank chat on the merits or otherwise of Milligan's humour

�

For more on Arts & Literature click here

�

By Simon Smith