Goon Pod

"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

"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!

"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..."

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.

"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!

Comedian Rory McGrath is this week's guest and he freely admits that it was the Goons that got him into comedy.

The conversation ranges hither and yon and among other topics we talk about:

The creation of Chelmsford 123

Peter Cook

The genius of Phil Pope

Rory's falling out and eventual reconciliation with Jimmy Mulville

Who Dares Wins and Tony Robinson letting it all hang out

Barry Cryer - aka 'Lord Crap'

They Think It's All Over and Lee Hurst's departure

Three Men In A Boat with a reluctant Griff Rhys Jones

Frankie Howerd being inappropriate

Clive Anderson in a kilt

... plus much more!

(Caution: contains some content which some listeners may find offensive)

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!

This week our very special guest is John Lloyd, much admir'd comedy producer and writer, whose credits range from The News Quiz and Quote Unquote on the radio, to Not The Nine O'Clock News, Blackadder, Spitting Image and much much more.

At the height of his career he could boast of more BAFTAs than Dame Judi Dench yet so much success took its toll and John freely admits to having suffered a form of mid-life crisis in his forties. Having spent most of the nineties directing highly-acclaimed commercials (such as the Barclaycard series with Rowan Atkinson, later reimagined as Johnny English), John bounced back to mainstream television light entertainment with a show originally conceived as 'The Homework Helper' but which hit our screens in 2003 as QI, hosted by Stephen Fry.

John talks about his career and the few brief occasions he worked with Spike Milligan, plus the time he had a crush on Anna Ford, The Spitting Image Golden Brain hunt, writing Dr Snuggles with Douglas Adams, the problems with Blackadder, Mel Smith on Not the Nine O'Clock News, working with Genesis, an early collaboration with Barry Cryer and more!

Emmy-winning screenwriter, author, cartoonist and performer Andy Riley is this week's guest - and rather appropriately, given the time of year, we're talking about the classic series six Goon Show episode The International Christmas Pudding.

In a far-ranging conversation Andy and Tyler talk about his history with the show and some of the topics this specific episode raises - such as the old-fashioned notion of British prestige abroad. It was also the show in which Peter Sellers got into very hot water with producer Peter Eton for his behaviour. What triggered it?

They examine the moral, spiritual and physical malaise inherent in most of the Goon Show characters, especially Thynne & Moriarty - at this point in the show's history the first signs of their wretchedness become apparent. Harry Secombe's performance and aptitude for getting a laugh out of fluffs is rightly praised, while Bluebottle comes in for a bit of flak.

Having worked in radio, Andy brings his knowledge of tricks producers would employ to avoid under-running programmes, and we hear from audio engineer and famed Goon Show restorer Ted Kendall on how he managed to piece back together a shortened version of The International Christmas Pudding to its original length.

Oh, and what's the connection between the Goons and hit US political satire Veep? Tune in to find out!

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

Writer and host of Comfort Blanket podcast Joel Morris joins Tyler this week to talk about Monty Python's Life Of Brian, released in 1979 to howls of impotent rage from those who refused to accept it for what it was but considered by everyone else as just a really funny film.

In some ways a satire on the nature of organised groups, be they politically or religiously motivated, the film centres around the character of Brian (Graham Chapman) in 33AD Judea, who although briefly seized by ideological zeal really just wants a quiet life and a girlfriend.

With every member of the Python team at the top of their game and a memorable cameo by Spike Milligan (who just happened to be holidaying in Tunisia when filming was taking place and agreed to stick on a robe for a morning) it has lost little of its impact despite being in its fifth decade.

As you'd expect from such a percipient observer of comedy (his book Be Funny Or Die: How Comedy Works And Why It Matters is published next year), Joel had a lot to say about Life of Brian, which he once described as 'The holy grail of Python films'.

Be Funny Or Die details: https://unbound.com/books/comedy-basic

In 1973 Richard Lester's rollicking romp The Three Musketeers was released - subtitled 'The Queen's Diamonds' (The Four Musketeers was filmed at the same time and followed a year after) the movie starred Michael York as D'Artagnan, Oliver Reed as Athos, Frank Finlay as Porthos and Richard Chamberlain as Aramis.

Perhaps most memorable was the pairing of Raquel Welch with Spike Milligan, as Monsieur and Madame Bonacieux - she the close confidante to the Queen of France and he an easily-bought informant to the villainous Cardinal Richelieu (Charlton Heston).

The movie also featured Lester regular Roy Kinnear, the (recently) late Joss Ackland, Faye Dunaway and Christopher Lee.

It's a joyous adaptation of the Dumas novel with a script that pops and fizzes courtesy of Flashman author George MacDonald Fraser. Featuring the stylistic flourishes that always mark out a good Richard Lester film, plus realistic depictions of early 17th Century Paris - the squalor as well as the wealth - edge-of-your-seat sword fights and shot through with bawdy humour, The Three Musketeers was a commercial and critical triumph upon release and it is the topic of this week's edition of Goon Pod. Joining Tyler once again are the hosts of Still Any Good podcast - Christopher Webb and Robert Johnson, live from a shed somewhere in the Antipodes during a noisy Guy Fawkes celebration - appropriate for discussing a film which culminates in a grand fireworks display!

Still Any Good can be found here: https://linktr.ee/stillanygood

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!

“Don’t you see? If I’d had a barrister who’d asked questions and made clever speeches then I’d be dead as mutton! Your artfulness paid off! The artful way you handled it, the dumb tactics, it saved me!"

Released in America as Trial & Error, The Dock Brief starred Peter Sellers as Wilfred Morganhall, a long-in-the-tooth barrister whose career has been blighted at every turn by a lack of opportunities.

One day, however, his hopes are answered when he is appointed Defence Counsel to Herbert Fowle, a meek, humourless uxoricide (Richard Attenborough). The two strike up an unusual friendship and find the only way to transcend their mutual hopelessness is through the power of imagination and whimsy, until real life puts an end to their daydreaming and they land back to earth with a resounding thump.

The Dock Brief was written by John Mortimer of Rumpole fame, based on his play, and features a solid score by Ron Grainer, plus David Lodge, fourth billed, as a cackling ex-copper called Frank Bateson whose relationship with Mrs Fowle (Beryl Reid) leaves budgie-fancier Herbert hopeful of an end to his problems. When events don't go as expected Herbert cracks and finds himself in a gaol cell.

Returning guest Roger Stevenson joins Tyler to talk about this rarely-examined Sellers film, made more or less before his international fame skyrocketed. Warning: contains spoilers! Well, it WAS made over sixty years ago!

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.

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!

"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!

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

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!

"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!

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!

This week we look at the life and career of the late great Dick Emery (1915-1983), as Tyler and Chris Diamond talk to his son Nick.

Dick worked with the Goons both collectively and individually: appearing in a number of Goon Shows, as a substitute for Secombe in The Case of the Mukkinese Battlehorn and briefly in the Sellers film The Wrong Arm of the Law, as well as working extensively with Michael Bentine on television.

Nick talks warmly and openly about his father's career and personal life in a conversation which covers a lot of ground - from Dick's early life and wartime escapades to later fame as one of the biggest stars on British television.

Topics include: Holidaying with the Milligans... Dick's relationship with Tony Hancock... the many marriages... working with Peter Cook and an intriguing 'Derek and Dick' tape.... the film Ooh You Are Awful... the origins of Lampwick... Dick's striking parallels with Peter Sellers... going AWOL during WWII... Ralph Reader's Gang Show... 'worrying Pat Coombs'... The Dick Emery Show and how he was ill-served by some of the later material... Clarence and portrayals of homosexuality in the seventies... It's A Square World... working with Wonder Woman... his appearance in the film Yellow Submarine... 'The Man Who Fixed Churchill's Son's Boiler'... the 1973 Royal Variety Show... Eric Morecambe, Clive Dunn, Harry Enfield and much much more!

Writer and film academic Graham Rinaldi joins the pod this week to discuss the much admired 1963 British comedy romp The Wrong Arm of the Law, starring Peter Sellers, Lionel Jeffries and Bernard Cribbins.

Very much a soulmate of the earlier film Two Way Stretch, and featuring many of the same cast, The Wrong Arm of the Law drew upon the talents of the cream of British comedy at the time - scriptwriters Galton & Simpson (and John Antrobus), plus supporting cast including Bill Kerr, Graham Stark, Dick Emery, Dennis Price and others. It also supposedly features an uncredited early appearance by Michael Caine but good luck spotting him!

Sellers plays Pearly Gates, the self-assured head of a London crime syndicate whose legitimate business is within high class ladies fashion, where he masquerades as a Parisian fashion designer – M. Jules - with impeccable society connections.

Maison Jules is of course a front for Pearly’s more illegal interests and he employs a hapless gang principally consisting of Graham Stark, Davy Kay and John Junkin. When these three are conned into handing over the spoils of a daring postal van hijack to three Australians purporting to be policemen, and when six of Pearly’s subsequent operations are stymied by the same trio of uniform-clad colonials, it is clear that this so-called ‘IPO Mob’ is seriously threatening Pearly’s livelihood – and not only his: a fellow crime boss, Nervous O’Toole (played by the wonderful Cribbins) has been similarly hit and the two criminal fraternities come together to try and decide how best to tackle this problem.

Enter the ever-angular Lionel Jeffries as ‘Nosey’ Parker, an ambitious if bumbling police inspector, and the eventual collaboration of the entire London Metropolitan Police with the Gates and O’Toole syndicate to pool resources and catch the IPO Mob.

Cue a sting operation, car chase and daring escape with a perfect ending - The Wrong Arm of the Law has it all.

It's Part 2 of The A-Z of Q with Adam Leslie!

We talk large noses, Costume Dept tags, Ed Welch, public lavatories, the Queen, a man inside an elephant, terminal dandruff, Neil Shand, 'the w-word', scouts, Hitler, Bob Todd in blackface and much more, plus we discuss how the comedy landscape had altered beyond recognition by the time Q9 bowed out and even include some interesting thoughts on the series by Mark Lewisohn! And there's also time to talk about when Spike interviewed Van Morrison for Q.

A packed show folks!

The A-Z of Q - Part One!

Writer & podcaster Adam Leslie joins Tyler for the first of a two-parter, examining Spike Milligan's Q series on BBC Television, from Q5 in 1969 to Q9 in 1980 (there was also There's A Lot of It About in 1982 but we don't really talk about that).

It was heralded as a massively influential show, particularly upon the group which would shortly after the transmission of Q5 come together to create Monty Python's Flying Circus, yet by the end, while it was still extremely funny in places, it was showing its age with some of Spike's comedy stylings seeming creaky when compared to those hip and happenin' young comedy turks behind Not The Nine O'Clock News.

Adam & Tyler run through Q from A-N this week, taking in such topics as David Lodge's greatest film, Jehovah's Burglars, bosoms & battleaxes, raspberries, Michael Parkinson with a Black & Decker and much much more! There's also some background to the creation of Q5 and a salute to the many stalwart regulars, including the aforementioned Lodge, Bob Todd and, of course, John Bluthal.

Next week: O-Z!

This week Duncan Gray - the man behind the GSPS's brand spanking new website - joins Tyler to talk about an underrated Goon Show from Series 7 - The Sleeping Prince.

Although the show may not figure highly on fans' lists of favourite Goon Shows, it contains arguably one of the funniest bits of music in the show's history - the glorious national anthem of Yacabaku!

The episode was bumped from broadcast due to the Hungarian Uprising and BBC management felt some of the show's themes - including a revolution - were inappropriate so it was shelved for broadcast later in Series 7 and replaced by a repeat of The Greenslade Story.

Duncan had a special reason for wanting to cover this particular episode and all will be revealed..!

"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."

Canadian comedian and writer Zach Mitchell spent an entire summer vacation listening to every existing Goon Show. While others on the beach were indulging in aquatic horseplay, flicking towels at each other or kicking sand in the faces of skinny sunbathers, Zach was on board Ned Seagoon's snow-plough, avoiding falling pianos outside London embassies and taking up the flugelhorn as a precaution against the dreaded lurgi!

This week he joins Tyler to talk about his love for the show - he mounts a robust defence of Series 8, is bewildered by its seeming obsession with knees and is keen to examine Spike Milligan's motives behind some of the show's more 'questionable' content. As well as older comedy they discuss more contemporary offerings, including The Simpsons, The Young Ones (ok, sure, it IS 40 years old but a mere stripling as compared to The Goon Show or The Honeymooners) and even Tim & Eric.

They even briefly go all Late Review and talk about Kafka and how his work partly influenced Milligan - or not.

It's a fun chat with a lot of diversions - well, what do you expect with this show?

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!

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/

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

Real movie stardom pretty much eluded Spike Milligan, although he appeared in quite a few. He was an unlikely leading man and there are only a small handful of films in which his name appears above the title - this week Jeremy Phillips of Cinema Limbo joins Tyler to mull over one of them: arguably Spike's 'biggest' film, Postman's Knock from 1962.

In the early sixties Spike was signed to MGM with a view to launching him on the same road to cinematic success as his erstwhile Goons colleague Peter Sellers but a lack of available projects and, frankly, the difficulty in finding something which suited Milligan's unique style put paid to any ambition he may have harboured of being honoured by the Academy.

He made Invasion Quartet with Bill Travers and then soon after Postman's Knock, in which he starred as Harold Petts, a rural village postman who gets a job in London, and naturally havoc ensues. Add a rather weak romantic subplot and some comedy villains and the result is a pretty formulaic British black & white comedy film - the inclusion of Arthur Mullard, Mario Fabrizi and Warren Mitchell to the cast further cements it.

But for all that it's not a bad film; there's some nice touches here and there and Spike does his best with what he's been given. Oh, and you'll be whistling the theme tune all day!

Cinema Limbo can be found here: http://www.podnose.com/cinema-limbo/

"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

"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.

Actor & writer Chas Early first heard the Goons when he discovered in his dad's record collection a 1967 LP called Goon But Not Forgotten, featuring Six Charlies In Search of An Author and Insurance, the White Man's Burden.

It's the latter show which he discusses this week, a tremendous episode which at first appears to focus on a flannelled fool's attempt to make a fortune out of a piano-playing penguin but then swiftly pulls a handbrake turn as Ned lucklessly tries to set fire to the English Channel in order to claim insurance money. An unwitting mark in the latest crooked scheme cooked-up by those confidence tricksters Thynne & Moriarty, along the way Ned meets an employee of a match factory who sunbathes in the snow and tries to start a fire with a boy-scout's legs!

Oh, and Wallace 'The Pelvis' Greenslade has to beat them off while belting out some rock & roll!

Plus there's the usual mix of tangents, conversational meanderings and general blather for which Goon Pod is uniquely suited!

It's all here, folks!

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

Think of all the great comic characters brought to life by Peter Sellers - Bluebottle, Clouseau, Strangelove, Percy Quill, Dr Pratt, Fred Kite and countless others - but chances are you won't think about Tommy Grando. Who?

In 1972 Sellers made a surprise guest appearance in his old mate Eric Sykes' titular sitcom, co-starring the sublime Hattie Jacques. Although Tommy Grando could hardly be described as a complex three-dimensional character (Sellers plays it very broad in keeping with the general tone of the show) his arrival is rather akin to a fox let loose in a henhouse. This disreputable roughhouser is an uninvited visitor who disrupts the calm and boredom which had previously pervaded the Sykes home. What follows is pure farce as Eric and his sister try ever more outlandish wheezes to rid themselves of the menace.

Joining Tyler this week to discuss 'Stranger' are Andrew Trowbridge and Lisa Parker, the pair behind Round The Archives, a podcast dedicated to scrutinising the dustier fringes of archive telly as well as revisiting firm fan favourites.

Round The Archives: https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/round-the-archives-524254

@Roundthearchiv1

@goonshowpod

Chris Diamond returns with the second part of our chat about 1957's The Smallest Show On Earth.

We talk much more about the actual film and highlight several delightful moments, such as the scene in which the three elderly staff watch an old silent movie while the kinema is closed, and projectionist Percy Quill's evident elation following a (nearly) faultless film showing. We also ask the question: should sympathetic characters get away with committing arson? Off on a tangent, Arthur Lowe's wife comes in for a drubbing (which I'm sure nobody expected) and even podcast favourite Hylda Baker crops up in conversation.

It's all good fun and there's even a knotty connection question posed for listeners to answer.

The Smallest Show on Earth stars Bill Travers, Virginia McKenna, Peter Sellers, Margaret Rutherford, Bernard Miles, Leslie Phillips, Francis De Wolff and Sid James.

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!

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!

For this 100th edition of Goon Pod writer and podcaster Tim Worthington dons a sailor's tunic with arrows printed on it and returns to discuss the classic Goon Show Tales of Old Dartmoor, which was on the first LP ever issued of Goons episodes in late 1959.

We discuss the show itself and what was happening in the world around the time it was broadcast... and listeners can expect to hear us chat about Monty Python's Election Night special, Vic & Bob, a 96-year-old with a secret, a young Jane Asher, Tim Buckley, the Monkees, the Telegoons, Sabrina, Reginald Maudling, a singing parrot, Ned's Atomic Dustbin, Victor Lewis-Smith, The Goodies and Shirley Bassey!

More Tim: timworthington.org

Twitter: @goonshowpod and @outonbluesix

As next week sees the 100th edition of Goon Pod drop, here's a special 100-minute long Easter bumper bonus episode!

Tyler shares clips of some of the many guests he's hosted on the pod over the last hundred shows - the selection is designed to showcase how the show has developed and evolved and (in theory) can be enjoyed by anyone with even a passing knowledge of the Goons, as long as they like fifties, sixties and seventies (and eighties & nineties) popular culture and especially comedy. Typically they'll like the Beatles and have heard of Jimmy Clitheroe - that's the sort of person who listens to Goon Pod.

So you'll hear from the likes of Al Murray, David Quantick, Mike McCartney, Griff Rhys Jones, Margaret Cabourn-Smith and Mike Fenton Stevens as well as many others PLUS some never-before-heard material!

(This episode is better than an Easter egg because it's less fattening, won't stain the furniture and even your dog can enjoy it)

Twitter: @goonshowpod

"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!

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!

Last year the sky was dark with hats when it was announced that a missing Hancock's Half Hour radio show had been discovered, and for once Hancockians and Goonatics were able to put aside their differences and embrace like sisters because it turned out that this newly discovered episode featured the vocal talents of Peter Sellers!

The hosts of Very Nearly An Armful, the Tony Hancock podcast - Tim Elms, Jon Street, Martin Gibbons and James Griffith - join Tyler this week to talk about "The Marriage Bureau" and Tony Hancock's history with Sellers and Secombe in particular.

One of the biggest revelations was that Sellers had barely fifteen minutes to read and run through the script before recording yet pulled it off like a pro and the episode is now regarded as one of the standout shows from the first series of Hancock's Half Hour.

It's a fun, fact-filled 90 minutes of chat which will appeal to all fans of the Goons, Hancock or radio comedy in general!

http://www.tonyhancock.org.uk/

https://goonshow.org/

Twitter: @goonshowpod @NearlyAn @theGSPS @TonyHancockAS