Look, GAIL Pedrick was a lovely man.
Anyway, he was a script editor and we sent it to him because we
didn't know of his existence. But we wrote to Frank Noor and
Dennis Norton, and it was their suggestion, probably fobbing us
off, you know, we wouldn't get in there here.
But nevertheless, it was good advice.
And we wrote to this GAIL Pedrick and his letter was
saying something like we were highly amused by your your
sketch, but don't read the more that is on the surface of the
letter. We would like to like to meet
you. So we will cock a hoop over
that. And probably we would have if
nothing more odd happened, we probably would have kept that
letter and memory of what could have happened.
Still got it somewhere. The Hello and welcome to Goon
Pod. My name is Tyler Adams and this
is the podcast in which we look at all things goon related.
And yet today, well, we are, we are going to be talking about
something very much goon related, but the focus is going
to be much more on arguably 2 of the greatest comedy writing
teams this country's ever produced.
Ray Galton and Alan Simpson and my guests today have both been
quite prominent in terms of media exposure recently due to
some startling fines in the Galton Simpsons archives.
Gary Brennan and Richard Usher, Hello.
Oh, hello, Yes.
Nice to speak to you again, Tyler.
Yes. So Richard, you and I have
spoken on a few occasions. You've, you've come on to talk
about, well, just talk in general about the goons.
And then you came on with Julie Warren and the guys who were
doing the the Goon Show recreation.
Oh, yes, for, for Larry's centenary.
That's right. Yes, in Birmingham.
Yes, that's. Right.
Was that two years ago? Yeah, 22 October 2023.
Blimey, Blimey. Flies by.
And you're obviously a active performer, yes.
And and yes, I'll I'll, I'll answer to all of the above.
And and Grand Poobah of the Goon Show Preservation Society, or.
I, I, I think stool is probably more appropriate phrase where
I'm concerned. But yeah, no, I'm, I'm currently
the, the, the secretary and acting chair.
So we're, we're still in search of a new, a new leader to, to
take over from, from, from John Repsch, who, who did it for
about 17 years brilliantly. So yes, still, still involves
the gunshot preservation society.
We had some fairly recent sad news that that our, the man who
created the, the society, Mike Coveney, suddenly passed away
fairly recently and not long after.
In fact, I think it was the next day and one of our long, long
term members, Mike Childs, also sadly passed away.
So yeah, much, much respect and sympathies to their to their
respective families. Yeah, very, very familiar names.
If you if you have been reading the Goon Show news or the
newsletter of you know, many years ago.
Absolutely. And, and Gary, so we, you and I
haven't spoken. This is the first time we've
spoken, but it is a great pleasure.
And you are, how would I describe you, a keeper of
archives and research collections at York University.
Is that that's, that's right. Yes, yes.
I do like, I do like the way you describe yourself in your Blue
sky bio as the begrudging second coming of Harry Secom.
It's been, it has been observed on more than one occasion that
there's a more than passing resemblance between myself and
circumference. So yeah, I I'll take that on.
Which period? Harry though, because.
Oh, actually, goons Harry Pretty Pickwick.
So I don't have massive sideburns, but there's a point
in everyone's life when he looks in the mirror and you go, Oh
yeah, I see what they mean. Do you know, I still remember
the time I went into the bathroom.
I don't know what for, Went into the bathroom and there was this
old man in there. And then I realized it was me
looking in the mirror and I was, it was, I won't let you into my
private hell. But Gary, you have been very
instrumental in bringing together or trying to bring
together. We're putting together this sort
of campaign. What's it called?
What's it called in it? Marvelous.
In Marvelous, Yeah. Paraphrasing Tony Hancock and
Harold Steptoe, Yeah. So it's to fundraise to save the
archive of Ray Galton and Alan Simpson for the nation.
Really, you know, Ray and Allen, as as influential as they are,
they, they passed away again in quite short order in I think
2017 and 2018. And as these things do, it takes
a bit of time, but they, we were, we were inquired of as if
we'd be interested and, and we've been collecting archives
related to popular entertainment and media for quite some time.
We'd just taken in the archive of Frankie Howard in 2021.
And then sort of on the heels of that, someone said, you do know
that there's Ray and Allen's and we thought, OK, let's have a
chat. And it's gone, It's gone from
there. It's, it's not often that we
have to purchase archives, but you know, anything good
sometimes comes with a cost. And that's where we are, where
we are now. It's also worth saying on a from
a goon's perspective, I've been working with Richard for the
last couple of years in, in acquiring and and safeguarding
the Goon Show Preservation Society archive as well up at
the University of York. So there's there's plenty of it.
What, what, what, what sort of material are we talking about
with with the GSPS stuff? Oh, well, Richard, I feel I feel
a bit bad speaking on your behalf here.
No, no, go, go for it. Yeah, all.
Sorts of treasures and goodies. Well, I think what's interesting
about GSPS is that you're talking about a society that has
the word preservation in its name.
It's not out and out a fan club. It has worked to preserve and
that's preserve memory and performance and enjoyment, but
also the actual records behind the goons.
So as well as a full set of newsletters and goon show news
going on right way back to the start of the GSPS.
There's also a full set of of scripts, but there's there's
also original material as well. So there's the original script
for the Secum and Friends performance of the Whistling Spy
Enigma, which is beautifully marked up by Peter Sellers.
It's his. It's his performance script.
There's some early prompt scripts as well, I think.
Are they Dennis Mann? Wilson's Richard.
You'd know more than I on that one.
Are these the bound books? Was it Peter Eaton?
Yeah. Peter Eaton, yes, good, because
he he kept fairly meticulous records of all of the scripts.
But for the various programs he produced and I think there's
quite a few still available on various auction sites, he can,
he can track down that that show up occasionally with, but
there's, there's a good proportion of original goon show
scripts, as you say, all marked up for use in the gallery, I
guess when they're in recording. Scripts for Fred and Son of
Fred, he says from the top of his.
Head show called Fred and Son of Fred, Yeah.
That's it, Yeah. But and then within it there's,
you know, some audio, some audio material.
So we've got some sound effects discs which have been level and
digitized and and much more to be discovered and much more
besides. Do you have to?
There was a there was a infamously rather a bitchy
letter sent to the GSPS in the early days by Peter Sellers.
Do you know about this? Do you remember this, Richard?
I have a vague recollection of of reading about it somewhere,
but I can't remember the details.
Somebody, I think it was Mike Coveney.
Yeah, yeah, I think it was him in the in the news, in the one
of the early newsletters had had been rather disdainful of the
latest Pink Panther picture. So we're talking sort of mid 70s
Peter Sellers wrote this not furious letter, but this rather
sort of acidic letter pretty much saying I wish to
disassociate myself from the society as a result of, you
know, poor form on your part sort of thing.
Wow. So I wonder if that haven't.
I haven't picked up on that yet, but it may well be there's.
I mean, the fact is that obviously the GSPS archive has
been distributed right over the country, if not the world
throughout its life. So we're in a stage of gathering
it together in one location. And then once we've got that, we
can start to go through it a bit more systematically.
I've done the early work of getting it all into a kind of
sensible order. So once we get to that point
where we can get a critical mass, we can get that up and out
there. But it is great.
It's a super collection. And it was a little bit of
effort of just sort of talking to Richard and saying, well,
look, that GSPS is interesting in itself for researchers in the
future about how fan fandom and fan organizations and the
carrying of the torch of of programs that had that had
finished actually came together. Because I'm right on.
I Richard, the GSPS. Is it the first sort of big
media fan club? If you like.
Yeah, I mean, it's what, 5053 years or something now.
So yeah, I think it's it's been on the go, you know, covering
all of the different bits of media.
It's embraced everything. In fact, our, our old website
has resurfaced. We've no idea where from or who
has it, but it's, it's reappeared as if by magic.
If you look it up, it's it's there.
So yes, we've, we've, we've crossed the crossed the, the
decades with, with various specific media and we are, I
think still possibly in the world, the only fan club or
appreciation society that had a, a member of the royal family as
a, as a patron. He's not returning your calls
that since he got the the big job though.
Again, no, no, we've, we've sent you Dolly mixtures, Jelly
babies, you name it. Nothing, Nothing.
Just. Because you've got bigger legs
in that hair. Gary, it must be fascinating.
I mean, so your job, you. So you're essentially, what do
you call yourself? An archivist?
Yes, Yeah, yeah, overall. Yeah, and, and and forgive my
ignorance here. Are you archiving anything or
everything? Is it, is it very much pop
popular culture stuff with the popular cultural bent or, or or
what? It's a broad, it's a broad
remit. So we mentioned them at the
University of York. The, the, the archive I work in
is, is called the Bothwick Institute for Archives.
It's been around since 1953. And the real function is to
provide and collect material to support research and, and
teaching at York. I guess that's, that's, that's
the reason the university is behind this as well as doing
this kind of collecting for cultural and and public good and
helping us understand who we are as, as people.
York has a School of Arts and Creativity and now we're
collecting of TV and radio and theatre collections that started
in the early 2000s about around about the time that the School
of Arts and Creativity was was established as the Department of
Theatre, Film and Television. And the intent behind that was
to collect records and archives of performers and writers in in
particular, so the students and, and staff and, and, and people
working in, in that orbit could learn and get experience from
the best writers and performers and, and learn, learn from that.
If you, if you want to conceive an archive service in a
university, you've got to see it as a bit of like a lab for the
sciences. So, you know, chemistry and
physics have big, big, big buildings full of machines that
do lasers and make hydrogen and all these kind of things.
It's the same for the humanities.
It's a, it's a, it's a research resource.
We're not fussed about who's doing the research.
We, we love it just as much when someone comes in just for pure
pleasure as we do from a big international academic research
project. And as we've built this writing
and performance collections up, you do start to find, if you
like invisible threads behind the collections that start to
join them together and that that's what you really want.
You want our coach to be able to speak to each other and give,
you know, other perspectives. There were kind of one name that
came up as we went along. So we collected the archive of
Sir Alan Eightbourne, Barry Tuck Marks and Gran in particular was
Frankie Howard. You know, Frankie worked with
everybody amazingly, including Alan Eightbourne in his early
days. Alan Eightbourne wrote sketch,
at least one sketch for Frankie Howard and and the other name
that was starting to appear once we were working with Frankie
Zarkiv was was Galton and Simpson.
And so we realised then with Barry Talk, we were starting to
get together a collection related to popular entertainment
and specifically writers that are related to Associated London
scripts. And this is really where the
GSPS starts to starts to come in obviously with with Spike and
everyone around there that was involved in Associated London
scripts. Frank Frankie Howard was a
founding member of ours was Galton and Simpson.
So that's the kind of coalescing that's come together around, I'm
calling it popular entertainment.
Some people are saying light entertainment.
I I insist on popular because it's some of the more you know,
you know, it's high and don't say high and low culture because
that's still disparaging. It's not that at all.
It's, it's the stuff that people watched on the TV or listened to
on the radio and shaped the British mindset for the latter
half of the 20th century. So with that, if you start with
Galtman Simpson, where you start with Hancock as one of the first
popular sitcoms, we can go right the way through to Lawrence
Marks and Maurice Graham, who you know, you start to get
almost like not the end of the line, but the, the, the current
evolution of it in things like birds of a Feather and and good
night sweetheart. Beyond the theatrical
collections, we have a wide-ranging set of stuff.
We go from the medieval church to confectionery manufacture,
southern Africa, medical histories, diplomacy,
architecture and and much more. But hopefully building a a
collection and you know, a collection of collections, if
you like, that can speak to each other and give different
perspectives on who we are as people really.
OK. How did you how did you get into
it? I am a nosy, I'm a curious nosy
person. And I like find, you know, I
like, I like finding things out the kind of direct trajectories
as I was actually a student at York and I was researching my
dissertation on the adulteration of cocoa products in the 19th
century and I was researching at the Bothwick.
And there was just a point where the arrogance of youth, you just
go, they seem to be having fun, I'll go do that.
And then, you know, you just go, OK, that's what I'm going to do.
Never really thought things through to any depth.
And I think today you'd be giving someone a really heavy
career talk about the choices you should make to do that.
But I just thought, OK, I'll do your job.
And that's, that's realistically it.
But I'm not mega organised. I am, I will do it.
I mean, it there is a thing that in, you know, every archivist's
house and personal papers are an absolute mess.
You know, cobbly shoes are the worst shod, as they say.
But there is a lot of that of trying, trying to understand
people, trying to understand how things come to be.
I feel really privileged that I've grown up now when I have
because I have the ability to pull a phone out of my pocket.
And you know, when you have those little brain itches of why
is that like that, you can actually just find out.
I think. I think I live, you know,
although I often think I may be living at the wrong time.
I feel incredibly lucky that I can do that.
And I, I get to skip around and, and this afternoon I was looking
at stuff for the last of the Summer Wine, the history of
ophthalmic health in the 19th century, and the medieval
church. So that that was my afternoon.
Well, well, amazing variety. So you live at live at a dull
moment. I would be absolutely.
I'm sure you would be too, Richard in in my element.
Oh gosh, yes. I mean, when when Gary talks
about all those different collections, it's it's, it's
almost like the spirit of Spike and Larry might have been there
looking at all those subjects because they they're pretty much
all covered in the Goon show, aren't they, over the years, all
of those. I don't seem, I don't think
there was a Goon show which focused on the adulteration of
Coco products in the 19th century.
Oh. Well, possibly resurfaced.
Possibly the others, yeah. Let me let me put my cards on
the table here with with regards to Gordon and Simpson, I'm
massive fan of Steptoe and son. I've always been a bit less keen
on Tony Hancock. A weird sort of lack of
engagement with Tony Hancock. I love the people that he worked
with in Hancock's Alfair and you know, on the radio and whatnot.
But I just found find him. So with regards to Golden
Simpson, I, I, you know, for me they are the geniuses behind
Steptoe, right? And, and obviously I appreciate,
you know, the role in the post war British comedy and
especially, you know, their association with Spike and Eric
and, and the rest that associated London script.
I, I don't know, I know a lot about them, but I don't know a
lot. I don't know everything about
them like I do or think I do about Milligan, for example.
So I kind of assume that Galton and Simpson did the archives
would be already somewhere, if you know what I mean.
I mean, where have they been in the the estates or estate of
Galton and Simpson or where where have they been up to now?
Yeah, that's, that's exactly it. They were with the family.
So after we had that first sort of discussion about about, would
you be interested, you think, oh, OK, I'll go and see them.
And at the time, late 2021, they were still in Ray's house, which
was in in the grounds of Hampton Court Palace.
So not, not my house by any stretch of the imagination.
And they were there. They were, they were in the
cellar, they were in a series of filing cabinets.
Ray should have done my job. He was incredibly diligent at
keeping a really well organised set of papers.
Every file, every script, every production has its own file.
All the scripts are in that file.
That file is numbered and it corresponds to a key.
And you can't ask for more than that.
You absolutely can't. And there's more than one index
we found. There's a, there's a
chronological 1, and there's one by production as well.
So Hallelujah for that. And as with that, there's agent,
there was the agency contracts and correspondence files as
well. And so that's the kind of the
business side of the arrangement.
But it was, it was still, it was still with the family, Yeah.
The the notion of preserving stuff if you'd like the idea of
archiving everything or as much of your own work as you could.
I think that's more of a, a relatively recent thing.
Was Ray right from the early days keeping everything and and
logging everything? Yeah, yeah.
In short, yes. So in the Goten and Simpson
archive we go right back to the sketch to the shows they wrote
when they were in Milford Sanatorium for the hospital
radio. We go right the way back to 1949
and have you ever wondered these handwritten and that's the first
one episode 1 is there Have you ever wondered so they kept that
what I've also learned. I mean, you know obviously I
like you. I knew of Ray and Allen are
quite sort of the opposite quite like Hancock.
I've never really gelled with Steptoe, but you know you start
to appreciate it when you start working with it.
One thing I've appreciated is how often they returned to their
material. So for, you know, for instance,
the blood donor arth is is 3 thick files and that's because
they came back to it so often for subsequent remakes.
On the subject of Steptoe, there's the Christmas night with
the stars, you know, which used to be on every Christmas on the
beat. Stepped toe was on it twice.
It was on in 1962 and I think 1967.
Well, in that file I have found one for possibly 1970 that was
never made. Only it was because the
Christmas special, I think it's the party where they end up
getting chicken pox, is basically that Christmas night
with the stars scripts that they wrote.
Expanded I'm guessing. Yeah, and that's why if you
watch that episode, it feels like there's a hunt break turn
halfway through. It's because it is.
It's because they've gone right. We've got this one.
We will, you know, build it around this idea.
So I think they kept stuff because they kept coming back to
it to to redevelop it if it's an idea they liked and didn't
develop, you know, I think it was almost like a store, a store
of ideas that they could re mine.
Because, you know, up until the 7th, you know, up until the 80s,
there's no such thing as home video.
So they were going to remake 20 some Hancock episodes in 1973
with Arthur Lowe and James Beck. And we did the pilot and we did
the the economy drive and Arthur was marvellous.
It was marvellous. And we all said, right, OK,
that's it. And we, we were about to embark
on a series when Jimmy Beck suddenly kills over and dies.
And so we all thought, oh. God, you know, another, another
one died and and we all lost enthusiasm for it, but I'm sure
that Arthur Lowe would have made a big success in the.
Re presentation reinterpretation of.
Of the Hancock half hours he. Was going to do all he was going
to do all of me. The interesting thing there
again you see is that was about 1975.
I think it was 74 five in that era, which was only about 15
years after they've been done by Hancock.
So that that I think that kind of almost validated their
approach was that you can come back and recoup this and redo
it. And I think as well as that, Ray
and Allen and probably working with Beryl, Beryl Virtue and
then Tesla bars as their agents were really good at packaging up
and reselling formulas abroad as well for remakes.
And I think that's part of why they kept stuff as well.
It was always something you could come back and resell.
Yeah, Beryl kind of. Didn't she get in with Norman
Lear and things like obviously all in the family was Johnny
Spate was was, what do you call it, Elf Garnet?
But Sanford and Son was obviously yes.
So there's stick files of correspondence about all those
negotiations with Norman Lear to make Sanford and Son.
We've actually got the the telegram that confirms that they
got red fox and an all black cast, which is, you know, here.
It's important in America. That's huge.
Yeah, and it's, it's kept, I think that that's the thing.
It's it's there and has been filed and it's so like you're
suggesting it could so easily have gone into bin.
I think they were just really good as well at being quite
pioneering at, at managing and valuing their own output in that
it was something worth guarding. Concepts were worth guarding.
Copyright's important, you know, licensing agreements are
important, and they're doing that from the early 50s.
It's just occurred to me as well.
Of course the reason that we still to this day can watch the
the black and white step toes is because was it Ray had had them
recorded I. Think so.
Yeah, up in his up in his attic or something.
Yeah, yeah, Sorry, Richard, We've we've got exclusivity from
what's I mean, Richard, Yeah, on Golden and Simpson.
What's because we've I don't think you and I have discussed
them before. What?
What's your are you, are you a huge Hancock fan?
Are you a particular Steptoe fan or or what?
I'm, I'm very much a a Hancock fan.
I mean, I'm a member of the Tony Hancock appreciation society as
well. So I, I just adore what you
know, that that whole sort of that, that life they gave to
that, that character and, and how it morphed and changed over
time. And as you know, saying re re
kind of reworked those blueprints for for early
situation comedy. Steptoe and son.
I probably came to as probably early teens when they were sort
of repeated on and off. I never quite got them in the
same way. You know, if I knew that Hancock
was going to be repeated, I would have set, you know, got a
videotape or set up a cassette player or something like that.
But never quite got that with Steptoe and Son.
But it's, it's episodes like the one with Leonard Rossiter, those
sort of episodes and they, and the key one where the, they
split the house down the middle and things like that.
But those, they're just iconic and, and they're so funny.
They still, they're still very, very funny.
So I'd say I'm more on the Hancock side, but that's, that's
again, also to do with how I came to the goons.
You know, it's, it's my, my dad introducing me to the LP's.
So the LP's of the goons and Hancock were you know you the
very I don't think was there ever a a step tone son best of
LP audio LP. Much later, the BBC put out the
radio series Oh. That's right.
Yes, Yeah. On tape.
But I don't think I heard, I don't think I heard any on on
LP. So, you know, when it came to my
sort of bonding with my, my old pal Mark over no more carried
eggs for me. And it was Hancock scripts and
and goon scripts that mostly got the thing.
But I I'm feeling, you know, that that's that's where that
love and attraction to those scripts came from.
But yeah, I, I could, I could watch Stepstones so quite
happily. If you, if you put me on a 10
hour flight somewhere and all I could watch was Stepstones and
I'd, I'd be happy. Yeah, I'd be very happy.
Me too. What you doing after the
funeral? A friend of mine's got a little
rave up at her pad. Interested.
She's your mother. She's upstairs going through the
linen cupboard. It's all right in it.
I mean Cousins. Oh yeah, no bother.
We're well removed at the moment.
Will you pick me up? Yeah, yeah, sure.
Oh, what time? Oh, well, I've got to bring me
mum back here for the share out. Mind you, that won't take long.
As far as I'm concerned, the only thing worth's having that
that force length figurine on the man 6:00.
Yeah, fine. See you later.
You want to keep away from that. Well, what's it got to do with?
You. That's Alice's girl.
I saw what, Cousins? I saw what?
Yeah. But none of them is nobbies.
I told you that. That makes it even better, don't
it? We don't.
Know it could be any of us. What?
A. Bleeding Family.
Actually, just want to think about it, Gary, because you made
a point that you said about, you know, obviously VCRS and
whatnot, people didn't own them until the 80s, but famously, Bob
Monkhouse had early prototypes of VCR machines, didn't he?
And. He did.
Yeah, it was. It was a compulsive recorder of
things. Well, a hoarder is probably the
right way, so. Where's his archive?
Where's his stuff? Do you know?
As far as I know, I think Bob's tape collection is with the
archive charity Kaleidoscope. Oh, right.
Yeah. But the, the size and scale of
it is formidable. And I, I wish him the best of
luck with that because it, hell, it's going to be it, it, you
know, it's a cricket pavilion in his garden.
There's, there's not that much AV in Gordon and Simpsons, which
are kind of expected there to be potentially more of there.
There really isn't. There are some pneumatics of
step tours, but you know, they're, they're copies that the
BBC sent them, I assume when they were doing, you know, other
productions or, or, or whatever. There's one late 60s videotape
reel that we're going to investigate because we, it might
have some Hancock material on. We we don't know.
It's not until someone actually tries to recover the signal that
will have any idea. But there's there's a little
bit. There's the the original 35 male
black and white reels for the 1965 American version of Steptoe
and Son as well. With Aldo Ray.
That's the one, yeah. They're in there.
Yeah, yeah. We realised we, we, we quite
easily found which box had those reels in because it's the one
that weighed a ton. It's like, yeah, it's plenty
heavy, right. All right, 35 mil cans.
Yeah. So there's those as well.
But most of it is the written word in in Ray and Allen's
stuff. Was it was there much in the way
of, you know, reel to reel tapes of the the radio shows, the
Hancock radio shows? Only for the episodes that I
think is it was there something called unique Hancock or
something early? It might be mid 70s.
It appears they kept those ones that were sent to them as like,
you know, which ones do you want to pick for your best of season?
But no, no, it's, it's, it's, it's a strange one that, and I
don't know if, if there's a, if there's a, a reason for it or or
not. They were very diligent about
the written output. But yeah, there's very little of
what actually it, it became so far.
You never know. There could be another room
somewhere that's full of them. Well, it there was obviously
great rejoicing in recent years because there was not one but
two thought lost Hancock radio shows discovered or Hancock half
hour radio shows discovered. And obviously, Richard, you and
I, you know, the, the the Holy Grail for us, I guess would be
as goons fans would be pre, well, let's let's say pre
season, pre series 4. Yes, Oh yeah, absolutely stuff.
Good quality of you know as well.
If that ever turns up, I mean, that that's one of the things I,
I was keen to get the, the, the goon share preservation society
archives kind of in, in one place because that sort of
thing, you know, it's just possible somebody somewhere in
the society might have had something that they were looking
after thinking, oh, this, this might go in handy one day.
It hasn't surfaced yet, but this you live in hope, you know, and
and there are always things popping up, but whether it's
diligence on the parts of people like Sellers and Milligan, you
know who I mean, Sellers bought a record cutter, a disc cutter
from, from Bob Munkhouse and recorded a lot of his own early
appearances, I think on acetates and things.
And I think Spike similarly had paper tapes or something that he
recorded some material on. So there's there's things like
that that might, you know, I mean.
Didn't sellers have a big bonfire in the 70s?
You get got rid of a load of his.
Stuff he did yeah. Well, that's that's the
assumption I I spoke to the producer of a documentary
recently on the unknown, the unknown pizza sellers.
And he got to know I think Lynn Frederick's family quite well.
And so there's still, I think some doubt as to whether
everything actually did go up in a a bonfire with I think because
Sellers allegedly said he destroyed everything that he
had, you know, had had any bearing on his professional
career with Spike. But but then some material, you
know, acetates and things did did resurface that had gone to
to other members of the family. So it's, it's just possible
there's things out there still true that are in private
collections and things which we can, we can just, you know, live
in hope on that one. And it's not impossible.
I mean, Richard, you'll remember when we did a tour around the
Bothwick for, for, for yourself and I showed you the JRT Davis
discs, which are the source material, aren't they?
For the goons that most people have have heard of.
We have JRT Davis's archive and, and in it is what to all extents
and purposes looks a bit like a footstool, but within it are the
original recordings, the off air recordings that we used in the
remastering for the compendium and other things.
So they're there, you know, and that's completely because they
were in his possession, I assume when he when he passed away.
So it's not impossible. I have to stress, there's
nothing in those disks having gone through them that is in any
way missing or, or, or unreleased there.
There was one that we just tested because the those discs,
they only have about four or five players before you start to
lose the signal. And so we tested one and it's
exactly the same as the released content.
So everyone can breathe there. But the, I, I think it, we're in
a bit of a fertile, potentially fertile period for that kind of
lost radio and TV media. We've noticed it now that there
are, there's been a bit of a lag between people passing away and
their families wanting to deal with their estate.
We're seeing it now for visual media through the Film is
Fabulous. I don't know if you've you've
come across that the film is Fabulous campaign, which is
going through the collections of these, you know, collectors that
have amassed thousands of cans of films in their garages and
outbuildings and lofts and, and scanning them looking for
missing content. And I think we're going to see
the same with audio. You know, some I am.
I don't want to nail my colours to the mast, but I, I would feel
relatively confident that there will be other discoveries of
missing radio programs. The danger, I think as, as, as
Richard alluded to, is where you have it in a collection and the
rest of the family don't know what it is and don't don't
notice it. And that that I think is the big
danger is that, you know, if you have a collection like that and
you do have early or missing material in and you're worried
about, you know, declaring it, just leave a note somewhere for
crying out this, don't throw this away because that that's
the that's the terrible scary thing is when someone has a a
really unique collection and you know, the house clearer's just
come in and get rid of it. So, you know, do do do come
forth early. It's fine.
Nobody's fussed would just be happy.
It's there aren't. People more savvy these days as
well that anything that everything's got a value, some
sort of intrinsic value now, you know, with eBay and everything
like that. So I think people are less
likely to just throw something in the skip.
It's certainly, it's certainly become more, more of a common
thing now to receive because as secretary of the, of the
society, I, I see a lot of emails and they come through and
some people are saying, Oh, my, my father passed away or my, my
uncle or my grandfather. And they've got this collection
of tapes that they recorded from the 1970s and it's, they're
listed as goons. And there's some of them are,
you know, cartridge tapes or reel to reels and things like
that. And there's a good chance that
there's nothing on there other than somebody's sat with a
microphone connected to the TV or the radio listening to Radio
4 or really fusion or whatever. So, but there's always, always a
chance somewhere in the midst of all of that, there is some
hidden treasure. So I do always try and reply to
those emails. There's been a couple actually,
I should probably follow up on that.
That never got back to me. But you know, at times where a
family member has passed away, there's a lot of emotion
involved and it's, it's very difficult.
You've just got to be very delicate and tactful about
approaching them. But like, say, sometimes house
clearances do happen and you know, things disappear onto on
eBay or into charity shops and that sort of thing.
Yeah, I think things happen like that.
So we as part of part of the overall archive, we managed to
obtain a pilot that Frankie Howard did in 1971 for an
American version of Pompeii that was made by NBC.
And then quite honestly was was not that good.
And in fact, so not that good. It was never actually broadcast.
And that that appeared on eBay. We don't know if someone had
read something about people being interested in it and, and
just put it up. But my word, you, you the the
challenge of getting a university to deal with an
anonymous eBay seller was when I will never forget.
But we did it. We got it and we have it.
So this stuff does appear. And so, OK, so one of the
reasons we're talking tonight is that you've you've got access to
the Galton and Simpson archive, or part of it at least.
I understand. OK.
And there was a discovery and with and and you know, with
media hyperbole and whatnot. The the, the, the, the headline
was Goldman Simpson wrote a Goon show or wrote for the Goon Show.
But it's not technically correct.
I don't believe. I think it's more they wrote
some scripts for Peter Sellers in which he was playing Goon
Show characters, but it wasn't actually for the Goon Show.
Is that is that right? That's that sounds about right,
doesn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
There's a series called Midday Music Hall, which was broadcast
in 1954, and I think there were five scripts or something like
that. Gary, is that right?
5 or 6 scripts, Yeah. Well, in total for the for the
period that we have the the ones that Cotton and Simpson wrote,
it was, it was just three, it was over October 1954.
Oh, OK. So because ALS begins, I think
N54 starts up and Hancock's Hour also starts up in the first
episode of that is in November 54.
So it's literally on the cusp of that.
They they so there's three scripts that are that are that
are done. The last one is recorded on the
same day as the first episode of Hancock's Half Hour right?
OK. In fact, they're happening
simultaneously. When you look at the timeline of
the recording times, the one the the last one, which is we'll go
through what they are I suppose in a bit, but the last one is
being recorded exactly at the same time as the recording in
rehearsal for the first Hancock's half hour.
So there's 2 two things happening at the same time.
And this would have been because I know that the the same night
that Hancock's half hour went out, the Goon show, the canal
went out. So it's early Series 5 of the
Goon Show. So that's where Sellers is in
terms of the timeline. Never, never go near the canal.
Why not? Just never go near the canal,
that's all. Place.
Oh, pick out everything we need for the party here.
Solid silver cutlery. Hush.
Dinner services. Expensive wine glasses.
Yeah, I've seen my glass. I'm having that one over there.
No, no, no, no, no, you're not. That's mine.
I saw it first. You're not having it.
My party. There's plenty of other glasses.
Look, I've taken a fancy to that one.
So have I let go of it? Give it a me.
Let go. Put it down, both of you.
That poor goldfish has nearly fallen out three times.
So what do we know about Gorman Simpson?
Was it just, do we, do we, do we know anything?
Do we know that Sellers sort of commissioned them to write these
short sketches or or anything? There's frustratingly a little
bit, there's, there's frustratingly little about that
in, in the archive. It's, it's, I say it's so early
in their career. You don't get large files of, of
contracts or or some or correspondence about that.
It's it's so early, I've had a look and there's nothing,
there's nothing there. So it's hard to say.
My, if you want my pet, personal pet theory, as you said, this is
Gunshaw Series 5. It's got to be such an
incredibly busy period for Spike.
So at this point in time of the scripts that happen in the two
or three weeks leading up to these midday Music Hall
sketches, you've got the Whistling Spy Enigma, the Lost
Gold Mine of Charlotte, the Dreddon batter pudding Hurler of
Bexley on Sea, Phantom Head Shaver of Brighton, Affair of
the Lone Banana. So that's how much Spike is
pumping out at this point in time.
We know that Spike didn't didn't write for sellers when seller
was doing stuff solo. To me it sounds like they've
cast around. Ray and Allen are in the run up
to the first episode of Hancock and they are at that point in
time just knocking out odd sketches for various shows.
So my pet theory is they said, look, we'll take this on.
You know, you want goons, we'll do goons and and just do these,
you know, as a favour to to Peter Sellers potentially or a
favour to Spike. I'm I'm not too sure do.
You do you think that they were maybe trying to showcased to
spike that they could write they could actually potentially write
for the goon show? These these were sort of like
samples of what they could do. Would that be I'm?
Fair in that way? I don't.
I don't know. Because because we know that
after the canal, which was the 6th episode of series 5, Eric
Sykes comes on board and shares script writing duties with
Spike. So Spike, like you say, Spike
was so busy, but he was obviously casting about for
someone to come and help. Larry Stevens was out at the
picture at this point, but Eric comes on board.
I mean, I'm just wondering possibly just spitballing here.
Maybe. Yeah, Galton and Simpson were
were thinking, well, maybe we could, you know, we, maybe we
could get a gig where? Could I?
I had a feeling, having read the scripts that that Gary has
reading through them, they, they are, they're goon shows in
miniature and they are, they have all of the everything you'd
expect from from a goon show. But there's also, and I can't
quite put my finger on it, but there is a, there is a Ray and
Allen kind of house style feel to, to the way it's done as
well. So the language and the the,
some of the aspects of of each of these sketches.
And I, I wondered if perhaps a pure goon show script might have
been too much for a midday Music Hall audience who might not all
have been fans. So maybe going with a pair of
writers who have that, that common touch, that that ability
to reach an audience in the way they did with Hancock, maybe
that makes sense. Maybe a hybrid opportunity
there, make it more accessible, I don't know.
I'm just trying to think because I'm trying to think of when
Galton and Simpson have written for Sellers subsequently.
Now obviously they did the script or collaborated on Buddy
Brown Arm of the Law and they also wrote, I believe they wrote
The Spy with the Cold Nose with him in mind.
But they they did, yeah. Yeah, but and of course there's
the there's the episode that was discovered of Hancock's half
hour, the one that Sellers was a late addition to which he he
pretty much took on the the roles that Kenneth Williams
would have taken. So in a sense, I suppose they
would have had to adapt adapt that script for Sellers.
Well now, Mr. Hancock, let's see how you've got on with our
intelligence test all. Right, all right.
Well, you've managed to get just over half of the little wooden
blocks in the right holes, and I got more in it from the Ameren
chisel. Evan Brooke.
Right. I'd love if he's just fascinated
to to, to, to know how he worked with them or or what his
relationship was was with those guys.
There was a period of crossover as well, wasn't it?
Because there was, I think in the missing Hancock's that that
just recorded for a year 4 recently, that there is that
instance of of Spike walking on at the end of one of the
recordings and going, Nope, wrong show and walking off
again. And, and, and obviously Harry
was in a few episodes. So yeah, no, maybe there was
some misguided attempt to do some kind of crossover
multiverse. Well, they've done a crossover
earlier, Well, quite a few months earlier with Archie and
Goonland, didn't they? That's right, yeah.
So they're all kind of living out of each other's pockets at
ALS. I, I think that's The thing is
that they, it, it just shows the collaborative practices of that
group of writers. It's, it's, you get the feeling
of how busy it was around, you know, in that, that small room
of a small set of rooms above a grocery shop, you just got all
this material churning around people running, you know, you
get the feeling there's people dashing between doors saying can
you do this? Can you do that?
The amount of, you know, if you like product that's coming out
of that ALS group at that time, it's absolutely phenomenal.
And yeah, I think, I think it's just a case of we'll, we'll,
we'll pitch in and do. And that's how these sketches
come to be. I mean, it's disposable, as you
were saying earlier on about comedy being disposable.
Midday Music Hall is a live program.
It goes out on a Saturday at lunchtime.
It's it's to amuse and nothing but to amuse.
And so it's, you know, you get the feeling there will be a
hierarchy of what's important and what's not.
And this is just a quickie for Peter Sellers.
Get it done, get it out. As opposed to a goon show which
has to be crafted. Sure.
So, Richard, you've explained to the audience here, so you have
performed one of these sketches. Yes.
So Gary contacted me, sent me an e-mail asking would I, would I
be available or interested in, in bringing one of these
sketches back to life as part of, you know, the, in it
marvelous talk he was giving at the, at the festival, York
Festival of ideas. And yeah, I've, it's a no
brainer for me, Absolutely 100% a golden, golden opportunity to,
to bring something like that to, to life.
It no longer exists and it hadn't been performed by anyone,
you know, since 1954. So and it's sellers centenary
year. There's of course dozens of
reasons why why it was right to do it.
Can you give us a rough, rough precis as to what it's about and
what characters are in it and. Yeah, well, it's the the
Sherlock Holmes. It's a Sherlock Holmes spoof.
Sherlock Holmes in the case of the two raised fingers and it's
it's spacing it out correctly for ABBC sort of script layout,
non non full scap. It runs at about 11 to 12
minutes on paper. So it's it's almost like a first
half of a goon show, you know, pre pre Max geldre or whatever.
It's that sort of feel to it. So yeah, begins with the the,
the the blood knock fanfare, the love dot March, and then goes
into, goes into an introduction and then, you know, in in
typical goon share fashion, going to present a dramatization
of 1 of Conan Doyle's lesser known works.
And then into the the, you know, this sort of horror link that
was always used in the goon show.
And then, yeah, then taking up a dramatic voice and it just goes
from there basically with pretty much I think 5 or 6 of the goon
characters in there. So you've got Blood Knock,
you've got Holmes, which I'll come back to in a second.
You've got Blue Bottle, Eccles and Izzy which is an interesting
addition to the line up. Would that be the Lou voice?
Yes, yeah, pretty much. I think the the way they they
approached it. So there's there's all the
familiar characters in there. And when, when Gary sent me that
the, the transcript he'd quickly typed up of, of, of the sketch,
it was, yeah, Sherlock Holmes speaking to Blood Knock.
And I was, I was sort of going through it thinking which voice
would Sellers have used for, for Holmes?
I was thinking he probably wouldn't have, would he have
done an impersonation of Basil Rathbone?
Would it? Would it?
I thought mean grip. Pipe thin surely?
Exactly that that was my instinctive thinking was this
would be this would be old grip pipe.
So George Saunders voice and then Gary sent me a photograph
of the actual or scan of the the original script and there it
says Holmes brackets Sanders. So yeah, my instincts are right
to to go with that. It's just it is it's it's very
fast-paced. There are gags set up, delivered
punch lines, the whole the whole works, but they're between
characters. So Sellers working on his own,
delivering the equivalent of Goon show type, pacing and
timing. It's it's all there.
So how he did it, it, you know, is, is that that incredible
thing? We'll never know.
And that's why it was a joy to perform it, you know?
I'm trying to think, was it the early 6th series that they did
that re recording of the threaded batter putting her in a
whisp spike wasn't wasn't well. Oh, that's right.
Sellers had to do all his parts. And of course there's the MEC
Reiki Rising show, yes, where he does all his Milligan's parts.
So he's talking to himself in many of those sequences or
scenes. But still, Even so, it must be
difficult to remember who you are or who you're supposed to be
switching from one to the other. And mid gag as well sometimes,
you know, yeah, what 1 character.
It's, it's, it comes back to that thing of the the Goon show
characters. You know, it's actors playing
characters, playing characters. And in the same way Sellers is
playing characters who are talking to each other.
It's, it's, it's it's mind boggling that the amount of
detail Ray and Allen would have had to have gone through, you
know, that that they would have had to have considered the fact
that this is for one solo performer.
And to that, that must have been an interesting process for them
to go through as as writers as well, to figure out how they
could do that, how they could make sure that those gags with
could be delivered by one person as one character and and reacted
to by the same person as another character.
It's Yeah. It's very cleverly written from
that point of view. Come in.
You'll find the mat under the key.
Don't you mean the key under the mat?
No, it's a big key. Are you are you Sherlock Holmes?
Are you all from the gas company?
No speaking. My name is Bludnock.
Major Dennis Bludnock. Retired.
Oh, when? Just before we went into action.
Would you care for a cigar? No, thanks.
I've got one on. It doesn't fit you very well,
does it? Oh, what can I do for you?
A crime has been committed. Who did it?
I've no idea. I'm sorry.
I can't take the case if you're going to withhold information.
Good day, Spraggle me, cockers. You don't understand.
My house has been bungled. At the moment the the university
owns part of the collection. I understand.
So tell me, tell me, tell me more about this this campaign in
it marvellous. Well, it's, it's the first of
what I assume will be, will be several stages.
So acquiring something like this is, is a challenge.
York is not a very old university.
We've we've only just gone through our 60th anniversary.
So we don't have the kind of deep pockets and endowments and
large, large stacks of money substances that some of our
compatriots might. So it's making sure we can raise
the money. It is not a good time to be
trying to do this in higher education right now.
Higher education financing in the UK is, is, is particularly
bad. So this will be the largest
philanthropically funded acquisition that York has ever
attempted. It's, it's a big number.
So the way we we've been able to do it is that most of the
collection is, is now owned, at least the physical items are
owned by the university. There's a small amount which
which amounts to the six series of Hancock.
So, you know, blood donor lift, Bowman's, all that stuff is, is
currently on loan to us, exclusively on loan to us for
until this coming October. And after that point, that
exclusive period goes and and at that point, stuff could, could
theoretically disappear off into the ether and be sold.
So it's really making sure we have the totality of everything
to tell that story of of Ray and Allen.
Now, am I right that you're looking to raise something in
the region of 30,000 lbs. That is, that is correct, yes,
yeah, and. You've obviously got this
crowdfunding thing going on. Yeah, yeah, we've got a
crowdfund to go in that's that's for 3000 because we didn't want
to put the burden of a whole 30,000 on the general public.
I think one thing I find really, really heartening is that we are
something like 60 odd percent of the way there with with a bit of
time left to run and all of the donations are small numbers.
This is 10 pound, 20 lbs 30 from, from well over so far.
I think it's like 66 people as of today have donated that.
And that just shows how much people feel about this, that
people are chipping this in. It's not just one person that's
interested in it and the rest of the world isn't.
This shows that there's a huge groundswell of people that, that
that, that love it and, and want to ensure it, it survives and
thrives. So I, I think that is a is a
really lovely thing to see and it's worth doing.
It's absolutely worth doing as well.
I've got to say, when it comes to this as well, I've not not
really said this, but I am I I too was brought up a goon bit
like it was Richard was saying it, but with me it was my dad
reading us the scripts. I was going to ask you that,
wasn't I at the beginning. I've completely.
Figured, yeah, it's all right. Yeah, my dad.
So we used to go on like on holidays, me and my dad and my
brother to get to give my mum a break and we go camping and at
night my dad would, would, would read Goon show scripts to us
doing all the voices. As a one man performance, I have
to say Richard, you were boggling at how Peter Sellers
could do it. I'd just like to know for the
benefit of the tape. Richard did it is you did manage
to do that and you did it brilliantly.
When you performed it, It was, it was incredible.
Seeing the audience's face turn from amusement to slight horror
to joy was a great trajectory to go on.
So yeah. And I have noticed some things
in it as as a result of that excellent education.
So one of my favourites is Tales of Old Dartmoor.
And there's a joke that I could I've seen in one of the in the
Gotton and Simpson scripts that turns up in Tales of Old
Dartmoor, which again, if it's not a particularly in a joke,
it's probably been rattling around the ALS officers for
yonks. But it's the one where they say,
you know, he's heaving to well, don't just stand there heave to
back it. But that that's in one of the
Galton and Simpson ones. So that I think that's that that
is interesting as well. But you know, that's a piece
that made it through later either, you know, by design or
by accident through to the the show itself.
Absolutely, Absolutely. I had that one on that that that
script is on on standby. I spent about a week rehearsing
or just over a week talking to myself, rehearsing both.
But the script that Gary had sent me and then just as a sort
of a standby, you never know, I had to go the Kane Mutiny with
the sketch as well, which is was brilliant.
And it was more or less just because I wanted to have a go at
it. And there are so many more good
characters in that. You've, you know, you've got
Henry Crumb popping up and mini Banister, OK.
And but Humphrey Bogart and a bit of her and her and all of
that, there's so many in addition to all of the
characters that were already in, in the, in the, the case of the
two raised fingers. Was it the fact there was less
of a cast of characters in in the Two Fingers sketch that you
took that or decided to do that one?
I think, yeah, that that was probably the the, the most
straightforward from the point of view of, of not alienating
the audience, you know, that's standing or sitting watching.
Some lunatic doing all of the different, different characters.
It's, it's very difficult to translate that visually without
changing hats or something crazy.
But yeah, it's 5 characters I think.
Yeah, that's, that's manageable. And again, with all the gags,
you know, I think in the Cane Mutiny, I, I, I think I'm right
in thinking there's a, there's a sequence of gags that, that's,
that's shared between about 3 or 4 characters back and forth,
back and forth. And that that's, it's lightning
fast as well. And you've got sound effects to,
to add to the mix. But yes, the, you know, the, the
case of the two raised fingers was the one that Gary sent me
initially. And as soon as I had that, that
moment of, of this, he would have used Sanders for this.
He would have used George Sanders, Absolutely.
And then the confirmation it it that was the light bulb moment,
but but it was just nice to go through a a second one just for
just for kicks, really. It's just occurred to me.
Two raised fingers has certain
connotations. Was that made explicit in the
actual sketch or not? No, I I don't think there's any
actual. You know, well, you know what
I'm talking about reference to that doing the two finger
salute. But yes, which obviously you
would not get away with. Well, you you wouldn't be able
to see it on radio, but you certainly wouldn't be able to
get away with doing that in in 1950s light entertainment.
I, I also wondered because there, there are a few
references in that, that particular sketch to things like
the ex, you know, good evening, ladies and gentlemen, ladies and
ex strikers. And there had been a a bus
strike in London which had escalated to a dock strike in
London and then spread around the country.
There's a reference to. There wasn't and I know and I
know that because sorry to drop we covered the phantom head
shaver of Brighton several years ago and I remember it was
written during the bus strike because of you know, took it
background in terms of what was going on in Britain at the time.
So that's. Fascinating.
So there's that. There's a reference to I think
at some point Blood Knock says name your name, your figure and
George George Saunders or Grip pipe Holmes replies Jar Jar
Gabor and George Sanders at that point is either married or
divorcing Jar Jar Gabor. So it so I wondered if the, the
two raised fingers thing was some reference to Churchill
perhaps that had something that happened, you know, like you're
saying around that time, because you know, there's possibly,
there's plenty of different references that we, you know,
we, we can't get now that we're very current and topical at that
point. We've just literally just I've
just put out a show yesterday covering the lost gold mine of
Shalot. There's a reference to Zsa Zsa
Gabor and the script for that. So very much in the in the
public consciousness around this time.
Yes. OK, So Gary, I'll put a link
obviously when when the show goes out.
But if people want to contribute to the, the innate marvelous,
the the the golden Simpson archive campaign, where can they
go? What can they do?
Yeah. So there'll be a link obviously
to the crowdfunding page where you can, you can chip in penny
and mug. Thank you.
If anyone has any of the larger money substances are happy to
chat as well. Because once we've raised the
purchase price, which I feel more confident than I've ever
done, that we'll, we'll, we'll nail this.
We'll need to keep doing some fundraising because the next
thing is people want to use it and catalog it.
And so we'll have to get that out and available and do the
work then, not just to explore the stuff where we have raise
brilliant list of contents, but into the stuff where we don't.
So we can maybe find some more cool stuff.
And we'll look towards seeing where we can do digitisation,
where we can, you know, send off the early videos or to get them
digitised and see see what's on them or, you know, get some
audio stuff digitised as well. So there's, there's, there's
always going to be more that we're going to need to do with
this. And that will be the next thing
is, is supporting the research and love and enjoyment and
pleasure that hopefully this this collection will bring and
help us to, you know, create the links into other collections
and, and do so much more. So, yeah, drop, drop some money
into the crowd funder. That would be absolutely
brilliant. Like I said, most people have
been dropping relatively, you know, modest if you like an
amount. I think that's absolutely
brilliant that people feel they can do that.
But if anyone is currently sitting on a large pile of
money, we'd like to make it slightly smaller in a tax
efficient fashion. Give us a bell.
Well, surely to go. I'm just thinking, surely
someone like, I don't know, Robert Plant, Pete Townsend,
people like that. There's bound to be fans of
Hancock's Half hour. I know there will be, I know
there will be. And like I say, if they want to
give us a, give us a, give us a bell that I will be more than
happy to have a chat. I think it's as, you know, these
people will be, I'm sure, more than happy to support.
But there's a there's a wall of people usually around them that
are doing their entirely correct job of protecting them from
nutters like me who are begging for cash.
Obviously, Your Majesty, if you are listening, you know.
Oh. No, no, it'd be for the goons.
Only that he'd be putting his hand in his pocket. 3 goon
scripts. Yeah, that's true.
So 3 goon scripts there and. I'd be very, very happy to
perform them all personally for him if he wanted personal Royal
Variety Performance. Version with a knighthood thrown
in as well. I'll settle for an OBE.
If he wants to do it in Barbados, we'll be even happier
to do that, yeah. I just wanted to ask you,
Richard, yes, no inference here, but the state of the GSPS at the
moment, do you agree or do you think that it needs to evolve in
order to stay relevant? I, I think the, the, the problem
the society has is in the sense that a lot of what the society
is, is about the, the performers and the work that they did
together and separately is kind of all that's left.
None of the, the, the key performers are, are still
around. There's not an awful lot of news
out there that's current and, and, and topical.
So I think there, I think we, we do have to move to the times and
come up with new ways of, of repackaging that material or
becoming, you know, maybe a channel through which things can
be preserved. You know what one idea I'd I did
come up with was if people did want to debate unusual
artifacts, if they have a script somewhere and they're then
they're attic or the, you know, some recordings are very rare
and they want them preserving. I mean, we could become the
channel that would then, you know, pass, pass those items for
deposit and care, you know, with, with the, with Gary at the
Bothick Archives and that sort of thing would be, would be of
interest. I'd love to see the, the old
regional groups getting back together.
There was a, a muttering at the last annual gathering we had in
London that people would be interested in that.
There's quite a few, quite a clump of us in the, in the north
there. There's been a lot of, you know,
lot based in the South, but it'd be nice to get some of those
regional meetings back, back together and people having fun
over a few pints and, and going through scripts and stuff like
that. But it's it, you know, people
are getting older, people are getting more involved with, with
family or different things that they they're getting involved
with that take them away from the opportunities to do that and
distance. But you know, we've got things
like zoom, we, we can join up worldwide with people if you
know, if, if, if the willingness is there.
We, the last count we had a 388 members.
This is big back in the beginning of June and that's
worldwide. So we've still got people in
Japan, America, Australia, Yep, New Zealand, you know, fans of
the Goon show in that out outlying areas.
It would be nice to keep that momentum going.
We had one of our members, a gentleman you've spoken to many
times, Mark Cousins popped up on talking talking pictures TV on
their footage detectives or photo defectives program.
And off the back of that, I think we had about 1010
inquiries, possibly some new people signing up.
So it would be nice by the end of the year to maybe get hit
that thousand level again or something like that.
But it it does need to, it does need some new blood.
I mean, I'm, you know, I'm secretary and and acting chair.
That can't last. I mean, I'm, I'm a busy person
myself and I've got things coming up which, you know, may
take me my attention off, off the society.
And it needs somebody who can, yeah, come up with new ideas and
push the society in the right direction.
Yeah, By the way, Mark, Mark, Mark Mark did tell me that he
plugged Goon Pod, but they cut it from the broadcast.
The swine. I played bike read, I played
that's played bike read for anything really.
You kept Calypso particularly, but I mean The thing is right.
I I think variety is the thing and I found that this this
podcast. I don't want to.
I'm not trying to blow my own Trumpetly or anything, but for
this podcast I could not if it was just be talking about the
goon show week in, week out, different goon shows or
whatever, you know, covering goon shows, I would I would
quickly tire of it. So that's why I love to do you
know, sellers films or look at different wrinkles.
Like last week we did a show on Peter Sellers and Irene Handel
and the relationship work they did together.
Just lots of variety. I just try and have as much
variety as possible just to keep it fresh.
And I just wonder whether maybe the GSPS should, should you know
the, the the quarterly magazine, maybe it should have a four page
article about Digby, the biggest dog in the world.
You know what I mean? Just.
Yeah, little things like, I mean, Peter Ambling, our
magazine editor is, is a genius. No way, no other way about it.
He's he's absolutely brilliant at what he he puts together and
and he will assemble, you know, something amazing for each issue
and sometimes somehow manages to to find things in, in little
archive boxes here and there that that have not, haven't
really seen the light of day in in our magazine before and bring
it to the, the membership in that way.
And that, and he was the one of the spearheads behind the, you
know, the good news book. So yes, I think, I think he is,
he's trying to push the envelope a little bit in that direction.
Yeah, you're absolutely right. I think that needs to be the the
way ahead. I think the biggest wish thing
on my wish list, the biggest thing I could hope for other
than old shows being rediscovered and then some, you
know, generating some attention, some media attention or getting
a fan base in it, you know, excited again about stuff.
The only other option I think was is to go back and re record
some of those missing shows, which I know to some people is
is heresy. There have been a couple of
naysayers on a couple of the the Facebook groups and I completely
understand where they're coming from.
But at the end of the day, if these shows are there on paper
and no other way of hearing them than to pre record them, to re
perform them for a an existing audience and potentially a new
audience is is the way to go. It would be wonderful to see
something like that happened one day and, you know, try and just
generate the same excitement that the missing Hancocks say
had over that sort of thing as well that that would be.
Just amazing. Well, I mean, not, not trying to
take bread from your mouth, but give it, give it five years.
AI could probably recreate those missing goon shows.
Who knows? Not that not that necessarily
you'd want that, but it would be possible I'm sure.
Oh, absolutely, I think it's it's definitely going to be
there. Now, whether the the gags would,
you know, would would fit and work and the timing and
everything. But as AI develops and gets
better, that those those things will, will, I'm, I'm sure come
I've, I've, I've got a weird idea that one day somebody is
going to use AI to take a Laurel and Hardy silent and make it
into a talkie. That to me is, is eminently
possible. I think that all the source
materials there, it could do that.
Again, some people would say that's heresy and, you know,
keep it pure, but it would bring it alive in a in a different
way. It would just give that
opportunity. But I think I'd like, I'd much
rather have a natural, you know, organic goon show performance,
you know, I mean, Dirk Mags did it so brilliantly with Goon
again. Yeah, to, to do something like
that would just be brilliant with the full orchestra, you
know, a, a live audience, just as it always used to be.
Just it's just a case of the having the somebody having the
the genius idea of doing it, you know?
You'd need someone. You'd need someone at the edge
of the stage, though, having to to chip in and explain to the
audience who Gilbert Harding was and what yes.
I suppose again, if if the, you know, if the various estates
involved were were willing and interested there, I suppose
there is an opportunity to maybe just tweak a few of those gags
and make them topical for the day.
That's one option. Yeah, but I don't want to hear a
goon show. Weird.
What's his name? Rylan, his name is.
I don't know, just jumping in and sorry.
It's, it's, it's interesting that because when we were
talking about Gotham and Simpson earlier, they they have, they
weren't, they weren't precious about that.
And I think there's something to take from that when we're having
this, you know, having this chat.
So they redo the blood donor in 2009.
It's got a script for it. And in that there's jokes about
like Adam Faith they go through and they rewrite in a new.
I think it might be Robbie Williams at the time.
They write in as as as the punchline.
Now, for some people who know the original, that's sheer
heresy. For others, though, that makes
that structure of that joke land in a way that I mean, and
there's no way that I as a what was I like, you know, 910 year
old should know either who Sabrina is or who Gilbert
Harding is. But I did.
So, you know, in some ways it's a gateway to people learning
about these things. Not that not that I've had any
use out of knowing who Gilbert Harding is, but you know that
you can either, you can either keep it as sacrosanct and sacred
text. So you can you can tweak it and
make the joke land. It's, it's, it's totally, it's
totally a call. And I think this is what I found
really exciting about seeing Richard do these scripts.
We're seeing Richard making these choices and making these
decisions and going, OK, this, this, you know, this like you're
saying, this is going to be ripped out, then this is going
to be George Sanders. And that's what you want.
You want all this stuff to be a living, evolving thing.
I think, you know, that's what I would love to see is, is seeing
younger people come at these and and suddenly make them, make
them new again because the structure of the humour is not
probably not changed all that much.
And you know, seeing if those tweaks like making a Ryland gag
lands, maybe it will. Maybe it'll just land as a
resounding thump. Who knows.
But you know, it is possible I guess.
My, my, my friend Gary, I tell you how it came up.
We were talking about something like this ages ago, I'm sure.
And he said something like, I don't, I don't want to hear.
I don't want to hear Blue Bottle talking about twerking.
Oh, that is a funny idea though surely I.
Mean there was a point when we was building up towards we did a
quick technical run through rehearsal on the day for this
performance when Gary did his talk.
And there was a temptation for me to sort of suggest that maybe
we could explain who Jaja Kapoor was.
Maybe could explain there was a a bus strike.
But quite honestly, it would I think people would have been
baffled yeah, by by that description and it it would have
made the jokes land any better. I don't think.
I think you've just got to you. Know, yeah, when I was when I
was, I don't know, 10 in the on the other side of the world,
watching repeats of the two Ronnies from the 70s.
I had no, no idea who Reginald Maudling was or, or what the EC
wine Lake or Butter Mountain was.
I, I didn't know what they were those things.
But you just, you just kind of, well, you know, you used to
accept it, don't you? And just.
It's like Lady Docker in, yeah, the dreaded battle pudding.
I as as a kid, you know, 1314 year old at school, I had no
idea when they said Lady Docker and just mystified.
No gag at all in terms of no, it was just of curiosity and I
spoke with I think my friend Mark and I was we mentioned it
to to our forum shooter, Mr. John G Cardinal Buchan.
It's a great name. And he said, oh lady, lady
Docker was married to Lord Docker and he had a scrap
business and explained the whole thing.
And suddenly the context it kind of.
So when I listen back to those shows now, I because I know
about the gag, it does, it does land a bit funnier, but yeah,
it's it's it takes somebody, I think who who was there and knew
about it to to explain it sometimes.
Absolutely. It can either kill it or cure
it. And those those versions can
exist simultaneously, I think. I think, you know, they do that
with Shakespeare. Why not do that with Milligan
and Galton and Simpson? You know, they, they, they, they
can't exist. I'm just going to think of
someone famous who's really bold and I can't at the minute, but
I'm thinking again, the he's not facing.
No, I was going to say for the kids.
I was just thinking Greg Wallace.
You know that Greg Wallace No, right, Oh God, no, But the joke
being, you know, just thinking of the tales of all Dartmoor
gag. You know, they've raised a skull
and crossbones. No, it's a picture of Greg
Wallace with his arms folded. You know, it would something
like that would land and maybe that's the thing that could
happen. That's.
A perfect example, sorry to cut into that.
I didn't know who when I first heard Tales of Old Dartmouth.
I had no idea who David Nixon was, but I worked out what the
gag was. He's saying yes, it's obviously
a very cadaverous, very thin man, possibly bald, with his
arms crossed, looking like the skull and crossbows.
That's funny. Yeah, he's a great line.
He's a great line, yeah. Look at the flag.
He's flying the skull and crossbone.
Wrong. It's a photograph of David Nixon
with his arms falling. Captain is evening too.
Well, don't stand there. He's too back at him.
There are obviously just to say that there are three of these
scripts and and Richard has has been.
So I guess give my absolute tribute to Richard for the for
the way he, you know, taking an idea that was generally one of
my after a couple of drinks on a Friday night going we could do
this and and doing it. And it just been so brilliant to
see it and hear it and right, right alongside him as he's as
he's done this. It's just been a complete joy.
And I really hope that the other, the other two scripts can
can get their airing at some point as well.
It's, it's just been an absolute joy and a pleasure.
So I always want to say thank you to Richard more than
anything else. Oh, thank you.
Thank you for having the crazy idea.
I mean, it's we, we need more of them.
Drink more, drink more. That's.
That. I, I definitely, you know, on
the basis of performing that one script and on the basis of
rehearsing the, the, you know, the cane meet me sketch and
things like that. There's there's something about
being sellers. There's something about
performing those character voices that gets you.
And when I first did it in 2014 professionally, you know, it
was, it was hard to leave it behind.
So doing it again in 2017 and then, you know, and, and doing
the, the lost Hancocks and all of these different productions
that have been involved in the, the sellers thing.
Just being able to have that, that sheer unadulterated joy of,
of reengaging with a very unusual man that I've, I've read
so much about in biographies. But to reengage with his
characters and the things that he created and to do to see them
work their magic on, on a live audience, you can't get much
better than that in life. If I could do that for the rest
of my life, I would. So if, if that opportunity
arises where for for raising funds or for doing my bit for
charity or something like that, if if these scripts get another
opportunity to have a an outing, I'm I'm there absolutely
wonderful do. You know what I'm going to do?
Mad idea already. I'm.
Shall we send them to His Majesty?
Let's. Leather bound, of course.
Leather bound. Leather bound, Yeah, actually
we've got, we have paper conservatives that can do book
binding. Yes, that could happen.
New plan. And there's all sorts of ways of
making, making this material have a have a life and make it
positive, you know? Absolutely.
And and and all. All power to your elbow.
I'll tell you what, I've had trouble speaking tonight.
More power to your elbow. Both of your elbows, Gary, with
well both of you, but Gary also in particular with, with the,
the, the campaign and obviously we we all hope and trust that
everything works out. Yeah.
I was going to say an open invitation to everybody
listening. Come and play, come and come,
come if you can come to your come and play and and use this
material and love it and enjoy it.
It's not, it's, it's there for you.
We're doing it for everybody. So do do that.
We'd love it. Absolutely.
And Gary, well, both you and Richard are on on Blue Sky.
We are so. Oh yes, a fellow fellow on on
Blue Sky. So I just want to say thank you
both very, very much. I'm sure we will speak again and
all the very best. Absolute pleasure.
Thank you.