This son, Barbara the morning, the Milligan play full length on
the grass, head against the wall, his eyes lost in the
shadow of his cap. I think he reflected, I think
I'll bronze be limbs. He rolled his trousers, knee
words, revealing, the like of too thin white Harry Affairs of
the leg variety. The, I'd them with obvious
dissatisfaction after examining, the me spoke out loud.
Holy God, but had he's dead. Hey, he looked around for an
answer. What are they?
He repeated angrily. Her legs legs.
Whose legs Yours. Mine.
And who are you? I'm the author artist.
Did you write? Legs.
Yes. Can I don't like them?
I don't like them at all. I could have risen back legs
meself. Did you write your eggs?
No. Ah, so you got someone else to
write your legs. Someone with a good lead,
writer, and then you write this pair of crap.
You're next to me. Well, mr.
It's not good enough. Hello and welcome to goon pot
and its regular listeners. Will know, I was obsessed with
the Goon show and its principles for a four or five year period
in my late, teens, and pretty much any spare time I had was
spent listening to the show or watching sellers films or
generally, mooching around second-hand shops on the lookout
for books, records or tapes. Then I started going out with
girls and socializing are often and gradually.
I found, I was requiring. My goons fix.
Less frequently than before. Plus I was developing a greater
love for music and a lot of my disposable income was being used
to grow a sizable CD collection. I never gave up on the goons
completely, of course. But I was less inclined to seek
out the latest BBC released as I would have been a few years
earlier and my membership of the gun show preservation Society,
elapsed. And pretty much that was that
it's only been in recent years. That I have started walking out
again with sellers Milligan seekin, and Benton.
Dean and Wallah a podcast was born.
But for most of my late 20s and early, 30s until kids came along
and ruined everything. I was a voracious reader of
fiction and would read everything.
I could Coleridge was the last man of whom it was said, he'd
read every book, ever written. And although a fair few more
been published since his death and was having a fair stab at
doing something similar, I didn't manage it but an author
whose books, I always bought was Don't think, oh, he was my guest
this week. Jonathan was a huge admirer of
the work of Spike Milligan, specifically, his books and
pakkun in particular, we talked about that and a lot more in
what I hope he will find is an entertaining conversation.
Jonathan, thank you for joining me today.
My pleasure, great pleasure. If all goes, well, if this is
going out on schedule, which is hopefully going to be early
November, it's going to be literally.
This, this podcast will be out. But you literally days before
the publication of your latest novel bournville.
That's that's right here, which comes out on November the 3rd.
There we go. So, I think this would be one or
two days before that and not one of my more comic novels, I have
to say, but okay, okay, so kind of state of the nation piece,
which leads me but more in the direction of tragedies and
comedy at the moment. But anyway, I mean obviously, I
haven't read it yet. I gather, though from little
hints. Saying that recent events will
of got quite a bearing on some of the themes of the novel, is
that right? Well, there's a lot about the,
the royal family in it, if that's what you're yeah.
That's kind of what you're hinting at.
So, so yeah, it's structured around a series of kind of,
Royal moments really like the, the coronation the wedding of
Charles and Diana the death of dinosaur.
Yeah. There's there's a little bit of,
um, intended topicality. I guess that's a wide
bournville. What's the, what does the title
come from? Bournville is kind of Garden
City suburb of Birmingham, whether we're Canterbury has
always had its Factory. And it was where my mother was
born and grew up and, and the book is kind of further.
The, the main female protagonist of the book is based on my
mother who died during lockdown. So it's a celebration of her
Life as much as it is a kind of story of the country from from
1945 to 2000. Okay, okay, yeah.
Because I at first, I thought it may be part of the Benjamin
Trotter Saga. Well, it's about a family who,
who actually cousins of the Trotters.
Okay. So one of the Trotters Paul does
does make an appearance in the book and they kind of talked
about Background. But they're not.
Then I looked at the center of it by any means.
Yeah. So you say it's a state of the
nation novel that's in keeping, I guess with some of your
previous works, I would say that I think it's fair to say that a
lot of your mom, okay? The first book of yours that I
read was the robotics club, which I absolutely adored and
think I was doing what 2001, something like that and okay.
Yep, 2001. And then, I remember going on a
cruise soon after I bought one of The caliph up off the back of
reading rotters, Tomatoes club and it's what a car that I love
as well but it seemed it seemed a little bit more if you don't
mind Miss a little bit more vicious little bit more biting
in its yeah satire the real sort of scathing indictment of
Thatcher's Britain reason it. Yeah.
And it's a very, it's very much the satirical novel whereas the
Ross Club in the other books around it are more.
In the vein of kind of family sagas, I suppose the kind of
stories of ordinary people in the suburbs of Birmingham, who
with the kind of big political events of the era happening in
the background. Whereas in in what a carve up
the focus was much more strongly on on politics.
Okay. And I know I want to come back
to talk about some eBooks in more detail, but I've asked you,
I asked you to come on because as I say, being a big admirer of
yours but I know that you are Our a big comedy fan.
You grew up watching sitcoms during the sort of a spectacle
with the golden era. Yeah, 70s.
And and I know you're discovered Spike Milligan in his books
pakkun and that'll fit with my partner's down from the
particular. Yeah, that's right.
I mean I was some Even though I wound up being a novelist, I
wasn't a very bookish child or a bookish teenager and we didn't
have a lot of books in the house actually.
You know, my mom read crime novels like the Christie and so
on my father would read this big kind of Blockbusters which were
around at the time. Alistair, MacLean laughter.
Hey, those kind of things. It was a complete set of,
Dickens, in our family but nobody read it.
It was, it was just kind of Are for show like a lot of
middle-class families had like, I guess.
And the two things that obsessed me, were pop, music, and comedy.
And yeah, I mean comedy, I suppose was something that I
don't remember. My dad ever watching much TV
comedy or listening to my radio comedy book.
Well, my mother was kind of into it or introduced me to the
earliest show, really, I can remember, I was getting excited
about what we watch the likely Lads in the mid-60s.
Do y'all do the original black and white series and I Remember
Loving that. But then I think the thing that
first kind of really grabbed me, which was very Milligan, asked
in a way was Marty filament show of the late 1960s, which I think
was just called Marty. I can't remember, it's not to
use it. I think it's Marty, so that kind
of zany. Deconstructing comedy really
appeals to kids are supposed apart from the else.
You know, there's a lot of slapstick and and speed it up
film in the that Marty Feldman Series.
Yeah. And we all used to talk about
that in the playground. The next day, at the same time,
we were, I guess I was seven or eight or nine and we were
watching, do not adjust your sets which was the kind of pre
python show. That went out at T times on a TV
and we will have that And and then python python itself came
along and I went out pretty late at night, I seem to remember so
we didn't really didn't get much of an opportunity to see that I
think I mean in my memory, the thing that suddenly made that
show catch fire in the playground was the Spanish
Inquisition sketch and somehow or other everybody in the
playground the next day was going around saying nobody
expects the Spanish Inquisition, so the only the only, you know,
show in that Vein from around that time that I missed out on.
I guess was Q5 which somehow which went out what in 1969,
something like that. Yeah, passed me by completely it
was weeks weeks before python began for the person's first
pipe in series is right? So, I mean, it occurs to me.
Now that I was at the, I was getting into comedy in a big
way. Round about the time that
Milligan is influence was still very felt but he was actually
doing much. Himself in terms of making new
comedy apart from apart from Q5 which which I didn't see.
So, you know, when I somehow started to become aware of his
name, may be through Reading interviews with the pythons for
or stuff like that in the early 1970s the way to get into Spike
Milligan. Really was was through books
because that's and he wasn't much on TV at the time he was at
gun shows weren't being repeated.
But in my local Bookshop, So all these Spike Milligan books like
a dust bin of Milligan, little potboiler book of bits or a bit
of a book. I mean, II bought all of those.
Yeah. And, and so, you know, my, my
first knowledge of him really was as a guy who wrote books,
not as a radio comedian or a TV comedian.
So when did you end up? Reading pacune.
Was kind of, there was a slight mythology around.
That's cool. I remember this.
I was at Secondary School by then, so this was I was 11 or
older. Yeah.
And it was a book that grown-ups for reading and I remember I had
a friend at school, who his dad had a copy and he'd said to, to
my friend, he wouldn't like this.
It's very adult humor. And they kind of put me off for
a long while because I thought, well, it must be them.
Must be food. Very clever jokes or something,
or it must be very intellectual. But, you know, I didn't realize
that what he was actually telling his son, obviously, was
that there are sex scenes in, it's intentionally, didn't
wanted to read it for that reason.
So I kind of, I don't know that phrase, adult humor, I didn't
know that that meant dirty jokes to me, that made, it made it
sound like a difficult book. So I kind of stayed away from it
for a while. And then Obviously, I must have,
I must have bought it. I don't, I don't remember the
occasion and started reading it and immediately realize, you
know, it was that it was the best thing I had read by Spike
Milligan while on me and I absolutely fell in love with it.
Was it the because I know that when I first read the book
having just grown up on a diet of the goon goon show, really?
Yeah. And I read pakkun unprepared for
what it was going to be like and absolutely loved it.
But what really Impressed me was his attempt, which was
successful to introduce the himself into the actual
narrative Spigen. Spike Milligan.
The author is a character in the book.
Yeah, I mean I, you know, at that stage, I hadn't read at
swim-two-birds by Daniel Bryan. I don't know if that was an
influence direct influence on pacune, the certainly a lot of a
lot of overlaps there. I hadn't read through some
chandi had note about Tristram Shandy, in fact, T'.
So, you know what, what Milligan was doing with the comic novel
at that moment seemed completely kind of new and original and and
really, really exciting to me the thing that really struck me
about it and it struck me about it again.
When I reread it over the last couple of weeks, I mean, I was
reading out free Carpenters biography of Milligan and was
amazed to read that Milligan hadn't been to Ireland when he
wrote Baku. because it has a fantastic sense of place, I
think, I mean, maybe it's a kind of fantasy place and a fantasy
version of rural Island, but it really stayed with me and really
appealed to me, you know, for a long time, one of my, one of my
favorite scenes in books was just this kind of rather
beautiful idyllic image of Dan Milligan sitting down in the in
the churchyard in the sunshine, one day with his this lunch that
is Is his wife has made from, what is it?
Stout, and bread, and boiled potatoes or something just
sounded wonderful to me, just just the kind of great lifestyle
really. And, you know, I think, you
know, the, some of the descriptive passages in the
book. Like the opening paragraph
really, really, really well, written.
You know, he was a, he was a very skilled writer of prose.
I think I get that. The impression that he didn't
have much of an education he obviously, as you know, he grew
up in India. Yeah.
And I, from what I can gather, I think it was during the war and
after the war that he kind of became, he's just started
devouring Hooks. And let me get you get that
impression because the recovery in becomes very is very wide and
in his art books, actually and it's not it's not erudite, he
doesn't come across as a I guess what I would call the bookish, a
bookish writer, but, you know, he understands words and he
knew, he knows how to use words. It's some of the writing is
beautiful. You always want to be a writer?
No, I peculiar for, for a start, I was brought up in a household,
where there is only one book Robinson Crusoe.
My father was a Irishman and a romantic, and he was frightened
of the world. And he escaped into this book,
and he took me with him. Is there any book I ever read?
And consequently, I have all my life in an island such bitter,
ER, and i-i've never been touched or tainted by outside
literary efforts toward, I've never read many books.
I've never been to many plays nor have I seen many films, you
know? So I'm rather a freaks.
The only one you can put on the fre K freak.
Can we pause the recording for a second while I go?
Let my cat in. Yeah, go for it.
This could backfire on us actually because I'm actually
alone in the house and he's a very vocal cat.
Well don't worry that's that's a bit of color.
Absolutely color. Okay.
Yeah. If we if actually starts
contribution to the discussion than that that's who it is.
Okay. Yes I did in terms of the
experimental. Aspect of cocoon, where, where
we have the central character. Damn Milligan speaking to the
author. I mean, there's the, there's the
whole scene with the legs, where he's not happy with his legs.
Yeah, such a great. That's such a great scene.
I re-read novel of yours. I'm very, that was very fond of
the terrible privacy of Maxwell Sim.
Yeah, I'd completely forgotten. It's a more or less, a
relatively straightforward novel, until you get right to
the end. I can air out you by the way.
Yeah, you get right to the end and then you turn up.
Yeah, about that. And was that and I know
obviously there are other influences that that you can
draw upon. But was that in any way
harkening back to okay? Um, yeah, I'm sure it was I
mean, I'd always wanted to do something a little bit like
that. Something a little bit.
Like what, what, what Milligan doesn't preclude?
Yeah, and with the terrible privacy of micro SIM as far as I
remember, That's right. I wrote out a very careful
timeline for that. I think it's set in 2008 or
something like that to ice. I wrote down all the bait from
where Michael was on each day and one day, I think he's at an
airport. And I suddenly realized that I
was at Heathrow Airport on the same day in real life and I
thought that's a weird coincidence.
I could have I could have seen him and as soon as I thought of
that I thought, you know, maybe maybe our paths should cross
once or twice. I think there's a reference to
the fact that he that I the author.
And the hero Max, we'll see each other at that airport, very
briefly early on in the book and then I kind of took that up and
ran with it in the Final Chapter where Well, yes, in a in a very
Milligan, ask way. I turn up at the end and kind of
it's the same sort of relationship.
I think. Now that I think about it
doesn't pacune end with Dan Milligan dangling, from a tree
and he says to the narrator, you can't leave me like this in the
Lorry to just said oak on time and purple socks off and that's
exhibit, 10 years of Journey to that end and pakkun.
Once again was lost in its unhurried ways, the church was
restored by a rich cat. Catholic father hadn't found
faith in a new pair of boots the mute steeple clock.
Once again, kicked out with a new life and the Border posts
were never rebuilt. And to this very day, no one is
quite sure exactly where the Border lies in fact, each and
every character in the picture returned to his or her own ways
all except one man, a Roman soldier hanging from a tree with
a rusty Organ Pipe. Lodged over his head from where
I came a muffled voice. He can't lie.
Be like this. Oh, can't I?
That's it. That's what happens at the end
of my channel soon because the author says, you know, Maxwell
says, how does it end and the author clicks, his fingers and
says like this and that's that's it, it's gone.
So yeah, that's true. It's a very, very poor Kunis
ending to the book. Another thing that happened in
the early 1970s around 72 73. I think was that they started
actually publishing goon show scripts.
Yes, it should not been available before again.
It all starts with Monty Python last post because that's what we
were all obsessed with what You know, I love, I love the python
books. I loved the Little Red Book in
particular. Yeah.
And the Milligan books like like the Dustbin, a little popular
struck me as being in that vein. And again, I picked up the gun
show script book the first one in the Bookshop and just love
the feel of it and the look of it really and, you know, the
cartoons and the way the scripts were laid out in this kind of
thing. And again, my was on the written
but on the printed page it was the written word that my
introduction to the world of the goons came because you couldn't
hear the show's back then anything unless you bought the
less you bought the album's? Yeah.
It was I think in the mid 70s that the BBC actually started
repeating a few of the episodes. Probably for the first time
since they had since they've gone out.
I guess. Well, they did beat that been
sporadic. The episodes played on the radio
over the 60s into the, into the 70s, but it was more or less not
given up on, but all forgotten about exactly.
But it was it was the the last green show of all.
Yeah, I remember that. I remember that coming on and
being talked about as a big event and I didn't really
understand what the what the fuss was about or who these
people were except that I could see that you know, one of them
was that guy Spike Milligan whose books are like.
And then the goons appeared on Parkinson, I think, around about
the same time, it's really quite famous interview.
And again, I recognized, please tell us he was a movie star,
Harry seek him because he sang on television and Milligan
because he wrote these books that I love.
That was the, that was my view of him that he was, you know, he
was a writer. Did you grow up watching sell as
much in films? Well, any old British comedy
film that came up on TV. I would, I would watch and kind
of pounce upon, so yeah, I would have seen him in.
I'm all right. Jack, I would have seen him in
only two, can play hadn't seen dr.
Strangelove at that point Pink Panther film came around on TV
periodically but it was it was those you know, those Terms of
his from the late 50s, early 60s, there was a Prison - moles
and there was he in two-way stretch has a stretch yeah which
which is great in which is the Forerunner of porridge and in so
many ways. It is, it is and then well
another very vivid memory from from the early 70s mid-70s I
guess because it was 1975 again I don't think I'd heard a
gunshot at this point. So, I had heard war two, but
what I'd read, I'd read all the scripts and in the published
books, I bought the book of the goons wedding as well.
Oh yeah. She also had some scripts in and
then I went to see Monty Python and the Holy Grail in the cinema
and the supporting feature came on, it was the case of the
mekinese battle horn. I thought, my God, this is a,
this is a gun show in the cinema and I just couldn't believe it.
I couldn't believe. I mean Seeing Monty Python the
holy grail for the first time, was one of the most joyous
experiences of my life. I think, certainly in the, in
the 1970s. But to have it prefaced by this,
to me, completely unknown film, which was so, so funny and also
so kind of quite quite kind of eerie and Atmospheric.
I felt when I when I started in the summer for the first time
and so unexpected that that was beautiful and see you know to
see So This Plane grip tight thin and Milligan playing equals
in this kind of thing. It was just it was just
glorious. I don't know how dick Emery
wound up in that film. I don't know why it was him and
not seek him. I'm sure there's a story behind
that theory. I mean, the, the official story
is Sika. Sika was too expensive.
It's very low budget but I think he was otherwise engaged and
Dick. Emery had been a few goon shows
as a kid. I was a guest.
When all right what? When 101 of them was Ella,
whatever he'd turn up. Deputize.
The Forerunner of the Naked Gun film.
So I think, yes, but but it's the most successful transfer of
goon humor to screen. I think it's fair to say, well I
saw I started watching down among the dead man on TV the
other day because it was on talking pictures over the
weekend and that's a, that's a tough watch.
I have to sleep and I have a DVD of Penny points to with Isis at
the truth. Yes.
Which I've never watched I don't know.
Shit is not worth my while. It's a curio.
It's an interesting. It's a curio.
Yeah, none of them would particularly those early 50s.
Goon short films or films. Yeah, really managed to capture
the will never manage to capture anywhere, like know anywhere
near the the humor of the radio shows.
No. The thing that puzzles me about
time down Among Us, Edmund is The shoe itself on the radio, it
only been going. Kind of a few months by then had
meant. It seemed a better yet better
yes to be like that seems odd that they were already making a
kind of feature film from it. But well, it was I think it was
the guy that produced it. I think it was some there was
tax is a tax write-off or something in the mistake.
It was something like that. It was what they used to call
the quota. Quickies.
You know. Right.
Yeah. Well it was certainly.
It certainly looks quick. Yeah.
And it's not. I mean it was it was it wasn't
Could have been any comedy troupe.
Really? Yeah, yeah.
Nice to see Michael benteen. I've been looking for someone
who said to stall, her walls, do not a prison make nor the iron
bars the cage they look look into the mirror.
I guess that's one of the few records of his participation in
it. But yeah there's I mean there's
this about three gun shows that are terrible quality.
Two terms of recording recorded quality that we recorded that
day when the show is broadcast in the oh, The 50s, the three
Banting gun shows existent as far as I know, all right, and
they're not very good in general, not preclude a general
to benteen doesn't come out of the Goon history.
Particularly well, there's no strong record if you like.
Yeah. If his participation in the
show. Yeah it wasn't really until
Series 5 so talking 1954 and 55 then it moved up again became to
show that we recognize today. You mentioned about the Goon
show scripts and you'd read the scripts before you'd even hurt a
gun show when you were reading those scripts, will you
visualizing because you never heard the show when you're
visualizing these characters, will you?
What were you thinking in your head in terms of who these
characters were? Well, I I haven't had copies of
those books for decades from my memory is the were cartoon
drawings of the characters was actually by Madigan's that
right? By all of them said they were
dry. All of them, they were drawn
their scripts while they were rehearsing.
All right. Okay.
So, I mean, paradoxically, I did have a visual image of them but
I didn't know what they sounded like.
No, I think I had Seen clips of lost control of all, all the
pockets and interview or something science.
So I knew kind of knew what I call sounded like, think, might
Spike Milligan used to do that voice a lot.
Anyway, yes, and I knew what bluebottle sounded like, but
apart from that, you know, didn't no idea what Colonel mini
sounded like or anything like that.
Then again, I just, I just remember another thing that
brought the goons into our Consciousness, for some reason,
the young Tom song was reissued around about them, and
Uncharted. Hmm.
That's right. As a single.
Would that be 73? Something like that?
People think say yes is the glass going.
She was 72. Yeah.
It was such a success and that's what I'd like.
You say they start, then started issuing the BBC started issuing
commercial records, help, ease of gun shows.
All right. I'll have that.
Roughly 1 e, 1 LP a year, right there had been there.
Had been some LPS release through Emi in the 60s doing
shows but they were Edited. The music was removed for, right
reasons and things, so they hadn't.
So yeah, it was really post last inch of all that.
I mean, it was hardly goon Mania but, you know, they had a yeah,
there's suddenly serve life again and so you must have
appealed to me, because I bought that single and I remember.
And, and preferred the B-side, I seem to remember, which was I'm
walking backwards for Christmas, I think.
Um, yeah. So, so again, I had a kind of
our role Image of what's the goods.
Sounds like through that song, but didn't really get to hear
the show's until, as I said, the BBC started repeating them.
Yeah, I think a couple of years later and then I must have
considered these to be kind of treasured cultural artifacts
because very unusually for me, although I was a comedy
obsessive, I didn't some, I didn't record comedy shows off
to off the radio or off the TV on to my A player normally, but
I did record all those goon repeats and had a row of kind of
see 60s on my shoulder or okay, I don't know about a dozen goon
shows on and and listen to those quite quite frequently.
Okay. I think if I'm right, I might be
wrong here from memory. I think there was a significant
series of repeats in 75. Yeah.
That's that's what I, that's what I would have heard a we
would have, I would have thought you'd have also been quite a fan
of Hancock. I am now a big, big fan of
Hancock. He would mean again, I guess
through a records of re-recordings of some of the TV
and radio shows around. Everybody knew there was an
episode called The Blood Donor and that was meant to be kind of
famous in amazing, but I didn't have any of those records and he
wasn't repeated at all in the 70s as far as I remember,
certainly not kind of series runs or anything like that.
My mom used to talk about him and say he The best comic ever
and told me that he'd committed suicide and 67.
And so I knew all that story. Well, I think it was a big BBC
documentary about Hancock in the early ages on Arena or one of
those shows and that used a lot of long clips from the, from the
TV shows. And that was really the first
time I had seen them and that was when way Hancock Obsession
started. So he wasn't on my radar.
In the 1970s even though, you know, in many ways he's behind
all those great characters from the classic 76, calm seas.
Yes, he's instantly. Behind Fletching behind Grigsby
and behind original Parent and, and those kind of things the,
you know, you can trace a lot of that back to Hancock and Goldman
Subs. Yes, yeah.
I was always more of a fan of Steptoe and Son, actually, when
it comes to Golden Simpson, it really.
Lee? Yeah, I now prefer Hancock
myself. I like step to obviously, but
but Hancock really for me gets, he's a kind of Fountainhead.
A sweet signorina. Hmm, that looks delicious.
How do we throw it up on a diet of British comedy?
My dad. Would always sit me down in
front of the TV. If there was a repeat because I
was a I grew up in the 80s TV and Zen was always repeating BBC
and ITV sitcoms from. Yeah, the 70s particularly.
And I remember very, very clearly The anticipation and I'd
never even heard of it until my death.
My father had told me that it's name.
He said there's this program that they repeating.
This must have been. When I was about eight that he
said they repeating this program and it's wonderful and I want
you to watch it now that I think back now.
Thank God, you know, that was quite something to put an eight
and an eight year old. He said, it's called the fall
and Rise of Reginald parent. He said you'll love it because
he always thinks about he always thinks about his mother-in-law
as a hippopotamus. And so I had all these, I was
developing, all these images in my head is what this sitcom
would be like what this program will be like and and he and I
would watch TV and I watched it when it was, you know, repeated
the whole series. I absolutely adored funny
enough. I never, I never got into Rising
damp because they never repeated that when I was growing up.
Yeah. I mean, so much depends on what.
Actually. Yeah.
Got shown got shown back then. You know, I was thinking this
with with Hancock that although the They were no Hancock
episodes shown during the 70's. As far as I remember, you used
to get the rebel on on TV in Fairly frequently.
So this kind of slightly I'm representative not quite as good
as the TV shows feature film is what we all sort of Tony
Hancock. Yes.
And and yeah, if you know, if Rising damp isn't repeated, then
you just don't condone get to see us.
I suppose I always find. I think personally that regular
parrot is this Area. Rossiter sitcom.
I know that David knobs became a big influence on you.
Yeah. And specifically on the terrible
prophecy of Maxwell's him. Again I think which has a kind
of epigraph from Regional parent.
I think, somewhere in the beginning of the book, The Line
about, you know, he didn't know the names of the birds and the
flowers but he knew the rhubarb crumble sales figures for she
says, we call Stein or something later.
That's right. That also, And also, I did pick
up. I'm sure you.
I'm sure you put it in deliberately to see who would
pick up on it. I did pick up that there was a
reference, to a Martin Wellborn and his wife, Elizabeth.
Yes, I think there is, I think you're right.
Martin will born an old friend of ridges.
I'm sure you two will get on like a house on fire.
How do you do? It's like shaking hands with a
warm melted. Congratulations on your
engagement was deposit. Oh, thank you.
But please, Elizabeth and I are trying to keep it a secret.
It wouldn't be seemly to announce it yet with Reggie.
Still practically warm and they'll quiet not with the
register practically warm. And I think there are two
characters in it called, instead of called, yes, sort of been
called Tony Webster and David Harris Jones on it.
They called Tony Webster and David.
David Webster and Tony Harris, David Brooks and Tony Harris
Jones. Yeah, yeah, well obviously,
there's a, there's a big crossover between the absurdist
trend in David, knobs humor and the goons, which I mean funnily
enough. I don't think I've ever had a
conversation with David about about Spike Milligan better but
We didn't have to in a way. I mean you could tell what a big
influence he was on him, David spoke a lot about NF Simpson,
the British absurdist playwright who again the must must be all
sorts of points of contact between the things he was doing
in the in the late fifties of the Royal Court and what Spike
Milligan was doing at the time I mean it would be an interesting
PhD thesis. Really?
How how the goons crossover into so-called High culture?
I guess because there are You know, there are overlaps 20
years ago, I published a long biography of the British
experimental writer BS, Johnson who wrote a series of very kind
of radical avant-garde novels in the in the 1960s.
And when I was going through his archive, his widow's house as
part of the research for writing the book.
I was I was amazed to find that he wrote goon show scripts
himself in the 1950s and submitted to the BBC.
In fact, I think if you go to the BS Johnson, archive at the
British Library, you can read the script, it's called The
Welsh harp. Great, Welsh harp abduction
mystery. Don't worry really, okay?
And it's it's pretty good actually.
It's pretty good. You could, you could almost have
broadcasted and passed it off as a Milligan script.
He co-wrote it with a friend of his who had a, who had a much
kind of zany, a sense of humor, I think than Johnson himself to
put But, but it's wound up in his Archive of the BL anyway.
I actually, I mean, I haven't read any BS Johnson out.
I was aware of the fact, you've written a book years ago but I
did find something that you wrote about be as Johnson.
Several years ago you wrote sitting down to begin.
Your first novel with the rhythms of Joyce.
Beckett flan O'Brien and Laurence sterne swimming around
your head. Eight years listening to the
Goon show having thrown wide open the doors of possibility on
to all manner of playful. Be construction, what caused
Don't even have to resent the conventions of the traditional
novel. Sarah.
So yeah. So on the biography rose up from
something else that's from an article that you wrote about
America vs Johnson. So yeah, so they are you drawing
comparisons there? But obviously the gun show you
up. If you mention flan, a Brian
Laurence sterne, you've been chatting with regards to my
physique Christian Shandy which I tried to read and I got about
halfway through and then I'm afraid I abandoned it not for
the purposes of this interview by the way years ago the black
Paige fascinated me strangely yeah which best Johnson token
and used kind of completely direct borrowing.
Its first novel traveling people which has a character called
Henry Henry who is very much a kind of Dan Milligan figure
really? Would he have red pacune will
not buy them because it's was published in 63 wasn't a good
time. He, you know there is there is a
lot of Milligan desk humor in that book in particular, it kind
of, It kind of bleeds out of his writing a bit as he starts
taking himself a bit more seriously as his career goes on,
but his early books are pretty funny and Milligan desk.
I can't see the name be as Johnson without thinking.
It's Boris Johnson. I'm sorry.
Then a few. Yeah, I've noticed a lot of
people. This is most people Direction I
can't see the named Boris Johnson without think UBS
Johnson, but That's just my peculiarity.
I think for the purposes of a podcast that was scary to record
a couple of weeks ago. I was watching the film The
Great McGonagall. Hmm.
Which I've never seen actually. All right, you've never seen it.
I've never seen it or switch. I must do something about um cuz
I don't do that film. Even get released, I don't from
74, isn't it? I think and I do certainly don't
remember it. Doing the rounds of the cinemas
in the in Birmingham and bromsgrove where I was growing
up. I think it was just impossible
or very difficult to see for a long time.
And I really was, yeah, everything is kind of easy to
see now. Is it on YouTube?
It is but a very, very poor transfer, right?
DVDs. Not much better.
It was like filmed on a very low budget than the film was passed
through. The digestive system of a hippo
was on me. Yeah, literally dark and very
difficult to make out a lot of the dialogue, right.
The only reason I bought that up and and I must admit and no
offense to to the wonderful, Joe McGrath the director, but he
does have a tendency sometimes to get things wrong.
Wrong. But he, but he did.
He supplied? It directors, commentary, or
commentary for the film? Yeah, he mentioned you by name.
Okay. And he said that, he's obviously
thinking of someone else but he said that you wrote to him
because there's a scene in the great McGonagall where it looks
like we're to all intents and purposes.
It's like a like a blooper like you know, Milligan is dried
during some dialogue. Yeah.
And needs a prompt. Can't get the the the line rate
mmm to the extent that they keep doing, take after take and we're
seeing them do this and we got Joe McGrath the director coming
actually onto the screen and giving guidance and giving
advice, and it does look genuinely like, it's a foul up
on ya, but they've kept it in the film for some reason, he
stopped But the point is, Joe McGrath
said that you wrote to him about that scene wondering if it was
scripted or was genuine and he said the answer is it was
scripted, okay, so that's that's an interesting answer even
though I didn't ask him the question.
Okay. I'm you know, I'm never having
asked that question. I'm now interested to hear the
answer, so that's that's good. We think it would.
Do you mean take it off? William Boyd.
I don't know. He's always writing to Comedy.
Directors are some questions like that?
Yeah, you know. That's exactly the kind of scene
which I've always imagined that film is full of hmm.
And you know again this is what makes Milligan such an
interesting figure because you know, a year or so earlier
Lindsay Anderson was doing that in a lucky man.
Oh yeah, great fair at the end where at the end of the film,
Malcolm McDowell confronts the director and Anderson slapped
him across the face in this carving.
And you're right, it's an absolutely great film, but of
course everyone, Kind of boughs down.
Says, this is Art, this is post-modernism.
This is kind of such a such a radical way to end.
This is Art movie and then you've got Milligan and sellers
just kind of clowning around with German graph.
Coming up with the same stuff really and you know what they're
doing is? He kind of in an improvised
throwaway sort of way equally bold and equally invented by
think and you know certainly that was the aspect that really
appealed to me as a teenager. When I was discovering his
writing and discovering the, the gun shows, and it's coming just
to sort of irreverent and the sense that you can break the
fourth wall and the boundaries, the formal requirements of a
Your show or novel are actually kind of porous and wide open and
you can do whatever you like. Yeah, and you know when when I
did the few years later, discover Tristram Shandy and
flan O'Brien, and so on these writers really excited me, but
they weren't a revelation because white Milligan had
already done all that so far as I was concerned.
Yeah, the woman was yeah, and did you have you read?
I know you read that off, Hitler.
Wow, my partner's damn fault. Have you read the others?
I read that off Hitler. And I read Rommel gonna hoo.
Okay, and then for some reason, I stopped, I don't, I don't know
why. I think I'd I just kind of, you
know, I was moving on to different kinds of devices at
that point. I mean, you know what, I must
emphasize is that for the first half of the 70s, my bookshelf in
my bedroom was just comedy books.
There were no other kinds of books.
I had the python books, I have more wise books, I had take Read
books. I had Ronnie Barker's slightly
kind of creepy books of Seaside postcards in.
Dip it with you. Victorian soft porn erotica and
that kind of thing, and I have rows and rows of Milliken, and
goon show books. And and at some point in the
kind of second half of the 70s, I must have become a little bit
embarrassed by this and decided it was time to get my act
together or my I sold or disposed of most of them.
From then on I was kind of reading serious writers or what
I thought was serious writers for for for a while.
Of course, I regret this now because I'd love to I'd love to
have copies of most of those books again but I did read, I
don't remember much about wrong gonna who but I read out of
Hitler, my Potter's down Fallen. in rereading it again, over the
last few days and Even though what was fifty years have gone
by since I had since I read it and I was amazed by how vividly
I remembered it. How many of the chokes have kind
of stayed in my mind? You know, the Armageddon out of
here. These kind of wonderful word
plays that he uses and actually been listening to it on
audiobook. I don't know when he recorded
that but of course it's best way to.
I think it's great to have him reading his himself and cracking
up at his own. His own humor.
It's a very endearing Sound. It's but Spike was often his
biggest fan with the game to his own material.
I haven't read much literature of the second world war from
that point of view from the point of view of the kind of
ordinary enlisted Soldier. I mean, I would have thought
these were historically, very valuable books because you
really get taken inside that by Recruitment and have a strong
sense of the, you know, the texture of day-to-day life and
what's going on. And how people Used humor to
survive. You know the kind of incredibly
interesting from that point of view quite apart from being so
funny. Like I gather they were among
the first of the those second world war Memoirs where it was
authentic language, no language that they would have used in
the, in the soldiers, mess in the barracks and the yeah, he
didn't polish it out. He didn't dress it up.
It was no earthquake. 13 crude and and I think I shocked the
shocked a few people at the top. Yeah, I think, I think it did.
And again, I remember, you know, my parents being a little little
disapproving of the fact that I was reading it.
And, you know, they're obviously heard that there was a lot of
salty language in it, and that kind of thing.
I mean, you know, I get a strong sense that in writing bakunin in
writing those books. For that reason because of the
freedom that the printed page allows you, it was a very
must've been a very liberating thing for Spider-Man because you
know, there was very, very severe limits.
I would have thought on what he could get away with in the Goon
show itself and then suddenly particularly writing the kind of
sex passages in pacune. And so on you can he could let
it rip, I need it. And Again, you know, another
thing that novel writing enabled him to do is the tonal range.
And that struck me very much. When I first read cocoon,
there's only extraordinary digression, into the story of o,
Mara, who's you to Mary's the kind of this girl, who sleeps
around and ends up getting custody of the children and she
comes around and cuts the throats in the middle of the
night. And then ends up in a In an
asylum staring at the wall staring, at the wall staring at
the wall. I mean, I remember reading that
and you know this was before I read the novel, The Fall and
Rise of Reginald Perrin or Catch-22, which was another big
influence on me on. Seventies, that was a kind of
shock. I wear, I thought, hang on to
this is form is that the the novel where you can go from kind
of slapstick, comedy to terrible tragedy like this on the same
page that's kind of interesting. I mean, just disturbing and kind
of disorientating as well in some ways, but that was, that
was quite revolutionary to me. And again, the Coon was the
first because I wasn't reading so-called serious novels.
For the time, the Coon was the first intimation to me that you
could do that in a novel. It was, it was that flexible.
Yeah, because I'm thinking in your novels, the rodders club in
particular, which I I read over lockdown.
I reread that and the closed Circle.
The rodders club is, it's got this very, very affecting scene.
So it's the is that the 74 Birmingham bombings.
Yeah. Yeah.
We're and I definitely forgive me, I think I forget.
It's Benjamin sister goes with her.
Yeah, boyfriend. Just to go as Louis goes with
her boyfriend. Malcolm to the The Tavern in the
town. He proposes to her, just, at the
moment that the bomb goes off, where is the rest of the novel
is not the rest of Novel, but much of the novel as light
caught end. Yeah.
You know, well, the, the
beginning of that for me was writers like, like Milligan and
David knobs in in the fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin where
you have this? Sometimes it's a balance,
sometimes it's a collision actually of comedy and
Melancholy or tragedy because the novel of the fall and Rise
original / in which was written before the TV series.
You know David really softened a lot of the novel and toned it
down. Quite a bit to turn it into a
prime-time BBC. One sitcom and the second half
of the book in particular is How desperately sad in parts and
kind of quite disturbing. And, you know, I my memory is
that I watched the first three or four episodes of the TV
series first and then discovered that there was a book as well
and and bought that immediately and read it.
And so the second half of the series broadcast, I was kind of
following it and comparing it to the book in my mind.
And thinking, oh, he's he's taking it in a much lighter
Direction here, but it was always, I mean, I love the TV
show but it's always the novel that I go back to and recommend
people and, and, you know, I think it's it's one of the great
novels for the 1970s really and isn't isn't recognized as such
because it was also a successful sitcom.
But it's, I mean to me it's as you know, it's up there with
Kingsley, Amos and David Lodge and the other kind of giants of
the 1960s 1970s comic novel. I've just don't even mention
quickly Avis. But name is he introduced the
character called Martin Davis into was it money here?
There is a character called Martin a missing money.
Yeah, that's right. Did the unicorns Fine Arts,
Vegas little not influenced? No, I mean, I actually read his
started reading him. come much later in my writing career and I
kind of liked a lot of his books very much my kind of a kind of
resisted because when I was really getting into my stride as
a writer in in the mid 80s when you know, when I wrote the first
of my books that actually got published because there was
three or four which never got published Then everybody was
reading money by Martin Amis and telling me that I had to read
money by famous. When people tell me that I have
to read something laughter and then I'm afraid I don't watch it
or read it. I'm a bit kind of childish like
that. So so I didn't read money for a
long time after it was published, but yeah, you're
absolutely right. There is a, there is a character
in it called Martin Amos. And there are a lot of these Be
a strong sneef Llano briony Spike Milligan e things going on
I suppose. Yeah.
You know the story about his old man when he first read money the
first and only time you read money.
I'm not sure that I do room telling me.
Anyway. So Kingsley, game is of course,
was arrest warrants wide really easily.
It didn't have time for for pretentious offeree or whatever
and he I don't think he was not impressed by a lot of Martin's.
Work. Certainly yeah. and apparently
he was halfway through money and this character walks into a bar,
the characters introduced as Martin, Amos apparently, Kings
lives, just threw the book across the room discussed and I
don't think he picked it up again, I only ever read Kingsley
Amis because I knew he was the author of The novel that only
two can play was based on. So, you know, it was, it was
Peter Sellers who got me into Kingsley Amis.
That's a good. I think novels that uncertain
feeling wasn't it. Yeah, which I haven't read all
that, much Kingsley, Amis. I've read certainly read that
and lucky Jim and I kind of prefer that on certain feeling.
Actually I'm a big fan of life and I really enjoyed lucky Jim.
But anyway, I just wanted to because I'm conscious of the
time. Jonathan didn't do any damage.
I just wanted to very quickly when I've got you, please
indulge me. I rewatched the other night
knowing I was going to be speaking to you.
I re-watched the private life of Sherlock Holmes which I know
that you have over the years, many, many years, many years
developed, sort of an overwhelming obsession with.
I guess it's fair to say. Is that right?
yeah, I mean you know people People who are nice about my
books and about my writing generally, one of the one of the
nice things they say about, as they say, it's all so different.
but actually to me it's, you know, everything that I've
written starts in some way or other with something I became
obsessed with in the mid-1970s whether it's whether it's
pacune, whether it's regional parent or whether it's Billy
Wilder's film, the private life of Sherlock Holmes, which I
first saw on TV, I think in 75 or 76 or on a BBC One broadcast
and again found this kind of blend of comedy and existing, in
a In this case, slightly uneasy relationship because the film
was kind of hacked to bits by by its editor and cut down from
three out of two hours and so on.
And I think the balance would have been much more even and
ushered in the, in the director's cut when the to our
versions, what we have. And yeah, I just love this way
that for the first half hour this film makes you more made me
at the time Roar with laughter. And then suddenly you're into
this very involved. Detective story for the next
hour and then for the last half hour Suddenly It's all kind of
tragedy in Melancholy and and forted romance.
And I just found that really kind of beautiful mixture.
Absolutely. Yeah.
Anyone who's listening to this, who hasn't seen it?
It's a billy Wilder film from 1970 didn't make any money but
it's really well worth seeking out and it still trying to think
if there's any possible goon show connection Between how can
we draw a connection? Well as fix Queen Victoria
appears in this? I suppose.
But I want to tell you. I could tell you a direct way by
Peter Sellers, do not play by. Peter says I can tell you, it
direct connection. Mrs. Hudson is played by the
sorry me handle my really handle and I really here worked
regularly with sellers. She was mrs.
Fred kite. She was yep.
Yeah, brilliant. Brilliant performance Colin
blue-collar Blakeley, I think and I want to take issue with
because I've read that. You think that column Blakeley
is a Two vocal, and strident in his performances Watson.
I think he's wonderful. Yeah, I think that must have
been something. I wrote many, many years ago.
I think he's these days. I think he's perfect.
There are you, you, you, you black out of all of our
unspeakable Fabrications, But you have to save yourself.
But don't just sit there. Speaking of that,
well, it's a Jonathan, thank you so much for taking time out of
your because, you know, you've got a book getting published
very, very soon. So your diary will be filling up
with interviews and whatnot. So thank you very much for
taking the time to speak to me today.
So nice to talk about comedy, you know, I mean, people ask me
about my nephew inferences and I kind of scratch my head and then
try to think of the names of the writers who did influence me but
really, you know, none of them did as strongly as people like
David mobs and Spike Milligan and Dick lemon to needle a
foreign aid golden Simpson who were writing, you know, TV and
radio comedy. That's where that's really, what
started me writing even though I wound up as much. - yeah.
So it's great to go back to my source as I think of it.
Yes, and I've just what to say to anyone.
Listen to this, who haven't shame on you.
If you haven't been anyone who hasn't read any of your novels,
I would recommend what a carve up.
What I care about is obviously taken from the name of a city,
James film Kenneth gonna film, which I think you saw her on TV
and 1990 or something. Didn't you just kind of squirrel
that away for future use? Yeah, that's right.
It was followed by a terrible kind of semi sequel called, what
a Whopper? Oh yeah.
Which features Spike Milligan as a park keeper.
That's right. Yeah, but that, that's, that's
a, that's a fantastic novel. Very, very funny, very
satirical. Should we say the rodders club?
For sure, terrible, privacy and maximus in and, and bournville.
When it comes out, and I should be trotting down to waterstones
to collect my copy on the day of publication.
Thank you very much. I'm glad really glad to hear it.
That's been great fun. Thanks again to Jonathan.
Just after we recorded, he messaged me to say, how could we
miss the most obvious, goons stroke private life of Sherlock,
Holmes, connection sellers were supposed to play Watson, which
is absolutely right alongside. I believe, Peter.
O'Toole, as as Sherlock Holmes, hope you enjoyed the show next
week, myself and a returning guest going to be cast, a
critical eye, over that movie that Jonathan.
And I were talking about, The highly challenging arthouse
film. The Great McGonigle from 1974,
see you soon. Bye.