Kindly allow me to announce the highly esteem.
You come in too quick then, Mr. Conductor, close your eyes.
Get up, man, Get up. Stop soaking about that silly
little hole in your head. Hello and welcome to Goon Pod.
My name is Tyler Adams and I freely admit I have no musical
ability whatsoever. Not a musical bone in my body.
I did play seem to remember playing the recorder when I was
about 11. I think my peak might have been
London Bridge, but that was still pretty appalling.
You'd get a better tune out of a rattlesnake in a bread bin.
However, I wanted to talk to somebody who who knows their
musical onions as it were, because I wanted to talk about
some of the music from the Goon Show, some of the fabulous,
fabulous music from the Goon Show.
So who better than the fabulous Gavin Sutherland?
He's a fairly big wheel in music lads, such a career.
And he makes podcasts too, on the side.
So Gavin and I had a wonderful 90 minutes or so chat and I
began by asking him how he discovered the Goon Show.
It was actually through one of my key people in my musical
career, a music teacher by the name of Jack Stobbs.
In my day and age, you could choose which high school you
went to and you know you it was based on reputation and but I
knew that the school I wanted to go to had a very fine musical
reputation because of this man Jack Stobbs.
But Jack was a true eccentric. I mean back in the day he would
smoke his pipe during music lessons and he was very
enamoured of the music of Wally Stott.
But then I discovered that he was a massive Milligan fan and
an even bigger Goon Show fan. And I think it was around that
time that Radio Four were putting out the occasional two
or three stuck together as a as a series of inverted commas.
But Jack and I would always record them and pour over them
and quote them at each other the next day.
And I'm sure the rest of the kids in my class had a bloody
clue what was going on. But it was magic.
And it was magic times because for me as a musician or or a
learning musician, the quality of the music in the shows was
amazing. Actually for initially it was
the quality of the recordings, thinking that these recordings
were by that .35 years old and and roundabout.
And yet they still came up really paint fresh.
And the quality of the recording of the music was fantastic as
well and just led me to to follow my career and and see
where it turned out. So yeah, so I, as I said before,
I'm not a musician in any way, shape or form.
And I don't really have a musical bone in my body and I
don't have the the the musical vocab, if you like.
You don't need it. You don't need it.
If you can appreciate music, that's all that matters.
Because the sizeable amount of musicians that don't.
This is a podcast now. You are not a stranger to
podcasts yourself. This is true.
I mean I've contributed to a fair few largely on TV related
subjects or in fact broadcast music related subjects.
The the more straight side of my job as a a conductor and a
ballet conductor and orchestral conductor that tends to see me
head towards things like a Radio 4 to a Radio 3 and occasionally
many years ago Radio 2 when it used to have large orchestras
for shows. But so essentially podcast wise.
The other thing is I, I do contribute anonymously.
Ha. You can leave this in if you
want to a podcast entitled the Peggy Mount Calamity Hour, which
three men drink a lot and talk about old television.
And it's sort of the real flip side to just letting go, which,
of course, these wonderful podcasts can allow you to do.
But equally, I love the fact that there's people such as
yourself making historical, you know, things stick and, you
know, reintroducing them to new audiences and, you know, making
old duffers like me just enjoy, you know, a bit of a wallow in
nostalgia. But this stuff's not nostalgia.
The good Show never was. It was always right at the
forefront and for decades it still was.
It's a new there's new generations discovering this
stuff. The podcast savvy then will go
and ask dad or go and ask whoever.
So what was this thing the goon show and dad will just sit back
in the chair and go, oh, well, where do I start?
It was a mad program and it wasn't obviously to everybody's
taste, but those that know, and I think, and maybe if you took
a, a straw poll of say, well, you say 70s or 6070 year old
people, they all be able to quote something back.
And that's that's a legacy that you don't see with every show
put out by the BBC over the years.
I mean, even if it's just a Blue Bottle quote or Little Jim or
Eccles, even just the, the quality of the voice, but it,
there's always something. The fact is for me, I'm always
quoting to people lines from Goon shows and specific ones.
Obviously the ones that still in my psyche from those sessions
with Jack Stobs or having the tapes at home or listening to
them on the radio and just thinking, why do I, I mean, for
example, this morning. Oh, literally, because obviously
I knew we were going to record this.
And yet in my breakfast, I was literally pouring the tea and I
said this is where the story really starts.
And I thought, yeah, well, that's the was who?
Never man, part of the pain. Thank you music queue.
But I did. I never listened to it, just as
the words and the laughter and the stuff that just made me cry
with laughter. Just listening to these guys
enjoying doing it. And obviously having worked with
some of the players many years ago who played in the orchestra
for the show, said it was madness.
We had one band call in which they didn't give anything away
and then come to the record, The laughter you hear, there's more
coming from the band than there is from the audience sometimes
because we knew that you know where we were in on the jokes
and things and it's. Yeah, Spike.
Spike used to say that the band was often they got a better
response from the band than the audience.
And they were also noises off, like all these BBC shows.
They all required to have live music.
And it was nearly always a big band.
It was nearly always 5 saxophones, 3 or 4 trumpets, 3
or 4 trombones, a rhythm section which is piano, bass, drums,
guitar, percussion and in the case of Wally Stotts, orchestra
for the Goon show, that quite often be a harp.
And yet some shows it would just be a big band, like a big band
that we know, you know, Glenn Miller, Stan Kenton, all those
kind of great progressive sounds of their relative eras.
But Wally Stark used the orchestra like a Hollywood
cinema score and was able to get colours and sounds and moods in
a few seconds and just be able to make it stick and turn a
corner in the plot. I mean, it doesn't get any
better than that for me. No, absolutely, and much more so
than and I'm not a huge fan of Hancock's half Hour.
No exactly. Wally Start did arrangements for
for that as well on the radio didn't.
Didn't indeed. And the other thing is I think
with Hancock, he was bound by that would always feature and it
would have to be there. And, and Angela did say to me,
I, I got to know Angela in the last sort of 1015 years of her
life. And we talked a lot right
through her career. And she said I was, it was like
a millstone because the producer would expect it, the writers
would expect it, but more than anything else, the audience
would expect it. So it was always in there
somewhere. There'd be a seascape theme and
you'd hear it come through the middle of it.
Like Korngold or Rickard Strauss horns playing baa baa, baa baa
baa. And those last two notes are
what makes it funny. Whereas in the Goon Show, he was
allowed absolutely free rein and gosh, you can tell.
I mean, he was out film scoring some of the great writers at the
time. You can hear elements of people
like Dimitri Chunkin, Miklos, Rosa Korngold, all of whom would
of course go on to influence people like John Williams.
But even John Williams you can hear elements of the Colours.
And this is a big band sitting in the Camden Theatre having had
one band called. But the guys used to say playing
the music was a delight because it wasn't what we were usually
having to play for BBC orchestra based radio shows.
And you know that I equally, that's fantastic for me because
that was a big draw for me alongside obviously the scripts
and and the performances. OK, well, for we dive in.
I'd I'd like to to I always like to know a little bit more about
my I'll learn a little bit more about my, my guests and and
you're quite a an an eminence in your field, Gavin.
And by the way, you sent me recently a wonderful CD called
The Next Program Follow Shortly, which you've put together with
the help and assistance of Martin Fenton and the The Fast
Tunes Orchestra. And it's basic.
Well, how would you describe it? How would you pithily describe
this CDA? Broadcast themes disc for people
who like the Goon show. I'd like to say it's it's a real
niche collection and it was going to be even far more niche.
It started out life as a lockdown project and a pipe
dream really. And Martin and I knew as telly
enthusiasts and indeed as radio enthusiasts, and Martin's just
as much of a good show fan as I am, just to make that that
clear. And we examined lists and
thought, well, of course, you just have to get the funding
because of course that's how it works nowadays.
There's no such thing as contract orchestras.
And certainly the three or four companies that I had tried to
interest in projects like this had said too parochial.
It won't sell, and we're not really interested on selling it.
We're just interested on capturing a lot of these pieces
because, you know, some people will know, some people won't
know, some people will have never heard it in stereo, you
know, and then it starts getting more detailed and niche as we go
on. But then two very sad things
happened. Martin had a couple of serious
family circumstances which led to him being able to fund the
recording himself. And it was his, his late
father's wish that he should do this disc.
And Martin said, well, I'm not going to really, I'm, I'm going
to do it. I'm going to do it all myself.
We'll have it on vinyl, we'll have it on CD, we'll have it on
digital. But we need to really nail down
what we're actually going to record.
So that was the difficult bit because I knew what I wanted to
record and Martin knew what he wanted to record.
And then we thought, well, we've also got to put some things on
that the public might want to hear.
So amidst all of the odd adverts and television idents from ITV
companies which many will remember, there are things like
Grandstand, Parkinson, the Two Ronnies, bit of Morecambe and
Wise. Are you being served?
Absolutely. Ground floor perfumery.
Stationary and leather. Goods, wigs and tappadashery.
Kitchenware and food going up. Then amidst all of it we totted
up the fact we have 52 tracks and it was less than an hour and
I said look, we've got the time. We've got this hand picked
session orchestra book to play in Abbey Road 2.
Lots of guys that I work with a lot on other discs and projects
and concerts. I said what else would you like?
He said, what else have you got? And over the years this is
something else that came in very young.
Very early on in my life I was very keen on reconstructing
music. Music that you either couldn't
trace because manuscripts were lost, or that they were
destroyed, or that they simply vanished into the ether, like
many things do. We obviously know things like
good show recordings. It's not the full list.
But you know, God bless people like Dirt Magazine and Ted, of
course, who are finding ways of getting that, getting everything
out there for the completists like me.
Probably like you too. Let's not forget that before
this disc, the the disc that made the most impact along these
lines was Matt Berry's disc of of TV themes.
And he clearly had a massive choice, but he also did
absolutely everything himself and it was very faithful and was
very clever. But it wasn't live music.
It wasn't live sort of it. It was more pop based stuff and
mine was more the era before all light entertainment based stuff.
And just to bring the ellipse round a little bit to what else
have we got? I was leaving for London with a,
you know, with my scores and with everything and my laptop
and a hard drive with everything I've ever written on it.
And my reconstructions go back, I think, I mean before I had
Sibelius and the music publishing engraving programmes.
I had hand copied stuff for years and years and years which
I had just amassed for no reason thinking, well, it might come in
useful sometime. It's come in very useful.
Lots of orchestras regularly hire it if they want to have a
bit of a, a wallow in nostalgia. But the one thing I was just
tickling through the the hard drive and I saw Lucky Strike and
I thought, we have to record this.
And the moment I said it to Martin, he said if you don't
bring it, we're not making the disc.
And it was literally done. It was the last track we
recorded on the last day. And that was one that I knew I
had to capture because I definitely want to do the
others, the other good show themes.
But interestingly, many years ago I had a contact with the BBC
Music Library who had dug me out.
Goon's Gallop by Arthur Wilkinson.
Oh yeah. Which is a dreadful piece of
music. It's sort of.
How do you think I don't like it?
I'll tell you why I don't like it.
It's a very vanilla piece. Whereas the music that closes
the classic Ear Lagoon shows as I as I deem them, which I
realise I'm now sitting on a razor blade at this point.
They, they, they ping, they really sparkle and fizz at me.
It's like we've had an enjoyable show.
This is not comedy music, it's actually just music that gives
you a big burst of adrenaline whilst Wales Greenslade or
Timothy or or or or these guys make their announcements at the
end. But Goons Gallop just felt like
a piece of light music that could be could belong anywhere.
And as a big fan of Arthur Wilkinson, I was very sad about
that because you know, the man had a great sense of how to
write and how to capture moods in very short spaces of time.
Which of course with all of the radio comedy and speech based
shows, these people had to write these cues and they had to
register a mood or a change of scene or whatever very quickly.
And it's interesting that none of Wally's starts for the Goon
Show ever seemed to make me think it could be any other
music, whereas in the earlier days it felt like this is
variety. Link #2.
Well, yeah. Well, in the game show, of
course, it was Stanley Black. In the first couple of years, I
used to prefer Goon's Gallop to Lucky Strike.
Oh, interesting. When I first got into the goons,
maybe it was because I heard a lot of the sort of series 5 and
series 6 shows before I had the later ones.
So maybe it was just for that reason.
But there's unaccountably and I still haven't quite got to the
bottom of it, and I'm sure I will during the the course of
this podcast. There's the the theme change is
more or less halfway through a series.
It goes, it goes. I think I want to say I didn't
check. I want to say from the jet
propelled guided NAFI. I think that's when Lucky Strike
debuted. That's right.
Which is, which is sort of 2/3
of the way through series 6. I don't quite know what what the
reason was for that, but well. I mean, given, given the credit,
the writing credit for it, which was Joe Denise, the guitarist
and and Ellington and Stock did the the heavy lifting on on
writing the piece down it. I guess it was something that
came in and said we need to judge this a bit.
And how about this? My lasting memory of and I wish
I could remember the show when Bruce Campbell was depping for
Wally start and at the end, clearly he was expecting da ba
ba ba ba ba ba ba. And it wasn't.
It was Lucky Strike. So he conducted so fast that the
band can't keep up. And then eventually, under the
announcement, it all settles back into the tempo we all know
and love. Would that be, would that be,
would that be treasure in the lake?
It was Treasure in the Lake, You're absolutely right, that
was the good show, BBC reported. Programme featuring Peter
Sellers, Harry Secam, Spike Milligan with the railing of.
Water, as I knew you'd know. But I just think that reminds us
that this is a BBC recorded programme, but done as live, you
know? No edits.
No, you know, and somehow the music was always perfect.
So you noticed when it wasn't. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
You, you mentioned you obviously recreated Lucky Strike.
You also did the ATV ident which Angela Morley had and what?
Angela had told me it was a they had just decided that colour was
coming in and Lou Grey had said he wanted something that was
like the old ATVI den, so based around 3 notes.
But the graphic was going to be this wonderful kaleidoscope
around the the actual ATV symbol.
And Jack Parnell went away and basically wrote down 3 chords on
a piece of paper. And at that time Wally Stock was
one of the staff arrangers. I mean ATV in its pomp had like
12 orchestrators and 24 rehearsal pianists.
It really was the showbiz company and while he stopped was
a contract arranger and Jack Parnell said here, do something
with this and he wrote this iconic thing.
But I have the score written many years after it was long
lost, signed by Angela and she said it was fantastic that in
all when I was rediscovered, you know, when they said what
happened to all of a sudden, they said, oh, and you created
the ATV identity. He said really, I don't remember
extraordinary, really extraordinary, but an amazing
writer. I mean, you know, the the the
arrangements for Geldre. I know that he sort of adapted
those for some of the albums with his own orchestra that he
did. Certainly Nightingale sang in
Berkeley Square. He took that arrangement and
made it a trombone solo, which was on the album London Pride,
which has been released re released on on on CD.
And that was an album I discovered in a fire sale in
Huddersfield. I mean, it's very Alan Bennett.
But when I was at university, this record shop in this arcade,
they had a fire and so much of the stock was damaged.
They were selling it for like 10 P And everybody's going for what
you'd expect, the pop albums. And I found, I mean, alongside
the 28 copies of The World of the Bachelor's Volume 6, there
was this record. And I thought, Wally, stop, I
have to have it. And you know, that rekindled my
interest. And then I knew that she was at
that point in Arizona and I got her address from the Robert
Farming Society at last, no defund, and wrote to her and she
said, well, I'm coming over because I'm going to see my
relations in Castleford near Leeds.
Do you want to meet up? Oh God, that was 2 days of my
life that I'll never forget. The first meeting, she came to
my dreadful house in Halifax and had tea and cakes and sat and
played the piano for me. I mean, it's like having
Beethoven. City.
Wow, what year we're talking here roughly?
This would be about 90, 495. Maybe OK, for the uninitiated,
well, what's your day job Gavin? And what How would you describe
your day job? My day job is an orchestral
conductor, a Ranger orchestrator, and one of my main
stock in trades along those lines is actually as a conductor
for dance. For 15 years I was music
director of English National Ballet and I've also on the
concert platform side and worked with all the major orchestras in
this country. One of my main working trades in
this country is to do Friday night is music night with the
BBC Concert Orchestra, right? So that for me was something I
grew up with just as much as the Goon Show and then to be
actually doing it became quite a substantial source of delight
for me. Of course that's changed in it's
own way as everything has to evolve, nothing lasts forever.
But I came in on the very end, the tail end of the classic
Friday night years, where we would quite happily just put
music of Peter Knight or Wally Stark on the stands and play
this stuff and the orchestra knew it.
You didn't have to do anything and the audience were always
delighted. But, you know, now it has a
little bit more of a classical tape, which is equally good, but
the players change and the attitude of the audience changes
somewhat. So we'll never get that back.
But you know, thankfully there are people who've preserved them
on cassettes over the years, listening to it on the radio
like I did with the Goon Show. And you know, it'll always be
there to enjoy well, for as long as the tapes last.
So my and then on the arranging side, obviously reconstructions
is something I've done a lot of both for theatre and for film
and also off neglected film and television scores and ballet
scores for companies and, and recordings and concerts.
And in terms of orchestrations, I've done stuff for films.
No big films because they get quite tied up, but my work
allows me a big diet of diverse stuff and it beats working for a
living. It's certainly not a job.
If it ever became a job, I'd have to go and do something
else, I think. Very good.
Wow, that's been living the dream.
And the long side, sorry. And I was just going to say, and
alongside the TV stuff, one of the things that pricked people's
attention was as a child, I had been a big fan of the Carry On
films, and not just because of the films, but because of the
music also. And not long out of university,
I managed to get in touch with Peter Rogers, who in turn put me
on to Eric Rogers widow Betty. And she said, it's all here,
come and have a look if you want to.
And I ended up being custodian of the entire Eric Rogers
library. And that in turn, led to two
successful CDs of music from the Carry On films.
So that my ballet friends say, well, how on earth can you do
something like that? Because I was interested in it.
And then my jazz friends say, but you do a long hair
conducting job for a living. Yeah.
But you know, because you do it doesn't mean you have to be
surrounded by it all the time. So you you enjoy the if you
like. They don't want to denigrate it
the the lowbrow as much as the highbrow and the midbrow.
The populist as much as the classical, I think.
Yeah, but I love brown. High Brown works equally well I
think. Yeah, OK.
You mentioned Peter Knight, then he, he obviously he, he, he was
conducting the orchestra for the Last Green Shovel.
Indeed. And then I mentioned this, this
is where this, this all ties. There's so many connections and
connecting threads. You know, I talked to to Dirk
and to Ted very recently and Dirk told me that full goon
again, which was the, the 50th anniversary of the Goon show
special that was staged where they reconstructed to put
together a, a, a, a new goon show using bits of old scripts.
He said Angela had actually put him onto the the John Wilson
Orchestra. And am I right in thinking from
something you mentioned earlier before we started recording
that, that you were involved with that to some extent?
Yes, indeed. I mean John and I have known
each other since we were little nerds knocking around the NE age
15. That's when we first met and we
always had an interest in music that maybe others didn't.
And light music was a big favorite.
You know, Eric, Coach, Robert Farnan and of course Angela
Morley. And we always kept in touch in
anything we discovered, we share and we talk about.
And then John rang me whilst he was in London.
He said I've got this the Goon show to do.
And I said, oh, tell me you've crowned all the music.
He said it's all it was all destroyed, none of it exists.
And I thought, but that's crazy, you know.
But of course the BBC Music Library had suffered flooding,
Never a fire, but I think there was flooding and also some
parishes, of course. And he said I'd like you because
I know, you know, the Goon shows.
Would you reconstruct Ding Dong, which is dead and Lucky Strike?
And I said by all means, absolutely.
I said what about all the queues in between?
He said I'll get somebody else to deal with those, but would
you like to to do this? I said absolutely.
And because of my interest or because of my fervor, in three
hours I've done both arrangements and sent them to
him. That's how much it mattered to
me to make these the best they could be and the most authentic
they could be. And hearing them on the radio
was a delight. But of course, back in the day
Angela Morley wrote a lot of the cues for the shows.
But sometimes staff arranges at the BBC would be drafted in to
do maybe one of the Gildre arrangements or the chords at
the end of the Ray Ellington numbers and occasionally even a
couple of scene change cues. For example, before you invited
me very kindly on to this podcast, you mentioned the sea
shanties medley, Join the Navy and off it goes.
That wasn't by Angela Morley, that was by Bruce Campbell.
But it was probably, as all these things were in the day, it
was probably a A1 line plan, like a, a lead sheet plan driven
by Angela and Bruce Campbell did the work to write the score out.
So maybe it's it's right that it was credited to Angela Morley.
But Bruce Campbell actually did the work of orchestrating it.
And that was not unheard of in those days because the amount of
volume, the sheer volume of music that was needed for live
broadcasts on radio and television from the BBC 40s,
fifties, 60s, and then started dropping off in the 70s.
There was a massive orchestrations department.
And there was actually a specific light entertainment
orchestrations department which had Peter and I, Bruce Campbell,
Angela Morley, Dennis Wilson, not of The Beach Boys as we
know. Or May Wilson.
Oh, and Oh yes, or or Dave May witty.
Yes and then or what's the other one?
They call it Dennis. Dennis Main Draining.
Main drain, yeah. That's classic.
I was just listening to his Bektu Project interview the
other week. Extraordinary life.
I mean, a madman, but of the very best kind and the most
respectful of talent in his genre and another catalyst who
was, you know, in a large part responsible for getting the
goods to step up and continue to step up.
I just love that that these people, the recognition of
talent as well as actually being talented themselves.
I think I think he was the perfect initial producer for the
goons. In the right place at the right
time. Yeah, he himself said he
couldn't sustain being the the producer.
He needed to get them off the ground, help them get a footing.
And then Peter Easton came along and instilled some real
discipline. Indeed, and I mean, he really
did. What was it?
Milliken said. He had a military background.
I think it was the song. The song.
Yeah, that's right. There's an interview.
Well, there's been Angela Morley over the years has spoken about
her time on the Goon Show, and I tried to find.
I remember talking about a typical week while working on
the Goon Show and I and I've not been able to find an actual nail
down an actual interview where she set it out, but my memory of
reading various interviews with her is something like this.
That so she was obviously so in demand during the week that,
well, let's be fair, she wouldn't get the the green show
script generally until the Friday, Absolutely.
So the so the recording would be on the Sunday, but she more
often than not she wouldn't actually write anything until
the Sunday morning the the day of the recording.
And that goes back to her skill in the days when she played Alto
saxophone for the Geraldo Orchestra, when Geraldo was
rehearsing stuff in one corner of this CD wherever they were
rehearsing. And Angela is sitting in another
corner. And I cannot stress for the
uninitiated, this is genius. She would write arrangements
straight into the parts. Now, normally you'd write a
score like a map where you'd see every instrument playing where
it plays, and then you would copy the parts out from the
individual lines on the score. She didn't bother with the
score, but she didn't have time to bother with the score, so she
wrote it straight into parts. So it was coming out of her head
onto paper. And if you think about it, you
haven't got them all lined up side by side.
So she's got, she's surrounded by paper writing these parts.
I still can't believe that she did that.
But she said yes. Well, it was just part of my
job. And as you say, she was very in
demand and she was a contract conductor at Philips.
She was also heavily involved in the television side of light
entertainment, certainly across the 50s and and very much more
so in the 60s. And it was a massive, massive
amount of work and it was a glorious golden time.
But as you say, I mean, and I'd imagine it's like most shows,
like take it from here and all these shows, the script would
arrive very late because also it would have to have been approved
by the producer and or, you know, head of LE or whoever it
was at that time just to scan it, make sure there's nothing
they're trying to slide under the radar, which of course they
always did. And then and you would just sit
there and write the write these amazing charts and you know,
from a A3 bar thing to signify the sea or China or and there's
quite a lot of military ones that are very epic.
Dum dum, dum, dum, dum dum. These cues are magnificent, but
they are very, very avant-garde in how they're written, which is
why they are easily matchable to the big Hollywood writers of the
50s and 60s as well. Just extraordinary and a tiny
band and a tiny time frame as well.
It was a lot of fun, a lot of fun.
I'm glad I did it, but it was totally different from anything
else I did. You know, it was a sort of a mad
dash. It's sort of a panic on a
Sunday, a Sunday panic. That's what it was.
You know, get up, scribble these arrangements, get to the studio,
do the show. She complained.
Well, maybe complain's too strong a word, but she observed
that the orchestra got smaller on the Goon show as time went
on. Because it'll just do it
accommodate the goons demands for more money basically.
Really, I never knew that. I knew that orchestras got
smaller and smaller because a bit of research that I was doing
to look at variety, the BBC Variety Orchestra, the BBC
Review Orchestra, the augmented BBC Review Orchestra, which
meant it had four violins and a cello, some augmentation.
So I I found in one of the old Goonshire Preservation Society
use letters from about 30 years ago.
She describes a smaller orchestra as being as containing
3 trumpets, 3 trombones, 4 saxophones and drums with the
railings and quartet as the rhythm section, adding bass,
piano and guitar. Does that Does that sound about
right that? Sounds absolutely right, and
certainly by the time we got to the very tail end of the last
series, I think it was even 3 saxes.
But the saxophones played flute, piccolo, clarinet, bass
clarinet, contrabass clarinet. Obviously Poggy Pogson, who was
legendary in the industry for having the longest list of
instruments to play in the Musicians Union directory.
And I remember seeing it, you know, old copies of that
directory and his. There were two people.
There was Poggy Pogson and there was Derek Bell, who played in
The Dubliners, who again, he had a massive list of instruments he
played, never played on, you know, knew his niche.
But Poggy Poggson could turn his hand to anything and did and
played a creditable bad violin occasionally as well.
It was just, but it was like the guys would get together and do
the band call. But as time went on, as you
said, the orchestras would get smaller and smaller to the time
when you've after the Goon show finished where you've got the
horn blowers for for round the horn, that was about 10 people.
But it still sounds huge and brash because they had to find
ways of being economical with orchestration to make it sound
like it's a full orchestra, because it was quite clear the
money wasn't going to be there for whatever reason to, to
augment the orchestras anymore. And then they started putting
orchestras together. So out of the war years where we
had the variety orchestra, the opera orchestra, the review
orchestra, and some of those got put together to make the concert
orchestra, which had nothing to do with variety shows at all.
And then they invented this thing called The Unit, which was
a pool of players that then became the BBC Radio Orchestra
later on. But up till this point it was a
pool of players and they were booked regularly through 3 or 4
fixes for all of these shows but the Goon Show.
I think Angela told me that the one thing she always tried to
get was loyalty is not the right word.
But she would always have people who would always play.
And it will be a very rare occasion when, say, George
Chisholm wouldn't turn up even if he wasn't.
He didn't have a speaking room. He'd be playing in the orchestra
and there'd be Wally Smith and Jackie Armstrong.
So it was essentially either the Heath band, the Geraldo band,
Jack Parnell's orchestra. It would be these guys would get
together as a sort of social club and then they'd do the show
on one rehearsal. I mean, nowadays in BBC shows
you get a full day before you even get near a dress run.
And that's not because standards have gone down, it's just
because I guess listening standards have gone up.
But actually if you listen to the quality of the play and how
they play together and how they play together, if you know what
I mean, it's extraordinary. But that's typical of the
musicians and the calibre of musicians at that time.
Always busy, so always able to, always able to.
Sight read this crazy stuff. Quickly.
Yeah, and adapt exactly, exactly.
And enjoy it at the same time. You know, because it was the hot
show to be on. Yeah, and, and Max would, she
was very close to Max Galdrec and Max would, would, would
often come over to the to the flat to decide what he was going
to do for his, his number. And, and I think he touched on
it and you've also sometimes right the ending for Ray's
number. That's right.
And so I think there are two or three where there's actually a
full chart done. A man is a woman and you better
know it that that that song cropped up quite a lot, I think
over over the run of the Goon show.
But that's a full, full arrangement.
But there weren't that many of them.
But it was nearly always the quartet.
And then at the end. Which?
It's funny bringing back talking about round the horn when the
Fraser Hayes four, another group of whom I was extremely
enamoured as I developed listening to the Goon show
through I'm sorry, I'll read that again and round the horn
and so on. And the Fraser Hayes 4 was just
a tiny little group, piano, guitar and and the singers and
the band would always come in just for the last 16 bars.
And I thought that's just so BBC.
In fact, we've got them sitting there.
Give them something to do, you know, and I can hear Angela, I
can hear the, the, the American English Leeds voice go no, no,
no, no, no. Give them something to do.
We're paying for them, you know, and that would all that would
never change. And then I don't think it still
has. So, OK, so who who you've
mentioned George Chisholm there. Who have you met who've been in
within the the Goon Show orbit if you like.
And these guys probably came in towards the end of the series
because by the time I was working with them, they were
they were already in their 70s, maybe 80s.
Eddie Mordu, Roy Willox, Victoria Ash, Kenny Baker who
played regularly, as did Ron Simmons, Derek Healy and the
trumpets, Wally Smith and the trombones I didn't meet Johnny
Edwards I met who was a very, very close friend of of Wally
Stott. Indeed.
There's a wonderful album called Castle Wise, which she did with
Roy Castle, with a tiny group along the lines of Mel Tormey's
group, the Marty Page Decktech, same sort of sound.
It sounds full and interesting and colourful, but a very small
group of people. And those players were, you
know, Laddie Busby from the Heath band.
I never met him, but Johnny Edwards I met and talked to a
lot, especially and Roy and Oh yeah, and Joe Proctor who I met
was. Going to say yeah.
Judd. Judd was Judd was a typical
sessioner in the fact that everything he played, because he
was a number one call, everything he played was
extraordinary. And he couldn't remember any of
it by the time I was talking. Oh yeah, I did the Goon show.
Yeah. And that's all he would have
ever needed, except he encountered people who said, So
what was it like? What?
What were the working conditions like?
And how were the Camden in there?
What was it like working with? And he said too many questions.
I played the Goon show. You turned up, you did the work,
you got paid, you left. And a lovely man and a very,
very talented guitarist. But you tend to find that the
ones I interviewed, the ones who were were very loyal to to
Angela and were very loyal to the show, had lots more to talk
about. But again, I think as time goes
on, I won't say they recreate history, but their history gets
narrowed somewhat and they remember four or five things
from that because of course they've done millions of things.
Yeah, yeah. Like, play for Gavin Sutherland,
brackets who he you know, but that's the sort of thing.
Did you? Was was Dick Katz still around?
I never, I never met Dick, but he was certainly around because
I used to get Dick Cats and Dill Cats confused, being very
different people, because Dill played on playaway, of course,
for many years. Oh, right.
Again, Jonathan Cohen was somebody semi colon.
This thing's got more tangents than a dead dankahedron.
I think Jonathan Cohen I've met and worked with quite a lot and
his insights into working for BBC Children's Telly in the
Sixties, 70s and 80s was fascinating.
And there's basically four books waiting to be written.
But I think he's waiting for quite a lot of people to die
first so you can tell the real story.
But there isn't. I mean, I think he's just, you
know, he it was with a very wry smile because he loved it.
And anybody, I think, and I'm sure you'll have found this with
the people you've interviewed, anybody who's worked with the
BBC, it's an enchantment and it never leaves you.
I will always be ABBC person, whatever happens.
I will always be ABBC person before an ITV or any of the
others. And that's because it's a part
of life and it was a part of, it has been a part of everybody's
life for over 100 years now. And, you know, lots of
broadcasting organizations around the world take their lead
from programs and and setups that the BBC initiated.
You know, so you listen to Australian radio and television
shows from the 50s and 60s. It all started with Milligan and
also further back with people like Tommy Handley.
You know, a little seam of craziness, but essentially a lot
of Tivoli or vaudeville style jokes and routines.
But it all stems from the beam and long may the archives be
there for us to enjoy, and long may podcasts like yours be there
to allow people who do enjoy it to delve a bit deeper and and
and discover even more. Damn straight.
Yeah, absolutely. OK, so I want to talk about some
of the specific music in the Goon show.
We were in contact, obviously, and we we loosely, not sure how
loosely, but we loosely agreed, I think that we would both come
to this with four or five examples of bits of music from
the Goon show that is particularly notable.
Absolutely, absolutely. You first.
OK, well, and I want to talk a little bit later about the the
the actual theme tunes. Yes, indeed, in more detail, but
so so there's some obvious there's a well, OK, I'm going to
say there's some obvious pieces of music which were highlighted
in at last the go on show, which which obviously I discussed with
Ted and Dirk recently. So what I've tried to do, I've
I've got four or five pieces of Goon Show music here that maybe
isn't that people don't really think about or talk about.
And then it's done it's job. You see that's that's it's like
films, film, music. I didn't know there was a film.
I didn't know there was music in this film.
Then it's done it's job. Yeah.
But again, in the in that documentary I just mentioned, I
think it was Angela Morley who said that the music could also
be funny. And, and the first example I
want to give is just that. And it's and it's, it's almost
nothing, but it's just incredibly amusing.
Now, are you aware of the Series 7 episode The Great Bank
Robbery? I've I've listened to it for
sure, but not with not in any detail.
OK, well, it, it begins with a little bit of frippery, of
course, Green Slate announces this is the BBC.
And then he solemnly announces the name of this week's show,
which is The Great Bank Robbery. And then you get, and I and I
looked in the actual script, Spike's script, to see how he
described this because my, as I say, my musical vocabulary is
very limited. And the script says slow
building roll on timpani. It stops at the highest point of
crescendo, followed by short, thin cord on trumpet, trombone
and clarinet. Next ask please.
It's it's the it's the musical equivalent of a major
anticlimax. Absolutely.
I mean they always use that chord played with very loose on
brochure. But the fact that Milligan is so
detailed as he always was, of course, with all the scripts,
trumpet, trombone and clarinet, that's a very, you know, back in
the days when, you know, bands would be touring and during the
war and of course Milligan play did one, there would be a small
band and that would provide, you know, play for the dancers.
But occasionally you'd get the musicians that weren't as good
as him and you'd and they were terrible.
And that sort of sound that he's describing I can picture.
And goodness me, I've heard enough of it in my lifetime to
know that that chord is just beble.
And Jock Cummings was also, as well as being a very fine
drummer, he was a drummer for Jack Hilton and for Billy
Turnance Orchestra. He was also a major contract
player in a lot of the bands in BBC live entertainment, radio
and television in the 50s and was very versatile.
He hated playing timpani apparently.
That's why quite often, and here's the detail for you.
If you listen to the timpani, they are tuned to low and low.
He's got them tuned, but he's not tuned them to anything.
So they're just a low sound. But it works because it it's it
gives this epic scale to things. And Milligan knew because he
used timpani and Angela used it a lot in these.
You know, those building pyramid chords where an instrument comes
in one after the other and builds this huge chord that's
real epic. Then it all moves together, like
in parallel. In terms of things being funny,
my first choice is the infamous national anthem of the country
whose name I cannot remember. Yak Baku.
Yes, that Angela discussed on the that documentary when she'd
written this very nice flying melody, which I believed she
used in a film in its conventional form many years
later. Oh, right.
I must try and find it. But it's, it's, I mean, if you
listen to it, it could be a national anthem.
But I love the fact that Spike said it sounds far too good.
I just love that I want it to sound bad.
And so he gives 3 or 4 notes to everybody, but played like one
of these terrible military bands.
And you know, the, the the loose on brochure and it's almost in
tune, but it's absolutely pinpoint accurate because it has
to be to pass the melody between everything from a contrabass
clarinet to a piccolo and a triangle.
And at the end of it, just two bass drums, which is this sub
very sad third door door. And you can hear the laughter in
the background from the rest of the band.
It's it's a magic moment. And that's probably the nearest
it gets to being a proper funny sound.
I've got, again, from Spike's original script, his what's the,
what's the word notation, his directions.
Yeah. And I'm not sure whether this,
because I'm not a musician, I'm not sure if this is exactly how
it turned out, but this is what was in the script.
OK, so he writes series of disconnected notes played in
tempo. Then he lists these high trumpet
deep trombone. Yeah.
Triangle. Yes.
Now Tremulo chord on piano. Yes, which is, you know, and you
quite often, if you've ever heard he used it a lot because
that was what they used in the old answer bills when there was
just a pianist and that was the whole orchestra.
And, you know, it was a play on the comedian.
Just be you know, and I can see, you know, you sit back in the
chair as you let your hands wobble to play this chord to
give it a full sound. Yes, OK.
And then, then Chinese gong. Yes, baritone sax.
Yes, indeed. Which was with.
It's that magical sound. It sounds like Lester Young, who
of course Milligan was a big fan of a great jazz tenor sax
player. But it's just that sort of
metallic honk. Yes.
Flute trill. Yeah, three slap tongue notes on
Alto. I think he put the slap tongue
notes on the baritone sax. I don't the Ultra Sax does play.
It plays at the end. That's Oh yeah.
That's ultra sax. OK, then the next one's glacento
on harp. Maybe they couldn't afford the
harp that time. It's also impossible.
Long, thin shivery note on clarinet.
I think that's the dad. I think it's the trumpet and
clarinet in the middle after Bong bong bong.
Yeah, yeah, Then gliss on xylophone don't.
Think there was a xylophone? And then lastly, which is
something you referred to earlier, 3 beats on undamped
bass drum, Yeah. I mean, Milliken, there's no
doubt about it. He'd already said it.
He'd said in regular interviews he wants to be a musician, but
comedy was what he ended up doing.
But he did write some beautiful pieces of music.
And I've heard them and, you know, and I've seen scores of
them. Magnificent, you know, And he
writes his beautiful handwriting.
His musical handwriting was like print for the pieces he actually
composed. But in time, in terms like this,
he knew exactly what he wanted. It was completely in his head.
He probably roared with laughter or cried with laughter writing
down those directions and gave it to Andrew and said right
there you go make that's what I want.
And what came out was just the funniest sound I've ever heard.
Yes, I can still remember when I first heard The Sleeping Prince
and heard that Yes, and thinking this is completely redefined
comedy for me. Yeah, indeed.
And of course it was a because the music was allowed to be
anarchic, just like the script. That was something that was
unheard of in radio shows up until that point.
The orchestra played, or they played the end of a sketch and
the musical numbers and the theme tune and that was it.
Whereas now it was an integral part in any way, shape or form
that came out of Milligan's head.
And it's interesting when the when Larry Stevens and Eric
Sykes were involved in scripts, it felt a little bit more
conventional. Or certainly there was less
orchestra used because there were more words.
That's interesting. And that that very neatly brings
me on to my next piece of music, actually.
And I didn't, it didn't occur. You mentioned Eric's site, he
said when Eric, Larry and Eric were involved.
So the first script that Eric was involved with writing was
Lurgy Strikes Britain. Oh yes, indeed.
And there's a, there's a particular link, musical link in
Lurgy Strikes Britain that I think I'm right in saying I've
never heard it used again in any of the goon shows.
And to me, it sounds out of place in the goon show.
It sounds too orthodox a piece of light radio light
entertainment. Yes, I think I know the.
I think I know the Q you mean. Yes, and it's it's and I looked
in the script and it just says link.
I think it doesn't really even describe it, but it's when
Moriarty orders C going to go to the, what does it call it, the
council medical? Yes, that's right.
Now I I've often wondered about that.
Was that Angela or was that a buy in?
Because that can also happen too sometimes if it just says link,
there's a because that'll come to my next queue in a minute.
But yeah, so interesting. But I know what you mean.
It's much more conventional. It's much more vanilla than than
what we're used to because we're used, and it's also very total.
It's very understandable music. Well, I wondered, probably
wrongly, I'm sure wrongly, because the week before Logie
strikes Britain, the first episode of Hancock's Half Hour
went out and obviously Angie was involved with with that and I
just wondered whether that was some sort of hangover from a
piece of music for Hancock's Half Hour or something could be.
Could be. Oh, interesting.
But OK, we'll see. What's your next piece?
My next piece, it's just as conventional and unusual for
that. The clarinetal fluids go and the
trombones go bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop.
And that again, is quite conventional compared to some of
the stuff and the fact that it end with on the on the symbol
held what they call choke it. So you hit it and you grab it
very quickly. So it has that sort of, you
know, it's it's a very light entertainment comedy sound.
Yes, it was here to there as of course many of these cues had to
be, but it just felt so conventional.
So it's interesting that we, you know, we drew along the same
lines. There, absolutely.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. OK, so so I've chosen next I was
going to choose The Lost Emperor, the dramatic theme from
The Lost Emperor, which again gets talked about extensively in
At Last to go on show. Yes.
And and whatnot because it's a very it's and when Dirk was on
the show recently, he described it as as proper Powell and Press
Burger. Very much so very.
Much so dramatic theme. I looked at the script and and
this isn't my choice, by the way, I just want to touch on it
because, yeah, in the script it's described as dramatic theme
leaving harp and background, then large, vibrant Chinese
gong. And I feel there's a sort of a
dynastic feel to it. And that's when you have Peter
over, over say as as the emperor, when I die, take all
the choices of my Kingdom, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
And it's it's it's very, very epic.
Epic is, is the way. Now.
Similarly, I felt a few shows later, there's the episode
Shangri-La again. Oh.
Yes. And it it's right at the
beginning where Peter again is setting the scene.
He says the story of Shangri-La is adopted from Fred hiltons
book lost Horizontally based on the legend of Shangri Lou the.
Powder. Yeah, lost.
Horizontally is something. Again.
It's one of those quotes that keeps coming past you.
Yeah, there's also. There's a terrible edit point in
this that I think the because he he says it's based on the legend
of Shangri loo from the play across Ava garden with
stethoscope Geiger counter and then it cuts and he just says
Shangri-La and right. Interesting.
But the bit that was cut and I presume it was cut from the
original broadcast and and the bit doesn't exist anymore.
It was going to be stethoscope, Geiger counter and cheque book.
Oh, interesting. Yeah, but Spike describes the
the the music for this. He describes it in the script as
soaring Shangri-La theme. This is good Roof of World type
stuff. Yeah.
Mix in choir singing ethereal song, mix in wind, then Peter.
OK. And then it's got the sort of
unsettling music, the sort of woozy, dreamlike yeah yeah music
in Into Segun, basically. The story of Shangri-La is
adopted from Fred Hilton's book Lost Horizontally based on the
legend of Shangra Loo from the play across.
Ava Gardner with stethoscope Geiger counter.
Shangri-La, Shangri-La, you know, Roof of the World is a
great description. Yes.
Because there's quite a few. I mean, you know, the sea
interlude that is very much roof of the world.
You can feel the lurch of a ship.
You can feel the seagulls. It's it's magnificent.
Now, that's not what I'm I've mentioned, but but exactly that.
And I just like that. It's almost like because the
other thing that Angela was very interested in and very prolific
at was library music. And of course, there were many
of these cues that she wrote, which were three and four
seconds long, which got put out in the Chapel music library.
I think it was comic cuts, curtain up, I think was one.
There were a few other light music society ones that were all
light music ones that were all released on, you know, single
side, 78 play disc. And there were 10 cues on there.
So, you know, it was a great skill and a great gift, but they
weren't like any music cues you'd heard before.
And as you coming back to the previous one, if you if it was
conventional, it stood out. And I guess that's also the same
with the writing too. If there was something in there
that was very emotional, it really leapt out at you because
normally it was, you know, the whole script was never 100%
anarchic, laughing funny. There were moments where you
just thought, I see what he's trying to say here, and I think
Angela's music did the same. Very much so.
Which brings me to the cue that ask anybody and everybody will
say, ah well, of course. Why does that signify this
crusty old kernel who's always on the make, always got flies?
Why does it do that? It sounds like a variety play
on, but it's not. It's like a it's a militaristic
sort of bumbling old sound. And yet somehow it has such a
high energy and then so, well, I'd never be free of them or
whatever. No more curried eggs for me.
Or so you know, all the rest. There's one where, if I remember
rightly, it escapes into a sort of March that fades out.
Yes, and then the marching fades up.
That's right, yes. And that took me completely by
surprise because I thought, what's this going to be?
And it fades out, you know? He's the only character in the
game show that has his own theme tune.
That's right. That's right.
And, and I'm guessing that's a hangover from the very early
shows where he was one of the earliest characters.
Indeed, but it is it is true. It's the only.
I mean, you know, it is probably my favorite cue because it could
be so vanilla in how it's written, but actually there are
notes in the chords which make it very Angela, you know, it's a
very simple cadence, so a very set of chords.
It's a very simple chord progression to get to the end.
And yet somehow he encapsulated 6 bars, something that all of a
sudden makes you go all right, at last here he comes.
I love that. And that for me, I think that
was one of the cues that first stuck with me.
And I remember sitting at the piano because before I trained
well, I didn't train as a people self-taught, but I played a lot
by ear, still do. And I remember vividly sitting
in the music room at our school and Mr. Stops came in with his
Piper light and he said, Oh no, Gavin, we've got to talk about
out of cadences today. I said, what's this cadence?
And I played Dude. Yeah, yeah, Papa, He said, how'd
you know that? I said, well, you gave me the
record with it on. OK, so I I was going to suggest
the call of the West. Oh yes.
Yeah, there's some sweeping stuff in that.
But then I thought, actually, no, I might, I was intrigued to
go back and listen to an earlier goon show that sort of pre
series 5 that exists. And I just thought, OK, I knew
that obviously Call of the West is set in the Wild West.
And I there's, there's a goon show called Western Story.
From I don't know that one. It is available on the Goon Show
Compendium, and it's a Shane parody.
OK. Called getting back to Dennis
Maine Wilson here called drain and there's some really good
western what I'm what I've described as as stirring Western
link music. OK, absolutely.
As you say, the there are country specific geographical
references that he can pull and make stick so quickly.
And the Western ones, I mean, obviously I know the ones from
Call of the West, but you know, these these sounds, it's based
on that era of Western, you know, just going into colour on
the on the big screen, yes, and big Vista photographs and of
course Vista Vision and and Cinemascope all the rest to give
you the feeling of the vast expanse of the place.
And Angela just captured that, you know?
Yes, totally stuff. Have you got any more?
I have one that's not actually an orchestral one, but it always
makes me laugh. It is the piano and I think it's
insurance, the white man's burden, and I think it's sellers
playing it. Yeah, yeah, TomTom the piano
playing Penguin. That's right, Yeah.
Go on. Play Lovely.
Lovely. Good heavens, and he sings as
well and names all his own words to you.
It must be Sellers because it's the same 2 chords that he plays
in the dustbin song. I'm walking backwards for
Christmas so. But I just love that sound.
And it's clearly not the orchestra piano.
It's clearly one of those old boxy upright pianos which
clearly they had shipped into the Camden, or probably, well,
the BBC had a surfeit of keyboard instruments for many,
many years, although it very nearly didn't, Famously
recording a story I remember reading in Oh, Whose book was
it? It'll come back to me.
Don't get out. Don't ever get out Tyler.
And these this lorry turned up at Broadcasting House in the 50s
and and these brown coats got out and said we've come to
collect the piano. Well, which one?
Well, we've got to get the ground from the concert hall
because it's got a gig at Aeolian Hall next week.
But what's wrong with the piano? It's a piano duet concert.
All was the quick answer. So they let them in, they
shipped the piano out and it was never seen again.
And in my time, I remember going into or being locked, shown into
a locked room at Maida Vale. And they said, Gavin, you're
very lucky to see this and open the door and said, this is the
Celeste suite. And there were the Celeste, you
know, Sugar Plum Fairy that that tinkly little box of, of
hammers. There were 25 Celeste in this
room and I said what are they going to do with them all?
I said but Chuck them out, we have no use for them.
We've got 3 and these are all I said I'll have one.
And they said will you come and get us?
And I don't drive. Then if you can find a way of
collecting it you can have as many as you like.
And I never took them up on it. But the BBC had lots of toys and
of course somebody's contribution that we mustn't
ever forget is Dick Mills, because he provided a very
different kind of soundscape, if you will.
For of course, Blood knocks stomach, which got used in many
things and I think it got used in other shows.
But every time I hear that explosion and then obviously
what follows it, I love that the mind draws pictures on radio in
a way it could never do on television.
I mean, Michael Benteen got close with It's a Square World
and all those things, but nobody did challenging your imagination
like Milligan did, and he managed to make it funny.
Yeah. But you know again.
Rather than just baffling, he made it.
Funny. Absolutely.
And I mean, you know, people like Bobby J, Terry Wogan's
great friend, not yeah, operating the console and, you
know, standing there with disc after disc after disc and also
live effects, spot effects as well.
But they weren't the old door opening, door closing that
featured. But it wasn't, it was something
that was just there. It was the rest of them and the
soundscapes that he got, for example.
I mean the one that he that they mentioned on the Parkinson's
show 2 was it 2 hippos walking away, bouncing into one another.
And if you can't get 2 hippos, 2 lions will.
Do Yeah, Yeah, that's right from Napoleon's piano.
Napoleon's piano indeed. Yeah.
Yeah, there was one other piece of music I, I chose which
probably won't spring to to anyone's mind necessarily, but
just as an example of just reliable dramatic music, which
is from the the Vintage Goons version of the Internal
mountain. From. 57 was it 5758 and it's
it's in the script it's just described as dramatic theme
suggesting man's spirit of adventure.
Gosh. But if you listen to the actual
recording of it, when it's it's right near the beginning of the
show, it it kind of it goes on just tad too long deliberately,
I'm sure. Yeah.
And there's just the merest suggestion of a bum note here or
there as well. Interesting sight reading,
probably. That's probably one that he was
writing in the break between the rehearsal and the and the gig.
It's like, OK, we need something here.
I haven't done anything. Oh well, just copy something out
and you'll give it to them and they just play it.
Yeah, well, and right at the as the music fades, Spike AD libs
as as echoes he ad libs because it's not in the script.
We got our money's worth this time, didn't we?
We got. Our money's worth this time,
don't we? I just.
And occasionally, the little dig at the band is always wonderful.
And they're very rare, few and far between.
Because of course, you never, you know, the orchestra were, if
they were involved, it was da da or they would be omners.
They'd be voices off. But you would never make a joke
at the band's expense because you know, they, the unions would
say, oh, it's, you know, even in those days, Harley, Harley
Radcliffe and all the guys that ran the union used to say, no,
no, no, you have to treat the musicians with respect or
they'll come out and strike. And it was that bad.
But even though these guys were there and having the best time
in this red hot successful show, there was still there was still
bound by rules. So it's fascinating.
I mean, I just love that. Oh, there's also this big
dramatic introduction that he uses a couple of times to a
vocal. And the one that I want to say,
and you'll know which one it is, they introduced the singer.
And this big introduction. My God, Segan, I've got it.
It's from the whistling spy enigma The Whistling.
Spy Enigma. Is it Webster smog pure?
Webster smog pure and it's and he uses it again in something.
Else, yeah, possibly Lurgy strikes Britain.
I'm not sure. OK, also I just want to quickly
touch on the goons Get up it. It would begin the shows as well
as end up until series 5, pretty much.
Lucky Strike, of course, is Evergreen, but also, and I don't
really know why, they've certainly within Series 8, they
were changing it around the the theme tune there.
There was old Comrades March. Some weeks there was Ding Dong,
which is dead some. Great arrangement.
I mean, yeah, that and when the the tapes and CDs started coming
out, repeating it in full, I was in heaven because I always
wanted to know what happened after the Fate.
Of course, there's a a truncated version on Last Goon Show of
All, which is all I knew up to that point.
So hearing it full with the choruses, the jazz courses in it
as well, that's a band rocking, you know, really rocking out.
The. The.
And what on earth has it got to do with anything that's gone
before Nothing. Nothing.
And yet it's magic, you know? And then quite often, straight
after that, the piano would just segue straight into crazy
rhythm. And that would be, you'd get the
transcription services announcement over that and then
down it would go, yes, that would just sit there forever.
I I really enjoyed there's, there's a few shows where you'd,
you could clearly hear the cast or perhaps just, I don't know,
Milligan and Sellers maybe interacting with the orchestra
as they're playing Lucky Strike. Yeah, Oh, you.
I mean, the Milligan was a frustrated jazzer and was right
till his death. So to stand, and there's that
wonderful tiny film clip of them in rehearsal and you see him
just sitting or standing at the on the floor next to the
platform, the orchestra rehearsing.
And he's just lost in the midst of really fine jazz and I think.
You also see him do the same at the end of Alaska and Cheval.
He sort of looks pensively to the heavens and I think he's
just enjoying the band. Yeah, I know exactly.
What you mean? Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
And it's I, I, I was concerned before we started recording that
we, we might, I don't know it, it'd be difficult to, to
encompass everything. You can't encompass everything.
We've, we've barely scratched the surface and it might be the
case of coming back another time and picking up from where we
left off. I love to do that, but but time
is against us. So I just really want to thank
you for bringing your wealth of of knowledge and expertise to
this conversation. My absolute pleasure.
Thank you so much for asking me and please don't ever stop doing
what you're doing because people of my vintage and beyond the
Good show will always be in their lives and everything
surrounding it and all of the shows and people surrounding it.
People want to know, but people want to just enjoy and you bring
that. So thank you for that.
Oh, thank you very much. Oh, I'm blushing.
And I just really want to recommend if you'd like this
podcast and if why you're listening, if you don't like
this podcast, if you like this podcast, it the the the CD.
The next program follows shortly.
It will be absolute catnip. In fact, not more than catnip
crack cocaine because I mean just I'm just going to quickly a
bit picture box. And they were done by Len Valve,
who has has wished his his name to his real name to remain
anonymous. But again, that was a lockdown
project. And it was all done along
radiophonic lines. Tapes, tape, loops, found,
sounds all processed, no computers.
Same with Doctor Who. It's just it's amazing and it's
great to have there. Wasn't the story since debunked
that the theme music for Pitchbox was played on Bones or
something? That's.
Nice, never heard that story. I mean, I knew that it was a it
was a proper glass harmonica, which is a rotating drum of
glasses played with the fingers. But I've known people play it on
literal wine glasses set out like a piano keyboard.
Yes, but you've got to move quick and you've just not got a
sweat. OK, no, I think when mobile
phones had evolved enough that they you could, you could have
your own bespoke ringtone. I did that yesterday.
Well, no. My my ringtone for the longest
time was Salute to Thames. The famous Thames ident which I
think is the best ident ever and you've clued that on this read.
A fusion London likely lads theme.
But not the song, the one that was used in the 60s.
And it's the 60s you. Draw the comparison because
that's clearly a Ronnie Hazlehurst theme because it
goes. So it obviously sets the likely
lads to music because that's what he did with everything.
But again, I just found it a far more jolly.
The 70s. Oh, what happened to you?
I mean, that's important and it was important for that version
of the series, but the 60s one was just a bit more jaunty and a
bit more establishing, if you like, and a bit more light
entertainment. So I loved, always loved that
theme and always wanted to record it so.
We did and Left Bank 2, of course, which I which is from my
childhood. Such a evocative sound.
Also, it's nice to record that talking about bum notes.
It's nice to record that without the bum notes and the bass and
the guitar, which are on the original.
In our quest for authenticity. I was going to write them out
wrong and I thought no, because I'll get letters and you know
what it's like. Do you know what the only thing
I was disappointed by it or by not including which is my
favorite, probably my favorite theme tune of all time.
Man about the house. That's on volume to if we sell
enough, it's going to be on Volume 2.
And the reason I want to put that on is you mentioned Salute
to Ted, Johnny Hawksworth, who was bass player in the Ted Heath
Band. And then did I think he quite
often played bass when McGurk, Pete McGurk wasn't available to
play in the Quartet Lagoon show. He was a regular chord.
Based player. And I met him not long before
the end of his life. He'd retired to Sydney.
And he used to play in a dive of a place, businessman's sort of,
it was called the soup kitchen. And literally it was bowl of
soup and a sandwich and all these shiny suits.
People sitting around in this cellar listening to just
chatting away and in the backgrounds, this decrepitable
guy playing the piano. And at one point, and I knew he
was there and I'd said I wanted to meet him and I told him the
day I was going I couldn't eat the thing.
I sat and listened to him. And occasionally he would play a
little Phil on the piano, which was man, about the house.
And I thought, nobody in this room has a clue.
Nobody in this room has a clue. And then I sat and talked to him
for 5 1/2 hours after the place had closed the lunch service.
And it was mesmerizing. I didn't talk about the Ted
Heath days. I talked about his writing and
he gave me, and I still have it, a piece of manuscript with
Salute to Terms written on it. And the thing that surprised me
was it wasn't in 4/4 time. It was actually in 3-4 time.
And that's another, that's for another story.
That's for the After Dark version of good part.
Probably OK. But but Johnny was a very nice
man and very much of that era. And he said we there was just so
much work and we all knew everybody and we all just got on
and enjoyed life. And he said the music was
secondary to that. And I think somehow that brings
it rather neatly to the music that I love, which is
represented on the on the on the album.
And the music that we talked about have been two major
signposts in my musical career that I've always gone back to.
It's always a place of comfort and sucker to me.
And long may that be the case, you know?
But man, About the House is on volume to, as are blankety blank
and one or two other things. People have written lists with
hundreds, and I said, well, why do we want to play X?
There's 500 recordings of it. But man, about the house,
there's only two. Could I lean on you to try and
recreate the Yakubaku national anthem?
Absolutely, absolutely, absolutely.
I'll do that. We'll have the we'll have the
right combination of instruments for sure, because the the big
band that we use is the same size as the Goon Show band in
its most inflated 5, four and four, but a lot more percussion
and things. So yes, I'll definitely record
that for you. Sorry.
Align me Wonderful. So there's if people want to
pick up this album. I presume it's available in the
usual places. I think it's
fasttunes.bandcamp.com is where you can get the stream or you
can download the stream or you can order it on CD or on double
vinyl. On multi colored vinyl no less.
Oh, Blimey, right. And that's as I say again, that
the title is the next program follow shortly.
It's got the the clown from the test card, I think, isn't it?
And. Bubbles.
Yes, indeed. That's right.
And and the the blackboard, Gavin, thank you.
You're very much in demand gentlemen, always busy and
travelling a lot I gather as well.
So thank you so much for for sparing me 90 odd minutes of
your time. And we will.
We will definitely speak again. Indeed, I hope so.
And for anybody who's listening, go and have a listen to the
Peggy Man Calamity Hour, because I assure you, life will not be
the same again afterwards. But you know what, we were going
to talk about that and we got completely sidetracked.
But yes, it's something to behold.
It's something it's it's quite indescribable.
Literally I think in a class of its own and long made stay there
is how I heard it best described.
There you go. Thank you so much indeed.