So you 2 naughty men want to join the Bombay Irish to you?
Well, it's a tough life, I'll tell you.
Do you know what it's like to be in the thick of a bloody battle
with bullets flying and save as clashing pity?
I was hoping you'd tell me what it was like.
You see, I'm writing a book entitled Blood Knock VC.
However, let us take the regimental loop.
I'm ready. Open your wallet and say after
me. Help yourself.
Next.
Do you swear to be brave soldiers?
Yes. Never turn her back on the
enemy. Never.
I would speak well of a lady, always.
And respect the chest of the of a woman.
Yes. Have we got nothing in common?
Hello and welcome to Goon Pod coming to you live from the
street of 1000 households and I've cleaned that up and and we
will talk about that later. I'm sure we will talk about
that. My name is Tyler Adams and this
is the podcast in which we talk about anything Goon related,
Sellers, Milligan, Secum, Benteen, even anything,
anything, anything that's got that's great comedy really of a
certain vintage. Let's, let's face it, you may
have heard a giggle in the background there.
That is, it's always a thrill to have a new guest, someone who's
never been on the show before. And today I have that in the
form of Steven Hatcher, Steve Hatcher.
And I'd like to say, Steve, welcome to the show.
Tyler, it's an absolute honour to be on.
Thank you so much. Indeed.
And this is where the story really starts.
This is where the story really starts.
Yes, Steve, so great to have you on.
As I say now we were chatting. Now I I know you predominantly
because you are a regular on former guest Martin Holmes's
podcast Vision on Sound, of course.
Yeah. I'm crop up on there from time
to time and I also do Strangers in Space with with that team,
which started as a Doctor Who podcast and now covers pretty
much all sorts of things, film and TV, even music occasionally.
You've got a real enthusiasm for for sci-fi, I guess.
Yeah, well, I've been running a Doctor Who fan group for 24
years now, for heaven's sake. And the Hooverville convention,
the Doctor Who convention in Derby since since 2009.
So yeah, Doctor Who in particular, sci-fi in general,
Yeah, absolutely. But the Goons goes way, way back
before all of that. Now there's there's a great
tradition stretching back to the earliest days of this show of
having guests on who are very much within the the Doctor Who
wheelhouse. Yeah, Yeah.
I mean, I'm not a big fan. Well, I'm not a fan, let's face
it. You don't have to be.
It's not, it's not compulsory. I actually found this podcast
because you had a friend of mine and you had Toby Haydock on and
I was doing a bit of a a Nigel Neil watch through and and I
know you'd had Toby on for the the episode on the the scarlet
capsule. So I I made a point of of
listening to that when I re listened to the the scarlet
capsule for my Neil watch through.
So there we are. That's so.
He's a he's great. I'd have him on again.
But the problem is that Toby himself confessed, you know, he
he's not an expert on the goons. He he only really knows that
episode. And it's because it's, it's
obviously based on Quasimas. Well, it's one of three Nigel
Neil based ones, isn't it? There's there's that, there's
1985 and there's Yeti, all of which are based on Nigel Neil
episodes and and were produced within weeks of the the TV
episodes going out. They were and and Spike, of
course. Spike was a good friend of Nigel
Neil. I understand.
Well, I see. OK, that.
Yeah, I didn't know that. There is correspondence between
Spike and Nigel. I think they were both, I mean
Nigel, my understanding Nigel Neil was, let's face it, he
didn't suffer fools gladly. He was a grumpy old so and so.
Yeah, I mean, obviously they can't get a bigger fool than
Milligan, so he obviously made an exception for him.
Well, apparently he did find the the the parodies of his TV
shows, the Goon Show parodies often quite funny, which
surprised me to be honest. I I I would have expected him to
have taken against them, but no, apparently not.
Any who OK so you you have joined me today to talk about
one of the most popular goon shows ever which is Dishonoured
again from series 9 which is a remake of a series 5 episode
called just simply Dishonoured. I'm very grateful you gave me
that one actually, because because I said to you just pick
one for me rather. And I think I suggested tales of
old Dartmoor because that is one of the ones that I remember my
father. This is the story that everybody
tells you on this podcast. I think of my age anyway, that
they got into this via the the dads and my dad had just the one
Goons LP, the best of the Goon Show, which has tears of all
damp more on one side and claims to have Dishonored on the other
side, but it's actually dishonored again.
And those two episodes were the only goons I knew for a number
of years and they sort of become a bit interchangeable to me that
I remember. Dartmore I probably remember
slightly better. And I remember that lovely scene
of the, the Little I know if, if he knew the little I know and
all that sort of business, which is a wonderful bit of word play.
But listening to Dishonoured again again recently, there's a
lot of that that I would have said, Oh yes, that's part of
Dartmoor, but it's actually in Dishonoured.
So I'm so grateful you gave me that one.
Oh, no problem. Absolutely.
Yeah. It's one of the best known shows
by virtue of being the 1st on the first ever LP release, as
you say. Now, I'm sure you know who, who,
who decided on those two shows. I don't.
I would have thought it might be Milligan, but go on.
No, no. Certain gentleman by the name of
George Martin. That makes sense because they're
EMI Palophone, aren't they? Yeah.
So he, I'm not sure what process he followed to decide upon the.
I'm sure he may have had some help.
Well he was a friend of Sellers wasn't he?
Because he worked on Sellers records.
So it's possibly Aston or. Possible.
I mean, of course that was issued in. 59. 59, which was the
same year that that Dishonoured the game went out.
So it was very fresh in the mind, I guess of, of people like
Sellers. OK, so so you've, you've those
two shows you're very familiar with.
Did you then go on as a young man to discover other Goon
shows? Well, yeah, I was born in 1958
and I've actually just checked it up.
I was just as Doctor Who fans, we always like to say, Oh yes,
my Doctor Who birth story is, and I've never had one of those
because I was born before Doctor Who started.
So I was born in September 58 between or rather during the the
run of Vintage goons, the transcription service series.
They repeated. They broadcast six of those for
the for the for the first time, didn't they?
And I was born between the first of those, the mummified priest
and the second, the greatest mountain in the world.
So that's that's when I was born there.
Because yeah, because those six, there were 6 vintage Yeah,
broadcast just immediately before the 9th series.
I believe that's right. That's right.
So during the 60s, I just got this, this, this LP.
But I've actually got my hand here, my dad's own LP from from
1959. And the the big moment from me,
I would have been the 50th anniversary of the BBC in 1972
when they did a series called The Great Shows introduced by
Ted Ray and they picked a random, it seemed episode of of
various radio comedies from over the 50 years.
And there were things like it's that man again.
It may take it from he bandwagon.
And of course the goons and the goon show they repeated then was
the jet propelled guided Nafi. So that thought that then and
then it seemed quite soon after that, or maybe even just before
that, they repeated the reason why the one, the one about
Cleopatra's needle without, without the without the
audience. So there was those two.
And then then it became a bit more a bit more common.
They started repeating. The other big thing then was the
Goonshoe script book in 72 wasn't tried for Christmas of
72. And that introduced me to all
sorts of shows then that I'd never heard.
But of course, being a fan of the Goons, I could absolutely
hear the voices as I was reading the scripts.
So that that was an absolute treasure.
I was fortunate enough to be able to write a little piece
about those script books for the magazine a few years ago and dug
into the, the history of them a little bit.
So that was, that was tremendous, tremendous pleasure.
And it's only then actually in researching that article that I
I dug about a bit on the the BBC genome and discovered all the
times that the goons had been repeated in the 60s when I I
could quite easily have listened to them but didn't didn't know
they were on. Not that much they they won't
repeat there. There was series in series of
repeats in 69 and dribs and drabs, I think, but just just
two points just based on what you've said.
OK, you've just reminded me we said about sellers possible
involvement in the selection of the shows for the best of the
goon shows. I think he's gone on.
I think I'm right in remembering this.
I think he went on record at one point and said that the jet
propel guided Nafi was his favorite good show of all.
Oh. That's interesting.
And you, you, you, you said you did a review of the Guin Show
scripts for an article. You're in good company there.
Do you know who who also famously did a review for the
Guin Show scripts in? Do tell.
In 1970, whatever year it was. That would be Prince Charles
aspect. No, no, I don't know.
I don't know. No getting back to George
Martin, someone called John Lennon.
John Lennon Round yes, there's we know, don't we?
There's a huge they were huge fans of the goons, particularly
Lennon. And there's there's all that
crossover between Beatles style humor and and their humor.
And George Martin was the link, wasn't it?
Between. Of course he was.
Of course.
And as, and as we've said, George Martin having worked with
Sellers and and Milligan, it was, it was quite easy for The
Beatles and he to, to work together and to to get on.
And then, of course, Richard Lester gets the Hard Day's Night
gig more or less off the back of working with the goons on things
like the running, jumping and sending steel.
Finding steel, Absolutely. I just just mentioned in the the
last Goon show of All there as well, because that was also 72,
wasn't it? Again for the 50th anniversary
of the BBC and I remember what it did with that.
We've got this massive big reel to reel tape recorder and I
wanted to make sure I'd got a copy of it.
So I didn't listen to it when it went out.
I, I set up a radio with a microphone pointing at it from
this, from, from this, this tape recorder in my parents bedroom,
knowing they weren't going to be going up there for, for the
duration and set it to record. I crept out of the room so I
didn't cough loudly or anything worse during the recording.
And then I listened to it afterwards, after it had
recorded. So that was that one.
So. They're always a bit tinny when
you do that sort. Of thing that was dreadful.
Dreadful. Yeah.
What it What was your opinion overall?
I mean, even now in heart, with hindsight, what's your opinion
of the Last Goon Show? I think.
Be honest, yeah. I I think it's, I think now that
it's better than I thought it was at the time, to be honest.
Oh, right. Yeah, it's grown on me a bit.
It's not, it's not, it's not a classic Goon show, is it?
It's, it's not, but it's a celebration more than anything.
It's, it's a bit like I'm going to return to my big favorite
Doctor Who for their 20th anniversary in 1982.
They did the Five Doctors where they brought in every doctor
that they've ever been, including including one that was
dead and one that didn't want to do it.
Don't ask and. It wasn't Hartnell.
Was it Richard Herndel that stood up?
You know, yes, of course Richard Herndel played Hartnell's path
and Tom Baker was played by a waxwork and some old film of
him. Really.
Well, the waxwork in the publicity photos, there was a,
there was a, there was a story that had never been released and
never been completed, actually written by Douglas Adams called
Sharda. And, and they took some of the
location filming of that featuring Tom Baker and they
inserted that in in to make the five doctors.
But that's not a classic story. It's not the best Doctor Who
story you ever heard, but it's a wonderful celebration of, of the
last 20 years. And I sort of think that the
same thing about the last green show of all, really.
I don't mind the self indulgence and the giggling at each other's
jokes. And because that was the Green
Show, wasn't it? Absolutely, yeah.
I mean, it's it, it, I think it could have been a little bit
more care and time could have been taken over the script and,
and whatnot. But but hey, you know, it was it
was brand new goon material after 12 years.
Absolutely. I mean, I, I will say that the
goon shows that I like the most and that is absolutely going to
apply to to Dishonoured again and also to Tesla Dharma that I
mentioned. I like the goon shows most where
there is a strong plot where where where there is a plot with
the beginning, middle and more often than not an end.
We know of the goon shows there was sometimes a good strong
start, a good strong middle, and then it all descended into chaos
before the end as the as as Spike.
I presumably run out of ideas towards the end of the of the of
the story, but so the last country of all is that's the
last thing that that is it is just a stand up and say a few
catch phrases and he's falling in the water and that.
How would you like to join? Whatever I'd like.
That joke. Now, if, if possibly, if Spikes
collaborator Larry Stevens had lived longer, had lived to see
1972. He may well, probably not, but
he may well have been enlisted to help Spike with the script
for the last good show. And and then it may well have
had a bit more structure because Larry, one of the things Larry
bought to to goon show scripts was was structure, beginning,
middle and an end, much more than Spike could do.
And I don't mention Larry loosely.
I want to talk about him in more detail because his story is
quite linked to this particular episode that we're going to talk
about today. Did you?
Did you know that? Well, I look forward to hearing
about that. I noticed with interest that
this is, I'd see I'd, I'd always assumed that Dishonoured again
was one of the transcription service re records and and it
isn't, is it? It's, it's the the Ginshire
Companion reckons that Spike just didn't manage to do a
script that week. So they they, they got an old
one out of the vaults and said, let's do this instead.
But it's not the first time they did it because the previous year
they'd done The Man Who Never Was, which had expanded from
Season 3 because again, they hadn't got a script.
And then there was another one in this season, season 9, which
wasn't written by Spike at all. It's one of the few goon shows
that Spike had nothing to do with, which was the Seguin
Memoirs, which was written by Larry Stevens.
It's his last contribution to the show with Maurice Wiltshire.
So I don't know. I mean, there were, we know that
there were times when Spike wasn't well, but he still
managed to write all of the rest of the series but these.
Yeah. So this, this, this goes out
January 59. And.
And Spike's suffering from illness.
Yeah, I'm not quite sure exactly the the nature of it, but he
was, he was under the cosh, shall we say.
OK, you're quite right, Larry. And was it?
Was it? Did you say it was Larry and
Maurice Wiltshire? Well, apparently what happened
is Larry Stevens wrote it and Maurice Wiltshire give it a bit
of a Polish. OK, so yeah, but so they've been
involved with the Sega Memoirs a few weeks earlier.
Spike was too. I'll to provide a script for
this particular week. And Larry was unwell as well.
So like you say, Spike selected a script from Series 5 called
Dishonored, made a few edits here and there, removed some
topical references and stuff like that.
And then it was remade and it was, it was recorded on Sunday
the 25th of January and went out the following day.
OK, so they're getting, so this is, I think the 13th episode of
Series 9 and they're getting close to the end of Series 9.
They've only got a few shows left.
And on the on the night of the recording, John Browell, who's
the producer, he floated the notion of a tenth series to the
lads and he got a bit of a mixed response.
Sellers was inclined to leave it because he said that they
wouldn't be adding anything new and that that the the original
drive and enthusiasm was gone. I I think that was more.
Sellers was on the verge of signing a massive contract to
make films. Milligan was reluctant, but he
conceded that he could probably write another six or so.
But but no more than that really.
Harry was Harry was happy to let the others decide.
He said he he didn't mind doing another series and he didn't
want to disappoint their dedicated fans, But he was also
getting a bit fed up with it because John Browell wrote in a
memo that Seek him was getting annoyed at having to generally
help keep the peace. OK.
In other words, he was sort of mediating when the other two
were knocking holes out of each other.
I said about Sellers. He he he, he'd signed around
this time, I'm not quite sure if it I think it would possibly
just just after this was recorded that he signed a, a
really lucrative contract to make 5 films with the bolting
brothers on a non exclusive basis.
And it was worth that contract was worth 100,000 lbs, which is
about 2 million stays money. So he was, you know, he knew
where his bread was buttered. He knew where he was going.
So as we know, there was obviously a a tense series, only
a short. Series of six, but that that
went out end of the year so they so they record dishonored again.
Larry's there. He he's attended the recording.
He he'd been ill, but he attended the recording.
OK. And I I want to consult.
I just want to refer to the the wonderful book written by Julie
Warren about Larry called It's All in the Mind, which we often
site as a as a, as a source of information.
And yeah, so it says Julie writes.
So as everyone began to find outside, this is after the
recording, Larry left a seat in the theatre and made his way
over to the stage to have a quick word with his friends.
He he headed off along Camden High Street and went to meet his
friend Ben Clemenson. OK, they they went out for a
bite to eat at a restaurant. All right.
And it says the evening with Ben started off well when the two
friends had an agreeable time enjoying their meal and catching
up with each other's news. Without warning, Larry felt a
sudden searing pain in his head and his hand flew up to his
temple. His vision began to blur and he
tried to tell Ben what what was happening to him, but the words
seemed to lodge in his throat and then tumbled out of his
mouth in a tangle. He began to feel very dizzy and
as the room started to whirl around him, he felt unable to
hold himself upright. Confusion creased his brow as he
fell forward onto the table. OK, suffice it to say, by the
time he arrived at Whittington Hospital, he was slipping in and
out of consciousness. Frantic efforts were made to
save him, but he died at 2:10 in the morning on Monday the 26th
of January 1959. Yeah, he'd suffered a cerebral
haemorrhage brought on by hypertension and he was 35 years
old. Well, I knew he'd died very
young, but I didn't realize it was quite that dramatic.
And on the night that he'd seen the Goon show recorded.
Yeah, yeah. And that must have been very
difficult for the for the fellas to hear that.
It was, I mean, I'll tell you about that because this this is
the thing now I'm, I'm treating Julie's account as the
authoritative account of what happened.
But but there are there's a, there's a one or two sort of
conflicting stories about his death by Spike.
OK, so much, much later, Milligan claimed that he went
out to dinner with Larry and on the way to the restaurant, Larry
died, actually died in the car. Right.
And then in a later interview with Milligan, we're talking a
few years after that, he his recollection was that Larry
actually died in his arms in a restaurant.
Good heavens, yeah. Study on Spike.
Yeah, the the doctor at the hospital where Larry was rushed
did not recall Spike Milligan being in attendance.
And I think Spike's just Yeah. Well, probably not deliberately.
Probably just on a bit of a flight of fantasy and and.
Yeah. Sometimes, I mean, we we know he
was often mentally unwell himself, didn't we?
And sometimes how you imagine it happened can become real, can't
it? And we also know he's far from
perfect. It was Spider again.
I mean, you know, the some of his attitudes were, shall we
say, disappointing to say the least.
And some of his attitudes towards things like race and,
and and and so on could be very disappointing.
So he wasn't a perfect man by any means, but he was a comic
genius. Now you, you asked about how the
lads, I mean, that's, that's sort of, I mean, Spike was
unfortunately quite dismissive about Larry in later years, just
in terms of, you know, but Sellers was good friends with
him. I think Spike was good friends
with him. Let's face it.
But Sellers, Sellers was quite affected by Larry's death.
And as you know, we may, you may know that Sellers was into
clairvoyancy and consult mediums and that sort of thing.
And for years after he would he would not exclusively go to
mediums to try and reach the spirit of Larry Stevens, but he
the the stories of him saying that he was contacted by someone
using the the name Fred, which was a favorite nickname.
It was. And like Ian Carmike, because he
was Sellers soon after this was soon after Larry's death.
He he was either on the verge. He'd either begun or was on the
verge of beginning filming of I'm a Right, Jack and Ian
Carmichael recalled Sellers talking to him about Stephen's
death and and talking about how he wanted to make contact with
him on the other side. All right.
So what ITV? Yes.
Of course if if this was a goon show script then much would be
made about sellers using a medium, whereas Harry was an
extra large. Here it is Christmas Eve and
still no offers of pantomime and not a penny have I towards a
plate of vittles for me poor half starved 18 stone body.
So I lay my poor old 20 stone head down on this 8 stone in
banquet bench. This is nice and soft.
I'll call your line on moon. Just so I mentioned about
Sellers was about to film I'm all right Jack or in the process
of filming it. He was also appearing in the
stage show Brouhaha, which we've talked about number of occasions
on this show. So I'm not going to bore people
with that again. Harry was appearing in
Manchester in a show called Large as Life.
OK. I just thought I'd just quickly
talk about that because we, we've talked about brouhaha
number of occasions. We've we've referenced large as
life on occasion, but we've never really, never really
looked into what it was. And I won't, I won't spend too
much time on it. But it was like a variety show
that had been on at the London Palladium, been a great success
in it. And it moved to the Opera House
in Manchester. And from I think it was playing
from middle of December 58 and it ran something like 7 weeks,
something like that. And it's it's it was described
as a revusical, a port, a portmanteau word.
That's that's what they would call that.
It had obviously it had Harry in in sort of heading up the cast.
It had Harry worth. Do you remember Harry Worth?
Of course I do. Yeah, with the shop window and
the. That's right, That's right.
You had Eric Sykes and Hattie Jakes.
Interestingly also some acrobats, a troupe called the
Three Kims Kims. There was some sort of musical
performance called Hetel King GH Elliot and some juggling from
someone called Hugo Fedriani. Right.
I'm afraid I've got a picture now of the three successive
leaders of North Korea juggling for the three.
Days there's there's not a there's not a huge amount of
information out there about the show.
There's there's a few reviews from the time newspaper reviews
from the time and just with regards to seek him, he he
stands he he is the one that is rated most highly as as a
performer. And one newspaper review talks
about he plays a number of different roles, different
characters. One of them is a one of them is
a Victorian principal boy in feathers, if you can imagine
such a thing, and and the other is a stage door Johnny who knows
what he wants. OK, All right, so we can he can
play characters on stage, but when it comes to the Goon show,
he's Neddy. Yeah.
Yeah, but he's probably, he's probably got the same voice.
Yeah, he's just. I suppose so.
Yeah, he's got feathers or, or or an autograph book.
Yeah. Harry.
Harry was a. Stage door door Johnny does not
mean he collected autographs. Tyler, I'm sorry, it doesn't
mean nothing to what does it. What does it.
He was, he was. It means you'd be hanging about
for the ladies of the cast. Oh, is that what it I always
sort of just meant no. No, no, it was someone.
It was someone who went to associate with the the ladies in
the cast. Oh God, is my face red?
I didn't realize that. OK, well, I've learned
something. A bit of an antiquated term,
isn't it? I suppose so.
Yeah, Harry worth he just, he just, he did a bit of
ventriloquism apparently. And it doesn't there doesn't
seem to be any information about what Eric and Hattie got up to
right. But but no, it was it was
extremely well received and very successful, it would seem very
good. So what I will do is I will,
I'll give you the the synopsis for Dishonoured again,
presumably written by Spike himself.
It says young Ned, driven to distraction by the humdrum life
at the bank where he works, although he's only been there,
what, 20 minutes, 20 minutes? He he decides to abscond with
the contents of the strong room. One night, with his pockets
bulging with notes, he joins a banana boat sailing for the blue
Mediterranean. But Neddy, and used to sudden
wealth, begins to lose heavily to the purser at snap and until
in desperation, he dives overboard and spins to India.
There he joins the army and continuing in the path of
degradation, he sells military secrets to the Viziri tribesmen.
Then he becomes a confidant of the notorious scourge of the
Northwest frontier, the dreaded Red Bladder, until finally, in
the foothills of the Himalayas, he meets his tragic end.
It's like an AI recreation of, isn't it?
It's just uncanny, you know, you can sort of recognise some
things. But yeah.
The notes in his pocket, wasn't it gold?
Gold yeah and and it misses the the the salient point that grip
type and Moriarty actually recruit him don't they to go and
and work in the bank that that that good point manages in order
to in order to rob it it's it's. Their yeah, yeah, Moriarty's
obviously spotted him as being on a Zappers.
Yeah, there's that great line, Neddy delivers.
Here it is, Christmas Eve and still no offers of pantomime.
That's lovely. Yes, that, that gold bit.
I mean, that's one of the things that that that stuck with me
from listening to it on the on the LP all those years ago that
I would have probably said was in tales of old Dartmoor, where
where where a grid pipe puts him in charge of the gold, the gold
vault. Andy Dusty gold, gold, gold.
I'm rich, I'm rich and grip type, as it were, turns to
camera and and says, what's he say?
Hang on, I. Wonder if he's the right?
Man, I wonder if he's the right man for the I wonder if he's the
right man for the job. Of course he is.
As far as grip, that's absolutely he is.
Yeah, yeah. Oh, it's interesting to say.
By the way, while we're on while we're on grip type, I listened
also to the original version of Dishonoured just to get a bit of
a feel for how different it was and how different it wasn't.
And it isn't very different apart from a little bit of
topical material cut out and and the new version is sharper.
It's it's a much sharper, much quicker.
The pacing is superb. And one particular thing that I
meant maybe mentioned in a bit. So in the original you you, it's
a bit of a truism of the goons, isn't it, that you can always
tell Sellers mood by his pronunciation of Mariotti.
Yes. And in this one he's clearly
having a ball because he's absolutely Mariotti.
It's on every occasion. Whereas on the original version
he's Mariotti. So so Sellers Kelly was not as
happy, but he hasn't got that massive contract lined up, had
he? That's true.
Although.
One of his mates in the audience didn't have long to live.
If he'd known that, he might have put a lot down near.
The front. It would have definitely been
variety then, wouldn't it? If I'm sure listeners listeners
all know this, but just in case, does someone listening to this
for the first time He doesn't know as as Steve has alluded to
there, if if sellers as as was quite often the case, if he was
a bit peeved with Milligan for whatever reason, maybe staging
him or or just annoying him in general.
Seller said Grip Pipe would refer to his his colleague as
moriety as a way of a coded way of saying to Milligan, you know,
wind your neck in kind of thing. I must tell friend moriety all
is going according to plan. This pops, this really pops and
flows and it's such an improvement.
And it's weird because people say Series 5 was, you know,
possibly the I mean series 5 for Someone Like You must be the
best series because. Strong stories.
It it's got proper stories and you've got Eric Sykes involved
with many of those. And, and I mean, yeah, let me
sorry, we're going all over the place as always, but do you, are
you, have you heard most of the the extant Goon shows?
Now most of them, yeah, I. Have OK, Do you have a
particular favorite series or? I'm not really thought about it,
to be honest. I'm just looking in in Roger
Wilmer and Jimmy Grafton's Goon Show Companion.
You mentioned the fifth series. Let me have a look.
There's some good ones there. Aren't The whistling spy,
Enigma, Dreaded batter pudding. Pudding Hurler.
Phantom Head Shaver, Lone banana, Lurgy Straight.
Oh yeah, Bull. There's one after another
wonderful Spanish suitcase. Dishonoured.
Oh, ye Bandit of Sherwood Forest, also on an LP, wasn't
it? That's a lovely one. 1985 China
story. It's one after another.
Great, great story. The Yeti White box of Great Barn
Field. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
What a. What a.
That's my that's my favorite Goon show, by the way.
White box of great. Is it really?
Yeah, I used to. Do you have a?
Do you have a you? Are you used to live there?
Oh no, no, you used to live near though.
Strange place. That's in north Essex it is.
And years ago I lived down that way and it's a very, very
strange place. It's, it's a bit like a sort of
a rural Royston Vasey. And apologies to anybody who
lived there. Well this was in the early 90s
when we went and had a little look round and I remember there
was a big sign outside the church saying every member of
the parish is prayed for on a weekly basis which which struck
us as being really sinister. Strange circle.
Right. In the 40s and 50s, wasn't it
kind of like an artist's commune?
Was it as well? That's yeah, OK.
Something like that. But this ninth series as well,
there's some great stuff here as well, isn't?
There there is. This, this, this.
Well, was there ever a series of the goons where there wasn't
something that was wonderful in it?
I don't think there. Was.
Yeah, well, see, people tend to say that and I tend to agree.
I think most right thinking people agree that Series 8 was
probably the weakest of the, you know, the the the the goon show
as we as we know it, Series 8. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's a bit of filler. String robber is.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. But then there's there's a lot
of filler, I think. And yeah.
Spunk plate. Yeah, you're right.
You're right. There are a few.
There are fewer standard episodes in that in that series,
aren't there? Yeah, I think that makes sense.
Oh, well, let me tell you this, right, I'll, I'll, I'll give you
the top. So we did a listeners poll of
top 20 Goon Show episodes, right Listeners favorite top, top 20.
I'm not going to read them all out, but I'll just read you the
top ten. OK, let's from.
Let's go from #10 to number 1. You need.
Alan Freeman style pop pickers. Consider it, Consider it a music
bed. Edited under this number 10
Tales of Old, 00. Yes.
Wonderful #9 a show we covered a couple of weeks ago.
The histories of plenty. The Elder.
Good one. #8 the jet propelled guided NAFI.
Wonderful #7 the show we're talking about today?
Yep. Number six, 1985, yeah.
It might put that a bit lower, but go on. #5 I'd put this a lot
lower, the scarlet capsule. Oh, I'd put that quite near the
top. All right.
OK, well, you're a big science fiction fan, you see, So you
know you're a Neil fan, so. #4 the dreaded batter putting her
look. Yeah #3 lurgy strikes Britain #2
the Green, said Greenslade story.
And #1 Napoleon's piano. But you know, you could pick 10
episodes, 10 goon shows with a pin, and the chances are you'd
get at least half a dozen good ones in your 10.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. It's all a matter of degree,
isn't it? Absolutely, absolutely.
And by the way, I mentioned plenty of the elder, so we
covered that a couple of weeks ago.
Now the script for that, as I said at the time that turns out
there's a Roger Wilmot. You mentioned Roger Wilmot.
There's a Roger Wilmot. A couple of books that he put
out, one was called No More Carried Eggs for Me, which was
which was a collection of comedy scripts.
And it's in this episode. That's not right.
It's in this episode. And whenever when I was when I
was a kid and used to do goon show voices, which of course all
goon show loving kids do, don't they?
If ever I did, if ever I did blood knock, that was the line
that I would do. Oh.
No more carried eggs for me. So so yeah, the the script for
plenty of the elder was in the follow up to no more curried
eggs for me, a book called Son of curried eggs.
Right. OK, but the script in no more
curried eggs for me. No prizes for guessing
dishonored again. Brilliant.
Yeah. Brilliant.
Yeah, I'll mention that little that that that bit where it
struck me at how much more sharp and quick and all the rest of it
this episode is than the original version.
And it and it's just immediately before the the blood knock
section where Neddy is talking to Echoes and he's resolved to
get his life back on track and get back to self respect.
And and Neddy goes, I'll join the Navy.
That then follows. One minute and 3 1/2 seconds of
naval music, seaside stuff, and all the rest of it.
Totally over the top and totally extended beyond all reasonable
whatever. I'm going to clear my name and
get back by self respect. Hal.
Hal, join the Navy. No, I'll join the army.
It's too damn noisy in the Navy. In the original version, there's
a there's a quick echoes line in between.
It's on second thoughts. I'll join the Army.
Why is that? It's too damn noisy in the Navy.
It slows it down. It breaks.
Yeah, it's it's it really struck me how much, how sharper this
one, that that point particularly.
It's several points. It's several points.
Tighter, by the way, those tunes that we hear.
Yeah, you're going to listen to. Do you know all of them?
I was going to write down the list and I thought, you know,
Tyler, we've got we'll have that list.
So we had a life on the ocean wave.
We had we had the the Marines March thing, didn't we?
The Hearts of Oak we had, didn't we have?
I do like to be beside the seaside.
I can't remember. Go on, you tell me.
Well, I don't know about Hearts of Oak and what I've got down
here and this may this may be this.
I didn't put these these tunes. OK.
Titles together this is. I've pinched this from somewhere
else, but rule Britannia. Sailors, Hornpipe is on that,
yeah. Yeah, sailors, Hornpipe anchors
away. Yeah.
Life on the ocean wave.
What shall we do with the drunken sailor?
Yes, I joined the Navy to see the world.
I. Wouldn't have known that one.
All the nice girls love a sailor.
Yeah, And then it ends again with Rule Britannia.
I imagined a few, clearly. I imagined I do like to be
beside the seaside, but never mind.
But no, I've. I was sure Hearts of Oak was in
there, but maybe not. Anyway, but you're absolutely
right. It's interesting because Spike
said that we believe that Spike tweaked the script of
Dishonoured and but didn't change that much.
But I looked at the, I looked at the script, the copy of, I'm not
sure whose script, whether it was Spike or one of the others.
There's a, the, the, the I have access to a copy of it.
And interestingly, because I think in the original
Dishonoured from Series 5, the bit where Moriarty meets Neddy
at the beginning and says I run a rag and bone shop, Neddy says
looking for manager. No, I'm looking for stock.
That's it. That's in the original
Dishonoured, doesn't it? Yeah, that's not typed out in
the script for Dishonored again. Comes out a bit strange,
doesn't? It but it, but it's, but it's
written in. So what I'm saying is it's like
Spike revised the script for Dishonored again, took out that
bit of dialogue and then decided on the day actually we'll put it
back in again, which I think is very wise.
In the original version, there's a smashing a Greenslade bit as
well, where Greenstlade starts cheerleading the audience to to
shout for Greenslade Greenslade and that That doesn't happen in
the in the remake, does it? Before we started recording, I
mentioned that this is one of those going shows where I mean
it it was released pretty much in its entirety.
Well, apart from the musical numbers, of course.
It was released pretty much uncut on the LP and there wasn't
any real top. I mean, there was some certain
racial stuff that that they wouldn't necessarily do today,
but there's no, there wasn't really any topical material that
needed cutting out of Dishonored again.
But you, I think you you said that in Dishonored the the first
one there was. Yeah, I kept there was sort of
before the story starts, there's a little bit of of chat refer.
What's he referring to? It might be referring to taxes
or something like that, taxation, something like that.
But I mean, there's there's there is one topical thing that
survives and that's the red bladder because the red bladder
is a take on the red shadow who was the hero of the music or the
desert song and the desert, which was one of these shakes
sweeps woman off her feet type things that romantic stories.
The the, the, the film version of the Desert Song came out in
1953, just the year before the original Dishonoured starring
Gordon McRae. So that's, that's where that
would have come from. Now if people of a slight of my
sort of age remember the Desert Song, it's because it was
revived in on the London stage in 1967, I think with John
Hanson in the leading role. Now John Hanson was musical
stage tenor who used to turn up on all sorts of TV shows in the
60s and 70s. He did a he did a Morecambe and
Wise episode, John Hanson and was quite was was very clearly
on there promoting the desert song.
He was very closely associated with with his appearance as the
red shadow in the desert song. So that's what the red red
bladder comes from. Well, of course, the desert song
is quite pivotal in a in a particular goon show episode,
the Sahara Desert statue, which is the first episode of this
series where Neddy. I'm trying to think, how does it
go here? Neddy is a nude Welshman
standing in the middle of this hour desert holding a holding a
bowl of rice pudding, who gets blown to bits and becomes a
touring company of desert song. Well, it was, it was in, it was
in the zeitgeist, wasn't it? The desert song at that time,
after the the the the Gordon McRae film the previous year,
Yeah. OK, so this show, it's it's
Neddy being preyed upon by those two chiselers, Thin and
Moriarty. It's very similar to to the
tales of old Dartmoor. It is in that sense, it's it's a
very similar story, a very similar show and both wonderful.
And what I love about this is you It's it's it is very Neddy
centric as the best shows are very Neddy centric.
He carries the plot and you you follow him through encounters
with the other characters, usually in pairs, don't you?
So he starts off with Grid, Pipe and Moriarty and then he moves
on from them. He has an encounter with Echoes
and then he ends up with Mini and Henry, and then he comes to
Blood Knock and, and then there's Blue buckle who's not in
this much, turns up and gets blown up and that's that's about
it. And and we have Blue bottle and
echoes together, don't we? And then and, and and it
finishes with Minnie and Henry again.
It's it's nicely contained little segments with each of the
the main groups of characters. And and yeah, and I know the
Goon Show is often always on this podcast as well-being
described as cartoonish, but I think this particular episode is
very cartoonish. And particularly things lines
like the bit where Neddy's in the ocean swimming and then 10
miles east way. And the last three were agony.
They were overland. Yeah, there's curses spotted.
Why are you wearing that leopard skin?
So that's why I'm spotted. You can imagine the camera
pulling out to reveal. Yeah, so there's some brilliant
lines in this. There's no point in staying.
There's more money in the van than there is in the bank.
I fell in a heap on the ground. I've no idea who left it.
There. Oh, and of course, and of course
there's the I'll tell you what I think probably my favorite bit.
Next, I carefully disguise myself as a Zulu warrior of the
Matabevi Rising. So cunning was my makeup, not
even my own grandmother would have recognized me.
Hello, Neddy. Hello, Granny.
Now that's different in the in the original, because in the
original the response to that is hello lady from sort of an old
lady voice. But in the one we've listened to
it from a very yeah, it's fun. Absolutely.
So that that's that's fun. But the break on men, it doesn't
suit me, Henry. They go and get 3 miles an hour.
Yeah, we'll be murdered in our beds.
It just conjures up the image of, you know, this sort of
Victorian or even pre Victorian era that they come from where,
you know, when the early locomotives had the man walking
in front with the red flag or whatever going at about two
miles an hour because any faster and their brains would explode.
It just conjures up the the characters from that sort of
period. Yeah, and and there's the
there's the scene where where Neddy is in the tea house and
he's offered all the exotic wonders of the Orient and what
can I get you? Pot of tea, please.
And and he does the classic John Major voice, doesn't he?
He does 40 years before John Major, 30 years before John.
The stock, stock nerd voice. That's it.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, when I first heard this,
I first heard this when I was a teenager and I had no issue with
it at all. And I'm not going to get dwell
on it by by any means, but you've got this temptress doing
this dose of the the. 7 surplus army blankets.
I've got to make a living too, you know.
Which Have you ever seen the short film that Sellers and
Milligan made with Dick Henry called The Case of the Muckney's
Battle Horn? In the cinema, Tyler, In the
cinema, I've seen it. Have you?
Yeah, I think it must have been on as a support for one of the
Python films. Probably.
Oh, it was it was. It was a support for Holy Grail.
There you. Are absolutely there you are.
In 75, so that that dates it. So that bit, this the bit where
we come to, we come to understand that Echols is doing
the dance of the seven army surplus blankets.
That bit is recreated on the screen in the case of the
marketing. Space, isn't it?
Yes, it is. It is absolutely.
Into the middle of the floor sprang a creature who sent my
pulse is racing 1 by 1. The blankets fell to the floor.
The lights went down as the last blanket fell from the passionate
creature. I move to her side in the dark.
What is out of a creature? What prompts you to dance in
this den of ice? You're not a woman.
I know that. Don't tell the manager why not.
We're engaged. It's going to be held.
Fair, super light siren, exquisitive charges.
What are you doing a little hover like this?
I'm going to make a living, do you know?
Wait, you're not a girl, you're a man.
I know that, but don't tell the manager why not, We're engaged.
Wait, I see it all now. You can't have done.
I ain't taking the fails off yet.
I mentioned at the right at the beginning of the show, my intro
I, I, I, I mentioned the Street of 1000 households, yes, Which
gets a which gets a loud filthy laugh from the audience.
Yes, why? Why does he get a filthy laugh
from the audience? Well, so my, my dad, when he
was, I don't know, he, my dad was not PC or my dad, you know,
my dad would just say whatever. And I guess this was a phrase
that was in common usage, I guess service ex service, right?
Men and people like that. My dad used to refer to the
street of 1000 assholes, which I don't, I don't quite know what
it refers to, but I did look it up.
For the purposes of this, I'm not going to.
There's a can't imagine, can't we?
There's a particularly fruity ditty, OK, And.
And it's terrible. I'm not gonna sing.
It sounds. Yeah, that's why.
That's why Neddy refers to the Street of 1000 households.
But, but they were absolutely steeped, were they not?
The goons enforces humor. I mean, that's, that's where
their, their, their, their humor was forged in the forces during
the war. And my dad was in the forces as
well. Actually, my dad was in the Navy
in the late 40s, early 50s. He served in the Korean War.
So actually in the Korean War and so on the on the side of the
bad guys, I would point out, but there we are.
See who you mean, Right, I can think for a minute there.
Okay, A. Little bit of politics coming
out, yeah, never mind, move on, okay.
So he just he just missed out on the on the big one, then he.
Yeah, yeah. Oh no, he was.
My dad was born 29, so he early 29.
So he missed out properly on that one.
Yeah, it was. It was about 4849 that he joined
the Navy and yeah, was into about 53 I think.
OK, I love when Echoes and Blue Bottle have a little sequence to
go when they're just chatting. They're just just shooting the
breeze and. It's a Bow Wow.
Right, OK, here's the thing. I want to try and process this.
OK. Because I hadn't heard.
I heard the show for the first time.
God knows when it would have been in the late 80s.
So I got into the game show and I started, Oh, I didn't, but my
dad started on my behalf, buying out what was out there.
And I was recording them off the radio because they repeated on
radio in New Zealand every every week.
OK, I can't handle how I can't tell you when I first heard this
show, but what I can tell you when Eccles and blue bottles
start this little conversation where Eccles is talking about
what he's getting for his birthday.
I anticipated I don't know how that he was going to say I'm
getting a Bow Wow before he said it right.
I remember clearly. And when he said it, I remember
almost falling off my chair thinking how did I?
So I can only think I must have subconscious must have heard
that maybe it was. You're a baby or something?
Yeah, I don't know what there was always on Sunday mornings,
there'd been hours worth of children's songs and children's
stories played on the radio. Yeah, OK.
I can only think maybe they maybe a few times that sequence
was played for kids on the radio.
I don't know. But anyway, I mean, I love that
bit and the audience, the audience are really on board
with this going show, aren't they?
The bit where Echoes Echoes is talking about licorice.
My mother says that licorice gives you a good run for your
money. And the audience laughter was so
long that the transcription services issue of the show, they
had to cut some of the some of the audience laughter because it
was going on too, too long. Tremendous.
Yeah, guess what I'm getting on my birthday.
What are you getting echo? I'm getting a Bow Wow, I'm.
Not getting them. I'm getting a Junior Smackers
kit complete with toffee Australian licorice dogging.
I like licorice. My mother said that licorice
give you a good one for your money.
You. You're talking about there's
that iconic line. I hate to use the word iconic,
but you know what I mean? You know, no more carried eggs
for me. But there's also a few, you
know, less than a minute later, he, he, he says another line,
which is just, I think most gatherings of the Goon Show
Preservation Society members say this to each other.
Open your wipes. And say after me, help yourself.
Yes, I've written it down. That sums up blood now it
doesn't it? Oh, it's lovely, but you can't
say no more covered eggs for me without me automatically again.
I'm sure it's impossible to actually.
Yeah. Think of that.
I'm trying to so in. Can you remember when you
listened? Because I I looked at the
script, but I didn't actually listen again to Dishonor because
we'll cover Dishonor to the original at some Yeah yeah,
Series 5 Blood Knock did not suffer from.
Digestion. Issues.
Yeah. So what, what was, was there
any, was there anything of note with with that blood knock?
I didn't. I didn't.
I don't remember. To be honest, I don't remember
that. I've listened to it a couple of
times in the last few days. The original version and the
remade version, maybe half a dozen times in the last few
days. Oh yeah, do me homework.
But now I can't remember. I know there seem to be far
fewer. And this is where the story
really starts in the in the Dishonored again than there were
in the original, because that was going on a lot in the
original 1. And this is where the story
really starts. Yes, yeah, there's more of that
in the original number. I guess because that was such a
hallmark of series or that was such a frequent phrase used in
series five. Yeah, it had fallen out of use
by Series 9. So I guess they they push back
on it a bit. But of course there's there's a
big change of course in as much as Series 5 Moriarty.
Oh yes. He's quite a cool customer,
quite a quite a an able collaborator.
He's on the road towards disintegration here, isn't?
He, well, he is, but he's still. But he's still.
He's still got it, He's still got it.
He's a different voice. Yeah, yes, Yes, he has.
Yeah, yeah. And of course, the other change
is that Ellington and Geldre's music is different.
It's they they, they do different songs, they do
different numbers in the in the original.
Good, good excuse for me to ask you the question I always ask
you guests when listening to the Goon Show, do you do you skip
the music or do you listen to the music?
Oh my. Well, as, as, as I've said, I, I
grew up with the goons on the polyphony and my records.
Well, the music's all cut out anyway, isn't it?
Yes. So it, it, it came as as a
surprise to me to start hearing with the music when I started
listening to some of the BBC repeats and then the the Goon
Show classic albums when they started coming out.
But I'm avoiding your question, aren't I?
If I. It depends what I'm listening
for. Like I said, I've listened to
this one maybe half a dozen times in the last few days, and
I didn't listen to the music every time.
It must be standard. But on the whole, I, I love
playing through and listen to him.
I do because I mean, I think, I think Geldre was wonderful.
I think he was a wonderful musician.
I mean, just just to make an invidious comparison with Larry
Adler, who's the other great harmonica virtuoso of the time.
I, I, I think Geldre not spots off Adler and, and, and Adler
was probably the most famous composer, a famous performer,
rather Ellington. I, I think he's a little bit
more, I don't know, a little bit more run-of-the-mill maybe.
I mean, my dad was a big fan of like modern jazz.
So there was always a lot of modern jazz being played in the,
the house when I was a kid rather than rather than
contemporary pop music or anything like that.
So, yeah, Wendy Ellington he's, he's, he's competent.
And then then just tight enough, little band and all that.
But I don't know. Yeah.
I mean, it does the job, but I wouldn't ever buy a a Ray
Ellington album, whereas I might buy a there was, there was a,
wasn't there a Geldre album called Goon with the Wind?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. If I came across that, I might,
I might, I might buy it, but I don't think I'd buy a, a, a Ray
Ellington one. Yeah.
But yeah, I listened to him, yeah.
Obviously one of the bit again, another big contrast between
this and and the original Dishonoured was the just the the
sheer exuberance and it reminds me a lot of the histories of
plenty of the elder that we discussed a few weeks ago.
Even though this wasn't the the last show of the series, it
feels like an end of term show. They're having fun.
They're having a lot of fun. Navigator, can you restitute our
position in the man? What's that object of the board
beam? Why do you should not think of
the park? Good heavens, it's the Albert
Hall. You've been the sea before.
But what is the Albert Hall doing of Beachy Head?
More to the point, what is the ship doing in Hyde Park?
The sea is calmer here. You idiot, we have 4000 miles.
Of course, nobody perfect. I wonder.
I mean, clearly Milligan's having fun as as much as
anybody, and I wonder how much of that is down to the fact that
he's not worn himself out writing a script.
This week, Quite possibly. Quite possibly, yeah.
We've not mentioned William, of course.
Who's joining the River Police? Yeah.
Does that happen 3-4 times? And I thought you were in the
River Police. I've been promoted when they
find him in the ocean, I think. Let me just check here.
I'm just going to scroll through.
I'm I'm not keen on the character of Little Jim.
You know Little Jim. Hey, falling into water.
Yeah, I'm just checking. I don't think little Jim's in
this and yet, and yet he's made for this show because of the
number of times at Williams. How much water is in this show?
Well, there's the river at the beginning.
There's the ocean, there's the Canyon that Blue Bottle falls
into when you touch the ride Vaquero ride to jump over the
Canyon. So there's plenty of
opportunity. I mean, you say he's a character
you don't like. Well, come on, he's not a
character. He's a catch phrase, isn't he?
Well, he is, and that's all he is.
He is, He is. I think by this point, yeah, I
think they would just the easing of using.
Him. They were better than that.
Yes, and of course he doesn't turn up in the original
Dishonored, so no, he does. That helps as well.
It's the classic grit pipe and Moriarty con, isn't it?
Where where poor old Neddy is the Patsy who gets used to to to
enable them to make off with the gold.
But it's it's it's world spanning, is that it?
It leaves these shores and ends up in, in India and, and takes
in the, the, the, but they, they talk, they, they, they say the
Pathan tribes. That's a mispronunciation.
Milligan should have put that right.
The Pathan tribes led by the, led by the red bladder and so
on. So it's like I say, it's it's a
lovely succession of sequences with all our favorite
characters, with Neddy absolutely striding
magnificently through the middle of them all.
That's I think that's it really. That's it's a good episode.
I was just checking as well just then because it's the script is
credited to Spike certainly. Yeah.
But of course, it in series five it was credited to Eric Sykes
and Spike or Spike and Eric Sykes.
Right. OK, I didn't notice that.
But so Eric was Co credited on all but six.
So the first six goon shows of series five were written by
Spike and then the subsequent, I think 5 or 6 actually.
And then subsequent shows were all all credited to either Spike
Milligan and Eric Sykes or Eric Sykes and Spike Milligan.
And depending on whose name went first, basically he did the
lion's share of the script. Yeah, yeah.
It's a bit like Lennon and McCartney sort of that that sort
of thing. But I did just check.
Yeah. Dishonored from series 5 Spike
pretty much wrote himself, but it's but it's quite a good plot.
There's quite a good, you know, even the ending, the ending is
is an interesting ending because it doesn't just it's it doesn't
just it's not one of those hanging endings that you a
little. White stone with a description
in Hindustani. I didn't have the heart to tell
her. It roughly translates as Bombay
49 miles. That's a proper ending that puts
a proper. Ties it up nicely.
And Bombay, 49 miles. And then crash in with the Old
Comrades March. Yeah, the theme.
And then the Old Comrades marcher.
Yes. Oh, lovely, lovely, lovely,
lovely. And the recording I heard.
I don't know what had happened, but the voice over, I didn't
listen it on the album. I listened to it on the Radio
Echo's website. I don't know if you're aware of
that. It's every June show and and
more is on there and, and it was a a modern sounding female
voice, like someone from Radio Four extra or something that
reads out the credits on the end.
So it's possible we haven't got the the original credits on this
one, I don't know. Well, the no so the on the
original, sadly I don't know whether because Ted Kendall
restored this show for the Goon Show Compendium, which is where
I listen to it on the original broadcast version.
The duty announcer, the BBC duty announcer over the old comrades
March. Yeah.
He said that recorded new production of a 1954 vintage
Goon show was produced by John Browell.
Then he said I love this. Peter Sellers is now appearing
in Brouhaha at the Oldwich Theatre, London, and Harry
Seekum in Largest Life at the Opera House, Manchester.
They always used to do that, you know, on the yeah, that was a
regular thing, not just on radio, on telly as well.
If somebody was in a big production somewhere and and
they'd had to get the permission of the the producer to use them
on, on, on that. Absolutely.
Trevor Banister is is now appearing in When did You Last
See your trousers? Exactly, exactly that sort of
thing. Yeah, yeah.
Almost everybody at one point appeared to be in no sex please
with British. Yes, yeah, that, that.
That because I remember it was going on even up to about
1991199091 because the first episode of Bottom.
OK. As the credits at the end
rolled, you've got the duty announcer or whoever's saying
Rick Mail and Adrian Edmondson are repairing in Waiting for
Godot. Such and such, yes, that would
have been worth seeing. Yes it would.
There is clips. I have seen clips, but
unfortunately not a full recording.
So there was a little bit of mild Radio 4 controversy.
All right. OK.
So what are the other things about this?
So it's issued on LP as we know. It's repeated.
Let's let me just say it's repeated about.
Let me count here. It's repeated about 5 * 5 or 6
times before BBC, before the advent of BBC Seven, when goon
shows were regularly repeated, if you know what I mean.
BBC Seven, which is now what, four extra?
Four extra, yeah. But it was repeated in in 1964
and 1960. In 1990, 2:00 and then in 1998
at 11:00 in the evening on Radio 4.
And do you remember feedback? I don't know if it's still
going. Yeah, Radio 4, listen to
feedback show. Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah. Program.
And there was a couple of people that wrote in complaining about
the 1998 repeat broadcast of Dishonored again because of the
fact that there'd been some cuts, right?
So one listener who sounds like a hidebound old Colonel type,
right, I wrote down here, he raged about variously Stalinist
airbrushing by the BBC. He described them as a wretched
Baudlerizers and and he also had a pop.
He said he talked about Ben Alton's politically correct
ranting on BBC One the night before.
But yeah, he and he and other listener had written in
complaining that there were some obvious cuts, right.
And the reason that, well, hang on, the reason that The thing is
they played a couple of examples on the show on feedback.
And yeah, there are a couple of clunky edits.
They cut out the bit where where Ned says about Christmas Eve and
still no offers of pantomime. They cut the bit where he talks
about being disguised as a Zulu warrior of the Matabele rising.
And they cut the bit where when when Williams tossed into the
river the first time, they cut the Merry Christmas reference,
right. And, and they're, they're very
inelegantly done as well, these, these edits.
Immediately I backed a large horse drawn motor van up to the
front entrance of the bank. Yeah, you come.
Perfect. Yes, Sir.
Yeah. The constable.
How would you like to join the river?
Peace. Oh, you like that very much.
Thank you very much, Kelly. I'm ready.
Yes. It's a lovely day for carrying
on there. Right next, I carefully disguise
myself so Kelly was my makeup. Not even my own grandmother
would have recognized me. Hello, Denny.
Hello, Granny. Richard Edis, who was the BBC
man responsible for the broadcast of this Dishonored
again in 1998. He's bought onto the program and
at first he just says look, you know, the original show was 30
minutes. Because of the way Radio 4 is
now, we have to squeeze a 30 minute show into 28 minutes.
So, you know, we couldn't play the original and the host was
kind of playing devil's advocate to a bit, but it was, you know,
he was a spokesman for the listeners who were complaining
and blah, blah, blah. But then Richard Edis basically
said, which is quite right. He said, look, don't blame me.
We didn't say don't blame me. He basically said, look, we just
used, we just played the the transcription services version,
which is at that time, you know, nearly 40 years old, OK?
It's not, these aren't cuts that we've made in 1998.
These are old cuts, OK? As indeed for some of the
listeners, no doubt. But the problem is right.
The problem is the reason that people realized there were cats.
OK, there was one particularly bad edit, right?
But the reason people realized there were cats was because they
were so used to this show from listening to the LP version.
Yeah, right. My, my question would be, well,
if you, if you're so used to the LP version, why you listen to it
at 11:00 in the evening on Radio 4?
You know what I mean? We do though, don't we?
We do that sort of thing, don't we?
I know I do. With Doctor Who, you know.
I suppose so, yeah. But but then the host basically
said to Edis, well, you should have, you should have tried to
clean up the mess the transcription people have made
of those edits. And he said, well, yeah, but
that would take time and money. And I don't, you know, just
didn't have the budget really to do that, you know.
And then the end the conversation with the hosts
asking if Goon Show fans would do an apology.
Absolute Tommy Rod. Do you feel that Goon show?
Addicts, of which there are great many, clearly are entitled
to something of an apology over this.
Not from me, no. I'd suggest that the best course
of action is to write to either feedback or pass their comments
on to the schedulers who work for Radio 4.
I don't know how you feel about cutting of, you know, removing
of of racially sensitive or sexist or topical.
Or all in favour? Whatever it may be, all in
favour as, as we, yeah, we've talked about this on a number of
occasions. And if it's, if it's going out
on the radio, if it's going out, if you're a passive consumer, I
think is what they say, then absolutely.
If you're buying the whatever it may be, the CD or the DVD or the
Blu-ray or whatever, you're inviting it into your home.
That's right. So you're making, it's on you.
Exactly. I agree with that absolutely.
Yeah, So anywho, there we go. So, so Steve, thank you.
It's been you've been great having you on because you've got
so much to say and. I think the term you're looking
for is gob shite. You've been a gob shite, Steve.
Thank you very much. So have you got anything to plug
at all? Anything.
Well, well, it's, it's mostly Doctor Hui.
We're, we're, we're working on Hooverville, our annual
convention. Hoover 16 is this year on the
30th of August and tickets still available from derbyquad.co.uk
Derby Quad. We're working on Big Finish Day,
which we're doing on the 21st of June, also at Derby Quad.
Same source for the tickets. I've just, I've just finished
writing. I know I can't talk about I've
just finished writing a, a Doctor Who non fiction book,
which will be due out in February of next year or being
well and that will be announced in due course.
It's part of a, a series of books.
Mine will be #81 in a series, but those, you know, will be
able to work out what that is. But it's not been announced yet.
So shut up, Hatcher. And and yeah, that's about that.
I didn't realize there was much of an audience for Doctor Who
material. It's obscure, isn't it, Doctor
Who? There's barely any podcasts out
there. No, no, not at all.
There's a gap in the market for you.
No, no, you're right, but you've absolutely cornered the market
in in goon show podcasting, haven't you?
You've done a great job. It's I I like I say I I got I
discovered your podcast quite regularly, quite recently.
So I I went right back to the beginning and I'm working my way
through. So I'm I'm some years behind.
Oh, right, but I when I was. When I had a head of golden
curls and downy cheeks and I was, I was an amateur, just
finding my way. But there was something very
good. I'm.
I'm a bit further in than that. Oh, OK.
I think I'm trying to remember what was the last last one I
heard. But this, this, this.
Yeah. Because it's in the other room
on me. Me.
What's it? But yeah, I'm about must be
about 40 episodes in or thereabouts.
Oh, I'll tell you what. I'm a roundabout, the one you
did with Toby on, on the Scarlet Capsule roundabout then.
But I've I've heard that that was the first one I listened to,
but I've sort of caught up with that.
You, you have many riches to look.
I do and much to learn much to learn, which is the joy of it
that I've just just yes, you did a great one about the about the
the gun show books. Yes, just recently listened to
with. Mike Heskins, yes.
I mean, and, and as I say, I did this little article about them
for a, a, a magazine published by obverse books called from a
story by and I had a little article about that in the first
issue of that. And I think your podcast on it
went far, far deeper and into so much more and better details and
than I was able to do in my little article.
So I learned stuff about that from there, so.
I think Mike bought most of the new information to that
conversation to be honest, but but thank you.
No. So Steve, really good, really
good to have you on. You will you will no doubt
return again in the future. Until then, all the very best
and speak to you very soon. The.