Sergeant Quatta, you will say the river bottom is sanded,
right, Sir. The river bottom is sandy, Sir.
Good. Have you any knowledge of trees?
I was born in one, Sir. Good.
You will see those wooden ones across the river personally,
Sir. Think you could drop them down?
Well, get Private Blitz. He's a lumberjack.
I'm sorry, Sir. He's been down at 10 B, Sir.
Got a broken up, Sir. You can't jump down trees or
broken arms. Couldn't he try on that?
Hello. Hello, Field Marshall Echols.
How are you getting on As a sanitary orderline.
I want to speak to you about that.
Since I've been doing that job, the men make me sleep outside in
a snow. Snow.
Snow in Burma? No.
Switzerland. That's where they make me go.
Hello and welcome to Goompod. Now we many times on this
podcast we talk about. Well obviously we talk about the
goons, of course, but very often, almost every episode
there's there's at least one reference to The Beatles, and
more often than not there's also a reference to.
The Beatles producer George Martin and my guest today is a
gentleman who has a very wide and varied interest in George
Martin, to the extent that he has a podcast celebrating George
Martin's work predominantly with The Beatles, both as a as a
collective and individually. I think that's fair to say it's
Jason Kruper from the podcast producing The Beatles.
Hello, thank you for having me. I'm very excited to talk about
this. Yeah, I'm when I said that
about. So it's producing The Beatles,
but it's also, I mean you've covered Live and Let Die very
recently, haven't you? Right.
I sort of. The main thrust is Beatles
together. But I decided I just thought I'd
try something after the first season.
Just a few bonus episodes on solo song.
So I've done a John song to do George songs just because I.
I Co wrote a book on the making of all Things Must Pass and I
had a lot of material and and then and then live and let die.
You know, I I say that it's about The Beatles, but it's
indefinitely. It is about The Beatles.
But I'm using that also as an excuse to teach music and to
talk about how recordings are made and and how technology
worked back then and you know, really how collaboration.
Works great and. Your name is Jason Krupa, no
relation to Gene. I take it there is a.
Family story, which I've only recently sort of confirmed that
that I we're distantly related that I have my my last name is
spelled KRUPPA, his is KRUPA, both Hungarian, and we recently
my brother recently found confirmation that.
There is a relation, the reason the names are different, this is
more than you probably want to get into.
But the reason the names are different is because his
ancestor in the 19th century came over first and that was the
original name. And then my ancestor direct
ancestor came over who is his brother or cousin or something
and to differentiate he added an extra P And so we've we've
recently found documentation to that.
So I'm going to say short answer is yes.
I can't think of any other. Famous notable groupers.
To be honest, no, I don't Think about it.
You, you and Jean? Yes.
I wouldn't say I'm quite as famous as Jean, but, you know,
give me time. I think originally you suggested
coming on to talk about George Martin's work with Peter and
Spike in the 50s and the 60s, but.
Around the time that you suggested that I'd I'd already,
I think I was in the in the process of beginning to record
an episode about George Martin with Andrew Hickey.
So just slightly missed the boat on that.
But you then suggested that you'd like to come on and talk
about the 1962 LP that Spike, Peter and friends recorded,
which is the the famous bridge on the river YLP.
Produced by George Martin. Yes, of course it's borrowed
heavily. The script borrowed heavily from
The Goon Show episode African Incident from the eighth series,
Right of The Goon Show. Have you heard that?
Yes. Oh yes.
I've actually listened to it again last night.
But I will maybe get into this. I don't want to interrupt.
You. Yeah, yeah.
OK, OK. Before we started recording, I
asked you if you. You know obviously you come on
to talk about bridge on the river, why?
And it's I guess it's mainly off the back of your interest in
George Martin. So I said prior to us hitting
record, I said no, do you, did you have an interest in the
goons as well? And you said to me, yeah, but it
kind of it, it, it kind of came about because of your interest
in George Martin. Do you want to elaborate on
that? Right.
So I mean this, let's even back up a little farther.
Than that about 20 years ago I I got obsessed with the Revolver
album and I started looking into you know how all those sounds
were made, how they did, all they did there were there were
really no books on this. Obviously Mark Lewison's books
which are very important but really you know going into the
background of how they accomplished all of this in
their recordings and and as I began looking and and trying to
figure this out. I realized that George Martin
was really central to this. And then I started looking into
his books and in interviews with him and I started hitting this
wall where there was, you know, sort of this hint at, oh, well,
these comedy recordings are really important.
But that was it. There was, there was no study of
the comedy recordings. There was no one who had really
done any research in depth. There were a few titles that
were, you know, Martin had mentioned and that came up in
Internet searches, but. A lot of it was just a blank and
I thought this, you know, there's something here I I have
to dig deeper. So I started collecting all of
this material and reading and and obviously ran into Peter
Sellers and Spike Milligan and the Goons, and I was already
familiar with Peter Sellers. I grew up in the 70s, so my
parents were big fans of the Pink Panther films and I.
Came to see some of the other films, Doctor Strangelove and
being there sort of as I as I got older and then I became more
interested, you know, just in general through film I think
too. And so all of these threads
started to come together and once I started realizing how
important the recordings with Peter Sellers were, you know, I
dug deeper into that and eventually it turned from.
Strictly research about Revolver.
I thought, you know, I would do a book on Revolver back then,
and I abandoned that. And then it became this really
insane rabbit hole of George Martin's career, specifically
with The Beatles, but also before The Beatles and how that
work informed his understanding of the studio and how how that
helped them be able to use the studio in a creative way.
I met Mark Cousins in London. Mark Lewis and introduced us and
he you know obviously has a long history with Goon show
preservation society and he, he gave me a disc of all the extant
shows meant this is many years ago And so I, you know I
listened to all of them during that period and then you know
sort of went back and and focused on specific ones and
then when I came to River Yi obviously dove into.
The African incident. So that's how all that's kind of
developed and overlapped. And as an American, how did you
find the Goon Show in terms of how was it completely
incomprehensible when you first the first few you listened to?
Initially it was. It was.
I didn't expect it to be so fast, and I remember just
listening and hanging on for dear life at first.
And and and then, you know, as I, as I became more accustomed
to it, I I was able to follow it more closely.
And I I listened to several episodes last night, actually
the African incident and then a few others just to sort of
refresh because there were a couple of things I wanted to
just check. And it, you know, it seemed
perfectly fine. Now it was, it was just that
thing of becoming accustomed to the speed of it and the asides
and. You know, all the switches of
accents and then being able to identify who is speaking as what
character. That took time.
But yeah, I mean, I think I have a pretty good handle on it now.
Okay, funny you mentioned Mark Cousins.
I actually was in contact with him yesterday.
Just asking him for some couple of points about bridge on the
river. Why actually?
I sent him a lot of the paperwork I'd copied at EMI
years ago, and I know he made trips himself, so he he may have
a few other things I don't have. I dug out as much Peter Sellers
material and spike material as they would give me because some
things have been misfiled and you know they may show up later.
Yeah, yeah. If anyone knows anything about
this LP, there's one fact that always you know, if you read a
Milligan biography or. Seller's biography If this LP
gets mentioned at all, there's one fact that always gets
trotted out. I'm sure you know what that is.
Yes, it was originally going to be called Bridge on the River
Kwai, and they actually got so far as actually recording it as
Kwai throughout the recording and then because of complaints
from. Who would it have been from?
Columbia Pictures, I think. Columbia Pictures George Martin
had to go and clip out the K from the word Kwai, which we're
listening to it myself this weekend.
Sometimes you barely notice the edit, but sometimes you really
do, don't you? Yeah, and I had really hoped to
find a memo at EMI. That confirmed this and laid it
out and said you must change this, but nothing.
Unfortunately, I I didn't find any correspondence about this at
all. I found session paperwork, but
unfortunately nothing about that.
One thing that I that I did notice is that it's really only
mentioned. I think it's eight times
throughout the recording and the edit was done after the voice
recording, but. Prior to the sound effects and
the orchestral overdubs, so it would have been relatively easy.
It's not like they had to cut it out of the finished production.
We present the bridge over the River Kwai, subsequently the
lawsuit over the River Kwai and finally Ministry of Hygiene
Annual report on the River Kwai. But it is.
It is nonsensical because the story is exactly the same and
the sleeve note. I don't know if you've seen them
in the back of the Lt. which I have here.
It's, and it's it's just ridiculous.
So they're not fooling anybody, but because if you listen to it,
you know exactly what's going on.
Are you fond of the the film? Yes, I haven't actually seen it
in a long time, but I'm a big Alec Guinness fan and a man in
the white suit and you know, all the all those are those 50s
films. And there's another connection
to George Martin, man in the white suit, which we won't get
on that tangent. But anyway.
Well, he had produced a recording of the theme tune with
a bit of the gurgling sound effect in that film.
Okay. Yes, and he used that as a cue
to the recording. I think it was Jack Parnell was
the artist. And so that's that's the
beginning of the recording and it's this early example of Music
Concrete where he's taking, he's taking a found sound and he's
working it into a piece of music.
That's interesting, right? So yeah, Bridge on the River
Kwai, the film, it's about 8 hours long, right?
But I only saw it for the first time a couple of years ago and I
really enjoyed it and it is amazing.
Well, it is quite. Notable how closely this LP, the
script of this LP follows the script of Right Bridge on the
River Kwai. Obviously not, not totally
faithfully, but. The general shape of it.
Though the general shape of it, each major scene in the film has
its corresponding scene in this and it's it's interesting as
well because more and more doing this pod, you know doing this
podcast and taking time to actually look at.
The, the the historical context when the goon shows were written
and and broadcast. More and more I'm finding out
that Spike was writing parodies of film and television programs.
In some cases, you know, literally 2-3 weeks after the
film or television series. Right, right.
This went out, Yeah, that that film premiered in October and
then into wider release later in the month.
And this this was out what, in December?
Yeah, African incident. So, yeah, really quickly.
Yeah. So I don't really know.
I've not been able to find out very much at all about the
background to the recording of this of the LP, the 9062 LP,
right. So I we we do know that it was
recorded on Wednesday the 23rd of May.
Now Mark Cousins believes that it was, it was all done in the
morning. The the recording sheet.
Said if they booked out two sessions one morning and and one
afternoon for lunch after lunch break and but they finished
everything by 1:00 o'clock and so they packed up and went home
May 23rd, studio 2. Wow.
But then again, you think about it's only it's about 33 minutes
in length and totally. And if you think you know the
the the Goon Show, a couple of years before Spike and Pizza
were doing this every week. Yeah, more or less.
Do we know who came up with the the idea of recording this and
why? Well, the short version of that
is, I think it was George Martin and the reason I believe that is
a much longer answer. I don't know if this is where
you want to really get into the background, but it's it's
probably as good a time as any to well I can sort of sort of,
yeah, I mean give you the wide view of this and then zoom in.
One thing that interests me is that less than a month before,
George had been best man at Spikes writing, right?
And I just, and I was wondering, I wonder if no, because it would
have been too soon, they couldn't have just decided it,
right, you know, during the winter, during.
The oh, by the way, yeah, on that hectic car ride up the
lead, you know. That's right.
Yeah. So I just yeah, you just
wondered, but So what? What?
What You said you've got a rather sort of labyrinthine
supposition, so go ahead. So we know, I mean general
knowledge is that George Martin by the late 50s had come to
understand that, you know, comedy was a niche that he could
begin exploring and and you know, began putting more energy
into that, began having more hits with those records.
And part of that was that he began recording comedy albums,
not just singles, you know, Charlie Drake and and various
things like that, but also albums.
So at the drop of the hat is the.
First, first iteration of that with Flanders and Swan and you
know. Then he followed that with Best
of Sellers and the other two Sellers albums, two more
Flanders and Swan albums. In all he did he released 20 of
what we could call comedy Lp's, and the majority of those are
either transcriptions of stage shows.
They're the two best of the Goon shows Lp's.
There's the that was the week that was, which was just, you
know, a bunch of TV skits that he that he added together into
an LP. So this space that I'm talking
about where he does these 20 albums is between 57 and 65 and
he's still producing these into The Beatles, period.
But there are seven in particular, the best of sellers
Swing and sellers Peter and Sophia Milligan preserved.
It's a Square World with Michael Benteen.
Combination of Cribbins with Bernard Bernard Cribbins.
Pardon me. Well done you you self
corrected. Yourself corrected and and the
the peak of this is bridge on the river why this this I think
is the sort of the pinnacle of his comedy productions his it's
an ambitious recording it's he puts a lot of effort into this
and and. You know, historically, the leap
that happens is that he's done this.
He's learned how to use the studio in this very creative,
dramatic way. And then he meets The Beatles,
or as he's making this, he meets The Beatles.
And then those techniques slowly begin to become beetle
techniques. The reason I say I think it was
his idea. I have a letter here from.
George Martin to Michael Flanders, February 1960, and
he's in the midst of of making these, you know, more of these
albums. And he proposes to him using two
of the Flanders and Swan songs, Wom Palm and In the Bath, for
what he calls a mixed album, first class humorists that he
wants to release in the autumn. And and he's proposing
Eustanov's mock Mozart and phony folklore and Gerald Hofnung's
address to the Cambridge Union and and he says one or two other
tracks of similar quality. So he's he's pitching this album
is never compiled never released.
But he's you know he's pitching these ideas he's he's thinking
like okay. I've got a rich vein here that
I'm mining and no one else is really doing this I'm going to.
I'm going to see if I can you know make make a little you know
little money for Parla phone or you know make a little impact on
the charts. He's seeing some commercial
value to this. So I I think you know must have
come in conversation with Spike at some point whether it's
during the wedding or you know that hectic drive or somewhere
you know he he might have said. You know why don't we do, why
don't we do one of the goon shows as an LP like a properly
produced LP and behind you know he had done Milligan preserved
in 61 that was released in 61 and it that took almost bits and
pieces. This was all done sort of piece
meal over about a year I think and then the Michael Bentine LP
was done over the course of 11 months off and on and.
He that again the the Ventin LP is I would say almost as
important as the River YLP because he put so much
production work into that. Stewart Eltham the engineer who
worked with him very closely on his recordings, worked so hard
on it that he actually gave him a sleeve credit which engineers
never got on projects like this and Martin was was putting his
his credit as produced by George Martin.
Not artists and repertoire, not recording manager produced by
George Martin. He really wanted to you know say
this is, this is what I'm doing. I'm, you know I'm I'm putting a
stamp on this. So I think you know coming out
of the production with the Sellers albums with with Spike
with the Benteen LPI think he's looking for his next project
that he can you know do something creative.
And for whatever reason, I, you know, this was it.
Here comes the old man. I better slip out of this dress.
Eyes front, that is. Gentlemen.
I understand you all wanted to see me.
Yeah, but the men want to know what your views are on escaping
time. Escape in where from?
Yes. Escape in from here.
Is it something I have said? Well.
One of the men has already planned to make a break, Sir.
Is he mad? He has a certificate, Sir.
It means sudden death. It is a death certificate, Sir.
I see him. Who is this man?
Me. My good mind.
Well, off you go then. Wait a moment.
Wait one moment. I haven't seen you around this
camp before. I didn't know you cared.
Where were you captured? I wasn't.
I was sent there by the British Army.
What's your name? Field Marshall Echo.
Typing error. How did you attain this rank,
Sir? I was Bapti Field Marshall Echo.
And and of course, you've got Spike in pizza.
You haven't got Harry. Harry's under contract of
Phillips, so he's. Yeah, yeah.
But you've got, you've got up and coming young upstarts,
Jonathan Miller and Peter Cook, fatal at you know at around this
time obviously for things like beyond the fringe I guess as
because you know like you say Seeking wasn't available, it was
a good opportunity to bring in the the the younger generation.
Would that be fair? Yeah, I think so.
And coincidentally, Martin was recording a new version of the
Beyond the Fringe LP for the US market.
The original was in 1961, and he actually did three recordings of
that on stage to get to get the final LP.
He he wanted to keep making sure he because he really believed in
that show, and for good reason. As you know, as we all have, I
don't know how you know people's backgrounds are, but I'm sure
most people know Beyond the Fringe is sort of, you know, it
was credited with the quote UN quote satire boom, which all of
them reject, of course rejected. So he at this very same time he
was about to record the LP with them in Studio 2 with an invited
audience of 100 and 5200 people. So all these lines were crossing
and I think you know, you probably, he probably mentioned
it and you know whether you mentioned the spike or mentioned
it to be on the fringe guys, probably the spike and he said
oh that's a great idea, let's bring him in.
There's also a third person beyond the fringe.
Well, if that's the thing, because I've I've known this LP
for many many many years. Very familiar.
But I've never really sat down and looked.
I didn't have the LP. I only had the I had a cassette
recording of Bridge on the River, Why?
And there's no credits at the end as per, for example, a Goon
show. So I just assumed because I'd
heard his voice that Dudley Moore was involved.
But if you look on the if you look on the actual LP, on the
sleeve notes, there's there's Cook, there's Cook, there's
Miller, there's Sellers, there's Milligan, there's even.
Patricia Ridgway, the recently new Mrs. Milligan.
And there's a there's a listing for a piece of Raleigh, which I
gather was a pseudonym for Dudley Moore.
And I've I've never found anything about why that was the
case because it's clearly him and he you know he was there's a
there's another thread with this is that he was under contract as
a. Jazz artist to Parla Phone and
George Martin recorded 21 songs with him with his trio around
this time, which was never released.
And so the, you know, his involvement is sort of like he's
with the Beyond the Friend group, but it's also he's he's
got another connection to Martin just as a musical artist.
Yeah, they couldn't use his real name for contractual reasons.
And so they came up with this name, Peter Rowley, which was
the name of Spikes agent at the time.
Oh, OK. That I did not know.
OK, that's good information. So when was it?
What day was it? I should know this that Martin
meets The Beatles for the first time?
So that is June 6th and this recording is done May 23rd.
And then the the Fringe rerecording is June the 3rd.
So this is all happening, you know, right around the same
time. Yeah, and The Beatles are
obviously the lowest priority of these these three things
happening at this point. Something else that interests me
about the sleeve notes, and I'm going to read the sleeve notes
if you don't mind. It's quite interesting, just
just just in terms of how fast things were moving gives you,
gives you a a good indication because it says it is not
generally realized today that the beautiful English
countryside bordering the river. Why?
Was once the scene of great drama.
Many years ago, one of our greatest generals was an
undercover agent for MI5. He was given the code number of
oh oh oh 007, being given a free license to kill when he gagged
that he didn't like. Known to the world at large as
Eccles, he appeared subsequently in the cake of the same name,
terrorizing the enemies of his native land.
His exploits, as you will hear, were achieved alone, unaided,
and completely without a brain. For who else but echoes could
outwit A hoard of Japanese soldiers and blow up a bridge
with practically no arms, no mean feat, as the Oriental say.
This, then, is the epic story that you're about to hear.
One word of warning, for obvious security reasons, none of these
men ever existed, and any resemblance to anyone either
living or dead is share. Good luck.
And for the best results, play this record in a circular
fashion. So what jumped out at me
immediately? This.
I mean, obviously I know that James Bond was, you know?
The novels had been out for 10 years or more, but they recorded
this in May. Doctor No didn't come out until
was it October the 5th, same day as Love Me Do and and the LP
Bridge on the River Y comes out the following month.
So it was the the sleeve notes there when the the reference to
Bond, it's like Bond mania already.
Is that is that your feeling? Possibly so.
In this album has been in production since, you know,
starting in May and then the sleeve notes could have been
written really at any time. Martin was, you know, working in
this very small industry in London, so he would have been
aware maybe of the, you know, the at least the production of
Doctor know. So, you know, these things may
have been filtering to him in ways that we can't know just
because, you know, we weren't there at the time.
But he may have had some inkling of what was, you know, what was
happening. It could, it could just be some,
you know. Sort of.
One off thing. Where Spikes or or George
Martin. Whoever wrote this just thinks,
oh this will be funny. This is current.
This is, you know what, what's on people's minds right now.
And it's also interesting to note that it's Angela Morley,
but obviously under the name of Wally Start, The dead name Wally
Start who's doing the music And not my cousins, pointed out to
me, not Ron Goodwin, right at all.
George Martin's other comedy records.
Is this purely, do you think, because of the fact that it's so
strongly linked to a goon show? I do.
And I, you know, I I noticed this last night and I'm
convinced that there are probably more examples of this,
but at least one of the pieces of music, the orchestral music,
is repurposed from a goon show. I haven't.
I didn't find any paperwork about.
Rerecording that music. So I don't know if they were
able to somehow, I mean they recorded, they played that live
for the Goon show, those those pieces live.
So I don't think they would have had a separate recording.
But you know, maybe it was just easier where Martin says, OK, I
need these pieces, can you come in and record this in an
afternoon? Yeah, So what else did you
discover when you were at EMI? So this is recorded in.
In May and then they I don't see any evidence they're doing any
dedicated work to it until September.
So on September 20th, 8:45 AM, Stuart Eltham is at Wellington
Barracks, W Guard Room for a recording of marching feet.
All right. And Martin had, you know, in his
in his all you need his ears book says that he went to a
green grocers and he and he bought a head of lettuce and he
used it as a sound effect, chopping it for decapitation.
But there's no, you know, there's no decapitation in this.
So I wonder if he was thinking maybe he went to the grocer and
he he got, you know leafy lettuce or something and shook
that to make it sound like they're walking through the
jungle. Yes, I don't know that's you
know plausible, but so that that that aside from you know the
release card which is initially December 62 and then they push
it for whatever reason to January 63, that's really the
only other information I found. The rest of it has just been
sort of piercing things together and listening very carefully and
and comparing to African incident and.
And literally counting sound effects I went through, and I
think it's 40 sound, 40 different sound effects they
have, some of which are very familiar gunshots that you know.
Anyone who's listening to the Zune show will say, oh, I
recognize that, you know that sound.
Yeah, yeah, cuz African incident.
The the the major difference is that it in in African incident
the Germans of the oppressors. Whereas obviously, because this
is a parody of well, yeah, so it was a parody.
African Incident was written to parody the film Bridge on the
River Kwai, but obviously they changed it sufficiently.
I wonder if they had to change it sufficiently so as not to
perhaps get into trouble. And by by 62 they had a bit
more. Well, mind you, they couldn't
use the word Kwai, could they? But but bridge on the river?
Why in 62? The Japanese are the presses, as
in the film, and we keep shuttling between the two
different versions. But African Incident is quite
unusual in that it's got 3 three major characters who aren't part
of the usual what what I would call goon, goon show, rap
company, Okay, it's got, it's got major spawn, which is
sellers. Channeling Guinness.
Alec Guinness. That's it, man.
Sure, we're still so done. It's got a Lieutenant Terence
plot, which is Spike doing a a plucky Britisher kind of
character. My name's Lieutenant Terence
Plot and. You've got General Von Gutern
again, which is Spike. Welcome to Camp Rudnorf.
My name is General Vaughn Guter. So you know you don't have
characters like Minnie and Henry, don't have grit pipe thin
and you've also got and it's very bizarre when you when it's
almost jarring when you hear her speak, you've got a female right
in the in the shape of Cecile Chevre, who I gather was bought
in because she has one scene which is a romantic scene with
blood knock. And I gather they brought her
in. Cuz Sella's would have struggled
to do both together, so they needed an actual female.
So they so they asked Cecile Chevro to come in.
I don't know how they knew her or how that came about.
Is this what English call embarrassing situation?
Well, yes. I mean, after all, I mean me
halfway up a tree dressed as Timon of Athens and you white
washing the grass well. No one to believe us, you see?
Come let us dance. Yes, after all, even though
we're in the jungle, we're still civilized, aren't we?
I'll put this record on my portable military grammar for
what a strange sight it must have been.
Me and the dusky beauty tangling through the dense jungle on
foot. I only had eyes for him, and he
only had eyes for me. That explains why we fell over a
Cliff. But yes, I mean the the bridge
on the river Why is obviously expanded and an expanded version
of African Incident with Seguin's part taken by other
characters, largely the character of Lieutenant Cody,
who's played by Jonathan Miller, I gather, yes.
It does quite a good American accent, I felt.
Yeah. And and he has one of my
favorite lines which in total non sequitur is here comes a
major I better get out of this dress or slip out of this dress.
It's and it's just, you know there there are a handful of
lines in this that have stuck in my brain over the years.
Yeah. And of course, at some point,
probably during our recording, I'm probably going to use some
racially insensitive language because because I'm just quoting
from the recording. Okay, because there's references
to Japs, for example. Which I think, you know, not to
defend it, but it's, you know, it's reflective of not just the
time but also of the story, which is how you know those
those officers and soldiers would have talked to each other.
It could have been worse, actually.
I think it could have been worse.
There's a, there's a reference to keep Japan yellow and.
As I say, you know, so bad. And of course.
We've got the character of Frank, Frank, Frank.
J Itchy coochie. Which itchy, I realized when you
were talking about Ghost in the Noonday Sun is is, you know,
clearly some distant cousin in Spike Milligan's mind of Dick
scratcher. Yeah, just puerile sense of
humor there. And that spike.
But that's the the POW camp general spike.
Doing a real, I mean, OK, it's a very offensive voice accent that
he's putting on, but it's it's actually quite well done.
It doesn't. I didn't it doesn't sound like
Spy. No, he masks himself very
effectively. I actually had to listen again
because he's and it's in the credits on the sleeve.
But I thought, wait a minute, is that is that really handy?
You all are here to. Work all the police.
Are in a camp work tomorrow you all the police are not work on
Villarella bridge. Over river hall when you say all
pleasanters work I take it you dont mean the officers, All the
work, all the polisional hawk or go back to Waller.
Perhaps you are aware of the Geneva Convention book ruling on
officers. Have a lot to read.
The book of Geneva conventional or I seen a film.
Nice little touch there. The the the Alec Guinness
character played by Sellers is is referred to as Major Barbara,
which when I was a pretentious young teen I went through a
period of being interested in George Bernard Shaw and that's
George Bernard Shaw play called Major Barbara.
We've got Brigadier, startling grope, which is, which is
basically blood knock by any other name.
So this doesn't have a lot to do really.
I mean he plays, he plays the lead character, I guess, which
is the Guinness character and he does play a Burmese character as
well as, as well as startling grope.
But that's that's it really. And I actually got the I felt
that Milligan and Miller had more to do.
Yeah, I mean. I I this is just an aside this
this is tangential to your question but when I first got
this album years ago I was I didn't have my record player set
up. So I went to my parents house
and I was playing it and making a copy so I could listen at home
and it was playing through the speakers and from the other room
my mother goes is that Peter Sellers doing Alec Guinness?
And I just thought isn't that obvious.
Cuz I'm into it, I'm like, wow, this is listen to the production
and the story and everything. But I mean, he really does stand
out. I think he's so droll and so
dry. Maybe he doesn't need to do.
The other thing is so here's here's another little bit of
background that I discovered in research is so Sellers is
working. He has just finished filming the
doc brief in March and April 62 at Shepperton.
And there's there's a piece in the musical New Musical Express,
March 9th on on George Martin's comedy records, his success with
these. And so it's it's, you know.
Piece focusing on him and his artist like like Cribbins and
Hole in the Ground and the art. The author asked him about Peter
Sellers apparent unwillingness to do a followup to his 1960
Peter and Sophia album and Martin responds.
I did hear that Peter Sellers said he would never record
again, but it's my bet he'll be in the recording studios before
the end of the year working on another LP.
I was talking to him about this the other day.
So. I wonder if it's, you know, just
sort of like, oh, I don't really want to do that much, but, you
know, it was, it was apparently quick money, easy money for him.
That was according to, you know, Roger Lewis, that was one of the
draws is that he would get a 5% royalty and you know, it was, it
was half day's work, not even 1/2 day.
Yeah. His love and worship of Alec
Guinness is fairly well known, so I think, you know, that might
have played into it too, like, oh, he gets to, he gets to sort
of step into Alec Guinness mode again.
If we accept your premise or your theory that George Martin
was, this was all George Martin's idea to to to do this
LP as opposed to say, as opposed to Spike saying to George
Martin, hey, why don't we record an LP like a goon show?
It's assuming that it's George Martin's idea.
I'd love to know how long it took for them to decide which
Goon Show to do and why they chose this one.
I mean, I guess this one is is obvious in many ways just
because of it. It's cinematic, isn't it?
And it's it's got a it's got a clear plot and the through line.
One of the things that saddens me a little bit is that Larry
Stevens just gets written out of these things, doesn't he?
Because he cuz he cuz he's down as he gets a writing credit on
African incident. But he's not mentioned at all on
the bridge on the river. Why?
No. And and I mean it is revised.
It's not the exact script. Yeah.
So I wonder if you know spikes thought, well, you know, I'm
rewriting this. I'm going to take sole credit or
you know, who knows? And I mean, I think you're
right, there's a possibility that Spike said, hey, why don't
we do this. I'm I've got this idea or I've
written the script maybe he had you know in this burst of
creativity he he decided to rewrite this and.
Maybe. Who knows?
I mean, I think, I think it's interesting that, you know,
they're close enough that it could go either way.
Or you know, maybe it's a two way thing where they're
discussing this and they're pitching ideas back and forth
and this sort of is the one that sticks.
Well, there's a couple things that I've picked up on in recent
months through doing this podcast.
So there was the Spike Milligan documentary that aired on Sky
Arts over here last year, which was all about Spike's archive
personal archive. You saw a lot of real to real
cassettes of Goon show recordings and presumably
scripts and things like that as well in in his archive.
And I wonder whether he during this period in the 60s he was
listening. To them listening to the tapes,
reading the scripts, even just to get ideas for new stuff, you
know, and and also we, we know that the BBC was quite keen on
the goons coming back together to record a new series of the
Goon show right up, right up until sort of 61 into early 62 I
think. And Spike was was resistant.
And Sellers was sort of indifferent.
I think seeking was quite key. But so, so I wonder, you know,
maybe Spike had, you know, maybe he had been rereading some of
the old scripts and just or or listened to a recording of
African incident and just thought, oh, that's quite a
strong show, maybe we could. Yeah.
Maybe we could do an LP or do something with it, you know,
right? And you know, who knows, maybe
there's a letter somewhere in his archive that.
That talks about this. You know what the motivation
was? Yeah, yeah.
So does it work with the absence of seeking?
There is a there's a definite difference in energy.
Yeah. And obviously Goon Show is live
and it's, you know, they could crack each other up and it would
be sometimes frenetic. And this was much more
controlled. It had sort of had to be more
controlled because of. What Martin was planning to do,
I think my impression is that they probably recorded them each
scene separately and then he stitched it together into the
into the complete recording and added the sound effects in the
orchestration behind that. So you know it would be a much
more controlled and it sounds much more controlled.
You know, it doesn't sound like the African incident, the sort
of the the pace and the energy and the, you know, just what we
all associate with the Goon Show is that kind of there is this
kind of danger to us almost, you know, like anything could
happen. It could derail at any moment,
yeah. Don't press that plunger.
You can't press that plunger. Yes, I can.
No, you can't. Yes, I can.
No, you can't. No, you can't.
In that opening you have all
these sound effects. You have this cinematic picture
made through sound, sound pictures, as George Martin like
to call it. So, you know, maybe, maybe it's
like I'm just going to show off my skill in, you know, conjuring
this image in your mind. Right off.
And then and then pull you into the rest of the story.
And then you get Cook as the narrator saying, we present the
bridge over the river. Why?
Subsequently the lawsuit over the river?
Why? Which is which is quite.
Right. I really wonder if he had him
come in and just rerecord that line or something.
Yeah, in light of what had happened with Colombia.
It's it's 1962 in England, but still 1943 in Japan, and the
Japanese have just captured Singapore and.
Major Barbara has been rallying the men around the white flag
rather than surrender. We gave ourselves up and yet
again it's it's Spike having a dig hit the British military.
Right. Lots of digs throughout
throughout. Could you envisaged an American
version of this where Americans are the American military is
sent up? Who?
Not at that time, I don't think. I think the attitude was much,
much different. I think after Vietnam,
certainly. Oh, yeah, yeah.
Yeah. No, I'm sorry.
This is, this was like, this was obviously not recorded during
the Cuban Missile Crisis, but it was released, what, a week after
the Cuban Missile crisis and obviously so.
So we've got this, this Japanese POW camp and General Ichi.
Ichi Coochie is telling them that they need to build a bridge
over the river. Major Barber objects.
And then you've got 68,000 officers crammed into a small
Hut 2 foot high by 6 and a quarter inches wide.
And that's that's what you first hear.
I think it's Dudley Moore playing the the character who
sort of goes mad. I can't say it any longer.
No food, no water, no melter. I can't stand it.
I think that steady, Mr. English.
They've only been in here 14 seconds, I know, but there's a
limit to what a man can stand. And then we have this telegram
from the Emperor ordering that the bridge is to be completed by
April the 1st, but unfortunately it's April the 14th.
So they, and this is the most goonish thing about this, I
think, is they decide let's work backwards.
And that way it's only a fortnight away, right?
And that's in the African incident, isn't?
It it is. Yes, yeah, there's a there's an
escape committee formed and we get Field Marshall Echols.
Field Marshall Echols. That was in another.
Oh, it's one I listened to last night.
It was either fear of wages or but it was it was it was sort of
along the same lines of like I would How did you become Field
Marshall Echols? I was born Field Marshall.
Named at birth. And then you have.
The American Lieutenant, although they they obviously
they they refer to him in the British way, left tenant Cody.
He's going to escape with Echols.
They're given concentrated licorice for some reason.
Gives a man something or does something good.
Yeah. Yeah.
And then we have Cook as the narrator saying both the
American and the Field Marshall escaped, except the Field
Marshall. He was recaptured, clubbed,
thrown over a Cliff in a manner to which he was accustomed,
strangled, struck on the knee and severely reprimanded with a
mallet. The tradition of visiting
violence upon echoes has carried on yes into the 60s, Yes,
clearly. There's not so much, you know,
he'll he'll say something and they'll smack him.
It's more, you know, they're reporting what's going to happen
to him or what has happened to him.
I'm glad that it's funny as well because he's he he retains the
name Eccles, whereas blood Knock is startling grope, but Eccles
retains his name. I guess it's just because by
this point Eccles is just everyone knows the the Spike
Eccles character. Yeah, he's so iconic, I think.
Yeah, Lieutenant or Leftenant. Cody turns up and sell on and
then he's told to report to Colonel Hawkins.
Which I guess is named Hawkins because it was Jack Hawkins
played, played the character in the film.
And then we we we have introduced A Brigadier,
startling grope which is blood, not blood, not sounding slightly
more, slightly more elderly. Don't know.
There's something that doesn't sound quite as robust.
It's a very bad editing when he mentions the the word why?
Look according to British intelligence and the man called.
Tom, The Jets are forcing allied troops to build a bridge over
the pie. We intend to destroy it.
The boom hung black couple that are perhaps, maybe a big boom
hub crash. One of those two combinations
should prove faithful. I guess George Martin did the
best he could, obviously. Yeah, I mean, it was probably
him working with Stuart Altham, who was actually probably
wielding the scissors. Oh yeah.
Right. But yeah, no doubt directing
him. So, so, so basically, Starling
Grape tells Cody that according to British intelligence, there's
a bridge being built and they want it blown up.
So Cody is obliged to return and assist with this operation.
He's parachuted into the jungle and.
I love the fact that they're hacking their way through a wall
of impenetrable jungle which runs along each side of an
arterial Rd. Military.
Yeah, there's these Burmese women.
I'm not quite sure what the Burme, I can't even remember
from the film. There were some Burmese women in
the film that that that was sort of attached to the raiding
party, and I can't remember the reason why, but the same happens
here. And of course you've got you've
got blood knock or startling grope.
While the Burmese women are bathing, he's minding their
clothes and my favorite line in the whole story is they follow a
six man Japanese patrol and start shooting at them.
Give them a burst. Mod you far, they've gone
quieter. They'll hear us killing them.
Yeah, it's it's just, you know, it's it's this sort of absurdity
upon absurdity with this, which is to me, that's the, you know,
the great charm of this is, is that it is so ridiculous and
it's so, so droll. Yeah, so the the bridge is
finally completed and the man organize a concert to celebrate.
And they sing the German national anthem, but it's the
English national anthem disguised.
That's the German national anthem.
Lieutenant Cody is it Lieutenant Burke Pounding, which is Dudley
Moore. And and you buy Dung, which is
the seller's character. Such a terrible, terrible in it.
That exists strictly for that one joke.
Of course it is. Of course it is.
Yeah. They're they're ordered by
Hawkins to place the explosives and then you get the scene with
the very short scene which is the the equivalent it's it's
it's almost identical. I think the scene with the goon
show an African incident is blood knock with Cecile Chevreau
and in bridge on the river why it's Peter Cook as Colonel
Hawkins with Spike's wife Patty as the native girl.
Is this what English called? Uncompromising position?
Uncomfortable, I would say. After all, if you were caught,
now what should people say? Me halfway up a mango tree
dressed as methistopheles and you down there bottling fruit
and a plastic kilt? It would never do.
Twan, let us plan. What a strange sight we made, me
and her tangoing through the steaming jungle, the silence
only broken by the crackling of knees.
I only had eyes for him, and he only had eyes for me.
We fell over a Cliff. I was actually surprised on
relisten how much of African incident ends up in this with
very few changes if any at all. Yeah, there's obviously more,
there's additional dialogue in this.
But I mean, for example, I think, I don't think in African
Incident you get a character coming in and interrupting this
sort of romantic scene saying, hey major, we've done it and so
have you by the. Yeah, spiced ups like that,
that's, I suppose they had more license to be of its source
here. I mean, while Echoes is waiting
to press the plunger. And Major Barbara and his
adjutant of walking on the bridge.
And they notice, yeah, the in 10 minutes the first train will
pass over. Major Barber spots a cable down
below. Eyes like a hawk and legs like a
kangaroo. I wonder what he's going to do.
Join a freak show. Yeah.
Just as in the film there's there's concern that the major
will stymie the whole operation because he he's in in the film.
My memory is that. The Guinness character is so
proud of the bridge right, that the idea of blowing it up is
complete anathema to him and he does everything he can to stop
it. And that's pretty much what
happens here. Yeah, I think, he says in The
African Incident. I've been in the army however
many years, and this is, this is the first thing I'm really proud
of. I don't know if that's from the
film or if that's just, you know, sort of sort of putting a
fine point. On it.
I think it's more, more or less that sort of sentiment.
Yeah, that's certainly the gist of it.
Yeah. Because obviously right at the
the first hour of the film, you've got the Guinness
character absolutely, vehemently against the whole idea.
Well, certainly of himself in the offices being involved with
building the bridge. Once the bridge is built, he
looks upon it with a degree of pride.
And yeah, and then the major Barbara confronts Echols and we
have this sort of standoff. With the plunger, but yeah,
Echoes manages to detonate the explosive and the bridge is
destroyed. And that's how it all ended.
Major Barbara shot by Lieutenant Cody.
Lieutenant Cody shot by the Japs.
The Japs shot by Major Hawkins and Major Hawkins killed by a
falling train. The falling train, shot by Major
Barbara. Major Barbara shot by Lieutenant
Cody. And to make matters worse.
It was half day early closing. Do you know what that means?
No, no, no. I know that that there was half
day early closing on Wednesdays back then, I think for some
reason, And you have this corny sort of vaudevillian outro music
with it with a delayed symbol crash.
And the backup just a just a little bit before that though is
is another one of my favorite lines I I think it's Hawkins
maybe or they're they're discussing everything set up
and. He says, you know, stand by with
a sack of Purple Hearts and it's just it's the delivery and also
the sentiment behind it of of you know exactly what's going to
happen. Yeah, so it's it's, it's look,
it's a enjoyable little curious. It's still, you know, people
still talk about it today. So it's it's very fondly
remembered and it was just on the cusp, on the absolute cusp
of George Martin's life changing.
Irrevocably. Right.
And and he had just renewed his contract to the EMI around this
time. So I I, you know, just sort of
digging into the the comedy aspect and you know, maybe
thinking this is this is where I'm going to take the rest of my
career. I'm going to you know at least
the next the next you know, term of my contract.
And if. If he, and you'll know much more
about this than I do, But if you'd not had that affair, is it
possible that he would not have been told that he has to record
The Beatles? Isn't that sort of punishment?
Yeah it's that's the that's the idea you know about sort of what
the story that Mark Lewis and put together all out of all
that. And also that, you know he
around that time he was about to resign from EMI and you know he
doesn't talk about this, but maybe all this is transpiring at
around the same time he's thinking of leaving and going
out on his own because he's getting this pressure because of
this affair and he's feeling I need to get out of here.
You know I'm, I don't know obviously if that's the case,
but I think it's. It's plausible that it's, you
know, all of this is happening in the spring of 62 and you know
it's Mark Lewis And and I were discussing years ago he said,
you know he almost missed them because if he'd resigned, he
wouldn't have been assigned to them.
He wouldn't have, you know been made to sign them and and you
know everything that else that happened after that.
So it, you know, it's a lot of things in motion here that just
sort of work out perfectly. Absolutely.
I I mean I really think you know
just just beyond it being a a Curia related to the Goon show
that it it's you know it's the amount of production that George
Martin put into this that that I also want to call attention to
just because you know this period prior to The Beatles is
where he's he's sort of you know working out his his approach to
the studio and this is I think the peak of that.
And you know working with these, you know, these people that he's
had a long history with and and I mean I think a lot of it's
still very funny. Obviously some of the humor is
dated and and not funny anymore and kind of cringeworthy.
But I, you know, I do think if you can, if you can look past
that and sort of look at it in 19 with 1962 eyes and ears.
It is very amusing and it gives you a window into sort of who
George Martin was at this very particular critical moment of
his career. Absolutely Okay.
So tell us a little bit more about producing The Beatles in
terms of what you Cuz it's not it's it's an irregular podcast
that seems to come out. It's very erratical, yes.
Yeah. I've been reminded of that many
times by many people. It's it's a lot of work.
I'm a, you know, one man show, so I'm producing what should
reasonably take about 10 people. But it's you know, it's going in
the studio figuring out how The Beatles did what they did, how
George Martin did what he did and how that energy worked
between them in in a different period of their of their career
from early on to. You know, the the middle period
recordings to the, you know, the later recordings, how all of
this sort of plays out. And also in many cases looking
at George Martin's history before The Beatles and saying,
well, he's already encountered this idea.
How did he deal with it then? And then how is he applying that
knowledge to this Beatles session?
So and you know and part of that is also just breaking down
tracks and and seeing how they began and then how they built up
those tracks overdub by overdub. So you know like I said earlier
it's it's using The Beatles to teach music teach concepts about
recording teach or or explore ideas about about collaboration
and you know sort of what this. What this unique chemistry
between these five people was. Would you say that the
apotheosis of all this is tomorrow never knows.
Yes, yes that's and and yellow Submarine, strangely enough
because yeah, yeah, you know it's it's they are two sides of
the same coin. And and there's some very direct
lines you can draw from Yellow Submarine to his comedy
recordings, including this. Absolutely excellent.
So yeah. So anyone with an interest in
The Beatles, of course, George Martin music in general and and
music production you recommended to seek out producing The
Beatles, available in all the usual places and what have you
got coming? Up I will be.
Doing an episode on Smart Never Knows Soon and Yelsa Marine and
these comedy recordings, which may end up being two episodes,
but as you know, we sort of touched on today, it's a very
large subject. I was thinking the other day
preparing for this. I'd love to do an episode at
some point on Milligan Preserved.
Oh yeah. So maybe you could come back
sometime in the future, talk about that.
I would love to and have a good bit of material on that too.
Excellent. All right.
Well, Jason, listen, it's been brilliant having you on.
Thank you so much. And we will, yeah, we'll get you
back from Milligan preserved maybe next year.
Great. Yeah.
Thank you for having me.