Peter Sellers with Tony Hancock

Causing much excitement, an until-now lost recording of a Peter Sellers performance has been found, and it’s being broadcast in a restored state on BBC Radio 4 on 18th October. The show is an episode from the first series of Hancock’s Half Hour which was only ever broadcast once, in February 1955. In it, Sellers stood in for an absent Kenneth Williams.

Radio 4 are also running a documentary about the search for old recordings and finding the lost episode. It’s called Raiders of the Lost Archive, and it’s available to stream on BBC Sounds.

After its first airing on Radio 4, the Hancock episode, which is titled The Marriage Bureau, will also be available to stream here.

Our favourite podcast – Goon Pod – is onto the story this week. Tyler’s guest is voice actor and restorer Keith Wickham, who presented and co-produced the Raiders of the Lost Archive programme.

The Return of the Pink Panther (1975) – Goon Pod

Goon Pod kicks off a new series for 2026 by looking back at a film which is unbelievably fifty years old but when released was hailed as a modern masterpiece of comedy cinema, and which lifted Peter Sellers from an extended period of career inertia: The Return of the Pink Panther, directed by Blake Edwards. Sellers plays Inspector Clouseau once again, back on the trail of the mysterious Phantom – aka Sir Charles Litton (Christopher Plummer) – who apparently has stolen the famed Pink Panther diamond again. Along the way the hapless ‘tec nearly gets shot, gets blown up by a bomb, drives into a swimming pool, is outwitted by a parrot, assists a bank robbery, gets squashed in a revolving door and is the victim of countless other indignities. Joining Tyler is Sitcom Club co-host Gary Rodger and the conversation, rather like Clouseau on the waxy museum floor, goes in all directions:How Lew Grade came to the rescueWho might have been cast in the mooted Pink Panther television seriesPrince Charles moistening a lady in MontrealWhat happened to Niven?We love John BluthalZwamm?Douglas Fairbanks Jr as an early casting choiceHow Sellers’ career may have panned out had this film not happenedCheering Lodge & StarkPan & Scan technologyLast of the Summer Wine Catherine Schell corpses, Victor Spinetti fumes, Mike Grady shines and Carole Cleveland makes a splashDid Dreyfuss overreact? And much much more. It’s all here folks! As mentioned, Gary is going to run the London Marathon this year (or kill himself trying) on behalf of Alzheimer's Society – please show your support here: https://www.justgiving.com/page/gary-rodger

The Return of the Pink Panther (1975) – Goon Pod

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