Steve Palmer has announced that his book The Making & Legacy of The Goon Show: The Goons Go To Africa is now available to buy as a hardback.
The blurb:
Three quarters of a century has passed since the first Goon Show of 1951. Yet this BBC radio show is still being repeated in national broadcasts, continues to inspire artistic endeavour, is internationally celebrated, and has a legacy exceeding that of any other mid-twentieth century radio show.
Why is this? What broadcast magic is contained in its trailblazing formula? And can we learn anything about humour itself from the brilliance of its central comic actors?
In this book, author Stephen Palmer evokes the trials, losses, victories and success of The Goon Show using its own techniques. He imagines the men of the show, including those, like Jimmy Grafton, Larry Stephens, John Snagge and the irrepressible, remarkable Wallace Greenslade, who both supported Milligan and acted as the framework in which his genius flourished.
This is no dry history of great times in radio broadcasting. This is the book of the show. Now, read on!
Buy direct from Pen and Sword – £20.00
Buy from Amazon – £21.14
(prices correct at time of writing)
SEAGOON: Hello folks. None of the proper posh BBC announcers are here folks, so I’ll just have to act the part myself, through this silver plated articulating speaking trumpet.
ORCHESTRA: cut price fanfare
SEAGOON: Ladies and gentlemen, it falls on me to announce this preview of The Goons Go To Africa, a book by Mr Stephen Palmer. The scene is a staff bar hidden in the bowels of Broadcasting House. Sitting at a table are two gentlemen, Andrew Timothy and Wallace Greenslade, accompanied by a generous supply of gin and tonic. No wonder I couldn’t find an announcer folks. Their manager approaches, carrying a package wrapped in paper and brown string.
FX conversation, clinking glasses, gin being sipped.
JOHN SNAGGE: There you chaps are, I’ve been looking all over for you. Wallace, this package is for you.
WAL GREENSLADE: Why thank you John. Is it a wad of used fivers?
SNAGGE: I’m afraid not.
WAL: Too much to hope for. Come and join us, there’s a little gin left. What’s in the package?
SNAGGE: It’s a book written by a chap called Palmer. He’s sent us each a copy. It’s called The Goons Go To Africa.
ANDREW TIMOTHY: It’s not that old chestnut about Milligan lobbing a big gun off the top of a cliff in Libya trying to hit Secombe, is it?
SNAGGE: No Andrew, this is a novel, a bit of fiction. The story has Wal and I as the heroes, leading the Goons on an expedition into Africa in search of a humour mine where we can finally discover just what humour is. We’ll be looking deeply into the subject, and into the mine.
WAL: Oh that does sound exciting, but isn’t it dangerous? Surely if you analyse the humour in jokes then all the funniness is lost.
SNAGGE: Not in this case Wal. There’s a novel length Goon Show being played at the same time. It can’t not be funny.
TIM: It sounds ghastly.
SNAGGE: Andrew, this book is for people like Wal and I who love the Goon Show, it’s a celebration of it. You never really liked the show.
WAL: You have to agree Andrew, me taking over from you did us both a huge favour.
SNAGGE: And there’s more Wal. You get to tell the story of the Goon Show as the book goes on. You’re interviewing the people, recalling the facts.
WAL: Gad, me, a proper historian! So does our mission succeed in the end, John? Will the Greensladers be proud of me?
SNAGGE: In the end, Wal? I don’t want to spoil the ending for you. Take your copy and read it, you’ll get to it in your own good time.
FX approaching footsteps
BBC DUTY OFFICER: Ah Mr Snagge, thank goodness I’ve found you. We have a problem, there’s no one to read the news bulletin this evening.
SNAGGE: okay… Andrew. Oh he’s disappeared. Wal, you’ll have to do it then. Goodnight.
FX: footsteps receding
SEAGOON: And so Wal Greenslade went off to the studio to read the evening news, his usual waddling gait exaggerated by the amount of gin and tonic he carried inside. The bulletin included several difficult to pronounce foreign place names, but what could possibly go wrong?
