The Last Goon Show of All was recorded in 1972, and the Goon Show Preservation Society was formed in its wake. Here, from the pages of our December 2012 newsletter, is a look at how we celebrated the 40th anniversary.
We start with a word from Sir Michael of Coveney, spinster of this parish, and without whom…
Hallo folks,
For longer than I care to remember, my involvement with G.S.P.S. has only been as a name in the Newsletter, and it grieves me very much to know I have done so little to help lately, due to illness.
So first may I thank all those who have done so much to keep us going for these 40 years. The roll call of those good folk – past and present – is long indeed. There is no doubt in my mind that what has been done by you all has been vital in achieving what we all hoped for. Recognition that The Goon Show and its great creator Spike gave us the finest radio comedy of all time. By continuing to broadcast and issue on CD all of the shows – with all the technology that has improved the sound – a vast number of new listeners has enjoyed them. But in today’s very different world of aggressive and often violent so-called comedy, I wonder how long the show will be heard so affectionately.
For a long time, I do hope, so our original purpose remains – to help keep The Goon Show firmly in the ear of the public, and encourage many to join us.
This is where I must end this short but sincere message on I hope an optimistic note. So please, everybody, carry on the good work and support John and all his helpers who do so much, to keep the spirit of The Goon Show alive in the years ahead.
Needle Nardle Noo,
Mike
The Newsletter opened with this piece:
Our latest anniversary bash gave us all a hearty laugh. It also hammered home the unbelievable fact – but you’d better believe it – that the GSPS and The Last Goon Show of All are now 40 years old. Where has the time gone? (Answers to Minnie Bannister who, at the last reckoning, was about 160.)
We feverishly grabbed the piece of paper with the time writted on it and turned it back to 1972 for a fiendish resurrection of the last show. Led with Henry V resolve by Hi-di-hi star Jeffrey Holland, the storyline (What storyline?) was never much to lose oneself in, but fragments have gone down in Goon mythology:
ANDREW TIMOTHY: This morning BBC Archives delivered three coffins. I will now introduce the contents of coffin number one. Bald, toothless and weighing thirty-seven stone – Harry Secombe.
SPIKE: Contraceptives should be used at every conceivable occasion.
SELLERS: I’m sorry, sir, you cannot park that huge bloated Welsh body there.
NED: Watch it, Rozzer.
SELLERS: I have been watching it, sir, and it gives me no pleasure.
MORIARTY: I tell you, there is a curse on the House of Moriarty.
NED: What is it?
MORIARTY: The Hampstead Building Society.
ANDREW TIMOTHY: I have a grave announcement. Just before this show started, Mr Max Geldray died. His wife described his condition as satisfactory.
What better to follow it than a screening of A Show called Fred? Lifted from Aladdin’s ever-open YouTube, this was a kind of red carpet roll-out for the John Antrobus interview, because he had written and performed in it 56 years ago. (Odd, since he has only just celebrated his 49th birthday.)
But before we could have at John, we had at the celebratory buffet – a veritable banquet conjured up by Strutton Arms supremo, Dave Lynch. All those years studying haute cuisine had obviously done the trick. To everyone’s surprise, there were two hitmen in the audience. Both had stormed the Sixties charts with No.1 records. Roger LaVern of the Tornados (whose ‘Telstar’ was at the top spot 50 years ago that very week) and Andy ‘Thunderclap’ Newman each gave us a whiff of staring down the barrel of a Fifties Britain in the grip of Goonery.
The interview with John Antrobus whisked us back to his roots and lured us into the worlds of The Goon Show, Idiot Weekly – Price 2d, the Freds, The Army Game and The Bed-sitting Room. Some of it was serrated by a remarkably frank appraisal of the demon drink, and the time-travelling and name-dropping could have gone on and on and on. But it did run for nearly an hour and a half, and people had their hurdy-gurdies to ride home, dogs were waiting to be watered and mother-in-laws to be strangled. There was just time to confer on John an Honorary Vice-Presidentship of our illustrious organization. The interview transcript will be coming to a Newsletter near you in a few full moons’ time.
Three hip-hip-hoorays and a tin of pilchards to those Charlies who made the day: Tim Watson for manning the volts and wiring; Mark Cousins for polishing and parcelling up the sound effects; Tony Reynolds for pressing the right noise buttons on his laptop; to the gloriously tragi-comic Royal Shakespeare Company (standard) thespians Jeffrey Holland, Phil Ladd and Peter Stanford; Rosemary for masterminding the raffle; James Grafton for the bottle of champagne that went into it; the lady who provided the birthday cake on condition she remained anonymous; Colin Silk for the Fred-playing equipment; Steve King for filming all signs of incriminating evidence to blackmail us with; and to John Antrobus for being John Antrobus.
EXTRA! EXTRA! HEAR ALL ABOUT IT!
(That’s Radio 4 Extra, of course.)
From the nether regions of October and several furlongs into November, BBC Radio 4 Extra aired some highly-strung vocal cords over and over again. These belonged to various fiends from the GSPS who had happened to be in the right place at the right time. And what righter place to be in than The Strutton Arms on Saturday 6 October? This recording of dextrously edited ingenuity was deliriously illustrated with clips from the shows and was all pieced together by producer Stuart Ross. Then it was unleashed upon the nation’s unsuspecting ears in two parts.
[Announcer] Let’s stay with the Goons for a moment. This month was the 40th anniversary of the broadcast of The Last Goon Show of All, when Messrs Milligan, Secombe and Sellers reunited for one final performance. And to celebrate this, a special group of fans recently gathered at the place where it all began.
Hi, I’m Les Drew. I’m the website designer for The Goon Show Preservation Society. In 1972, The Last Goon Show of All was recorded live in a theatre, some people were sitting in the audience and thought, “This can’t end. We can’t have this as the last Goon Show. Let’s start a society and preserve The Goon Show forever.” And that’s it. And today is our 40th anniversary.
My name is Philip Ladd and I’ve been a member since 1986, but I’ve always loved the Goons since I was a kid of about 7. But I think, as Spike used to say, it’s all in the mind, it’s all imaginative and, of course, it’s all on the radio. Even with my crystal set, I would be there convulsed with laughter with all the funny voices. Everything serious became something funny, and everything funny or odd became something serious.
My name is Laura Camuti, and this is probably my fourth or fifth attendance. I very much liken the Goons to our television series Saturday Night Live, when it began in 1974, I think, because I remember seeing the first episodes of that, and they are parallel in that they were both very anarchic and kind of changing the tone of comedy for their time.
My name is Roger LaVern, keyboards and piano with the group the Tornados of’Telstar’ fame. When I was at boarding school with our crystal sets in 1952, all us kids used to tune in to The Goon Show every week. It was a must. And the language of the Goons – which was completely crazy – took the school over. For somebody visiting the school, they would have thought we were all crazy.
[Les Drew] We’ve been merrily working on restoring lots of the old taped versions of Goon Shows, some taped off the radio by enthusiasts on reel-to-reel recorders, and then they would suddenly say, “I’ve got this old tape in the loft. It’s got ten shows on it.” Every now and again we find one that isn’t even in the BBC collection, albeit needing cleaning up. So we’re slowly preserving, and hence the “preservation” title. Last year we got hold of the ‘Elton John scripts’, as they became known. He famously paid about £25,000 for Spike’s original paper copies of scripts. But they’re in such a state now that we’ve had to rescue them, restore them, digitize them, hand them all back to Elton, of course, and it cost us a fortune to do it, but if somebody doesn’t do it, that paper will just deteriorate. It’s 50, 60 years old, that paper. We think it’s worth it because if you pick up any script any time and read through one of them, you’ll be laughing your head off – guaranteed.
[Les Drew] And here we are in the pub, now called The Strutton Arms, which was called Grafton’s, where the Goons actually started.
[John Repsch]My name’s John Repsch and I am chairman of The Goon Show Preservation Society. The budding comedians, for example, they would be here, they’d come in and talk often to Jimmy Grafton. Jimmy Grafton was quite a well-known scriptwriter of his day. He did a lot of stuff and he was in with the BBC, but he was also a landlord and he could give people a helping hand.
[Les Drew] It just seemed to be a place that anyone who was anyone in local comedy – they’d come out of the War, they’d been demobbed. There were the likes of Michael Bentine, Tony Hancock, Jimmy Edwards, and they all congregated in this pub. And Spike Milligan was famously living in the attic here with the monkey that supposedly widdled down the pipes into the beer. That’s the joke. Not that it ever happened. We came to visit the landlord here and said, “Look, the 60th anniversary is going to be coming up in 2011, the 28th of May. What can we do to celebrate it?” Well, we couldn’t get a blue plaque so we made our own.
[[John Repsch]It’s round, and it’s got the names of the perpetrators of this knavery around the edge. At the top you see four caricatures – that’s Harry Secombe, Peter Sellers, Spike Milligan and Michael Bentine. Underneath, it says “The Goon Show”, with the date, of course, 1951 – 1960. And underneath that is: “First Exploded Here”. So, that’s where it all exploded.
[Announcer] And don’t forget, you can hear The Goon Show every Tuesday in the ‘Classic Comedy Hour’ at 8 in the morning, midday and again in the evening at 7 here on BBC Radio 4 Extra.
The Last Goon Show Of All – 40 Years?!
by Tina Hammond
When I got an email from John Repsch inviting me to attend a London meeting on Saturday 6 October, I was less than keen. I already had a much anticipated full day – and evening – planned locally and was not enthusiastic about going all the way to London. However, further probing revealed it was to celebrate the GSPS’s 40 years in existence. As I had something to do earlier in London that week, I decided to cancel my Ipswich Saturday daytime – but not evening – activities and have a few days in the smoke.
Arriving at the event which was held at the Goons’ birth place, The Strutton Arms in Strutton Ground, Victoria – just spitting distance from where the GSPS first met Spike at the Greencoat Boy – it suddenly became clear that not only was this the Ruby anniversary of the GSPS, but also – and this is where the story really starts, folks – 40 years since the Last Goon Show Of All.
The re-enactment commenced at 12.30, with Jon Glover’s absence meaning that Jeffrey Holland had to play both Spike and Peter’s parts! This was particularly interesting during the ‘coalman’ conversation between Eccles and Bluebottle. As you would expect, Jeffrey performed brilliantly, not making a single error. It was fascinating to listen to, as it was obvious where the ad libs and cuts were in the commercially available version.
Chairman John Repsch then gave a welcome address, cannily asking the audience which record had been at No.1 fifty years ago that week. The answer was ‘Telstar’ by the Tornados and – corny link – there happened to be one of the Tornados at the meeting! Keyboard player, Roger Lavern, turned out to be a huge Goon fan. He also holds a much coveted claim to have met Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy in Birmingham, when just 9 ½ years of age. Both Jeffrey Holland and I are Laurel and Hardy fans, and attend our individual local meetings.
Also present was regular GSPSer Thunderclap Newman, bursting with memories, and then in walked celebrity (lamb to the slaughter) guest John Antrobus! Cue a Fred TV show, featuring a very young – but still very recognisable, of course – John Antrobus.
A buffet lunch was served to all there – many thanks to The Strutton Arms for putting on such a splendid feast – and much mingling and chatting was enjoyed by all. It was by then obvious that I was not going to make my evening appointment in Ipswich, so I made a phone call to activate the contingency plans I had made, and settled down to a relaxing and fun afternoon .
The Interrogation commenced. John Antrobus answered questions from John Repsch and then the audience. I had met John A a few times during the recording of the Milligan Papers 25 years ago and remembered him as a very friendly and likeable person. My memory did not disappoint. His hour+ long interview proved that he is still a charming and eloquent guest, and he generously agreed to replace Eric as an Honorary President.
Most people started to disperse around 5pm, leaving the stalwarts to clear up and informally review the day until gone 6.
All I could think about during my torturous journey home – thanks to National Rail’s weekend engineering works – was: what and when will the GSPS’s next celebration be?
Answers on a postcard please, to Ned of Hackney.
AN ANNOUNCEMENT BY AN ANNOUNCER
by Peter Stanford
On the 6th of October, I metamorphosed into ‘Announcer’ and joined our highly esteemed editor carrying sound equipment on the Tube – Wallace Greenslade never had to do that – to the original home of the Goons, Grafton’s [pauses to doff cardboard trilby]. Once there, in what is now called The Strutton Arms, I donned the old soup and fish, tying my black bow tie in the reflection of the shop opposite and, with fellow cast members Jeffrey Holland, Phil Ladd, John Repsch and sound effects man Tony Reynolds, recreated the last time our heroes performed together, which was of course ‘The Last Goon Show of All‘. That was the rehearsal. Great fun, and the show onstage was even better. We should do it more often than every forty years.
After a splendid lunch, courtesy of the equally splendid management, the assembled company watched an episode of A Show Called Fred, which included an appearance by the handsome young writer and actor John Antrobus. Young John was later interviewed in front of us all by Ye Editor, and gave us many interesting insights into his life and career. At one point a toast was suddenly raised to Eric Sykes, and a sombre note was struck as we realised how the ranks of those connected with the Goons were thinning.
After that, some specially picked people were interviewed by a gentleman from BBC Radio 4 Extra, which has since broadcast them in small pieces.
Yes, it was a worthy celebration of this land-mark occasion, and a wonderful time was had by all.
The Goon Show Preservation Society 