by Goon Show News
(all our own work with help from Mark Cousins)
The links from the June 2025 issue of Goon Show News.
Found any good bits for sharing recently? Please share with us…
THE GOON SHOW
Our book! I had no idea that this clip existed on YouTube – thank you Ben Ohmart of BearManor Media. What a nice thing to do! Let’s sell more copies…
For more details or to buy the best Goon Show book ever, go here
London Entertains: the relevant bit is on YouTube again
The television’s 1968 Goon Show, with John Cleese… again
After 70 years, the zany antics of the Goons still hold up to modern ears. What makes their bizarre comedy so enticing, even today? An article from
The Daily Telegraph, March 2021.
at www.telegraph.co.uk
This is an excellent piece of film of the Blue Plaque commemorating the recording of The Last Goon Show of All, including a gripping narration. This is one you should not miss.
For those that haven’t got a copy of the Barclays Bank floppy-disc of adverts by the Goons, here it is in recorded stylee.
Celebrating both the medium of radio and key events of the last century, Two of Australia’s finest contemporary music ensembles – Topology and Loops – join forces to perform AIRWAVES, making music inspired by and featuring radio broadcasts of our time. Here’s a snippet of their work on The Goon Show.
For a bit more about these musicians and AIRWAVES, have a look at:
www.westender.com.au
What time is it Eccles? Despite hearing this, the most excellent of conversation between two Goons, many, many, many times; this, some chap’s presentation of it on a stage is worth watching.
View it on YouTube
You’ve read a review on page 14 (or here), here’s a bit more information. But don’t get too excited because it’s not any more. You missed it despite an article about it in March issue. Honestly, you must read more…
at www.cumbriacrack.com
SPIKE MILLIGAN
Byways, Spike Milligan on archaeology, focussing on East Sussex (1990). It’s very good. Includes a lovely piece of film of an elderly couple, not really living in the 1990’s.
He Told Us He Was Ill – A Less Live Tribute (2005)
Many, many folks talking about their memories of Mr Milligan.
Spike Milligan lived here. With Ying Tong accompaniment:
at www.youtube.com/shorts
About Puckoon but with fabulous pictures
at www.youtube.com/shorts
Is It Funny? Episode 3.
KA Laity, described as an ‘award-winning author, scholar, filmmaker, critic, editor, and arcane artist’, asks the question about The Goon Show and Spike Milligan. In her own words: ‘this episode deals with the influence of the Goon Show, especially Spike Milligan. The anarchic spirit of the radio programme ironically arose from the experiences of the cast in the military during World War II. The show broke many of the rules of comedy that were thought iron-clad and the surreal scripts, mostly by Milligan, influenced a whole generation of comedy performers and writers as well as musicians.
Milligan, Peter Sellers, Harry Secombe, and for one series Michael Bentine, brought a new kind of comedy to the airwaves, along with a unique approach to sound, and the lively jazz music performed by Ray Ellington, himself a Black Jewish son of a musical hall comedian.’ It covers a lot of ‘old ground’ but another person’s view is often interesting.
view it on YouTube (age restricted)
MICHAEL BENTINE
… interviews ‘Lord Spike Milligan’, from 1981. Not for fans of Margaret Thatcher… or Cross Roads
When I get to Heaven. A good interview with Michael Bentine on… the GSPS channel on YouTube! Did you know this existed? I did!
Lynsey de Paul as a Capital radio DJ, interviewing Michael Bentine as Dvořák talking absolute nonsense
Terry Thomas and Michael Bentine attempting to install a gas cooker. I say… it’s rather good, what!
Excerpt from Saturday Night at The Mill, 1976 – hilarious interview with ex-Goon Michael Bentine
Another excerpt from Saturday Night at The Mill, a year later, in 1977 complete with a bird.
Pebble Mill At One: Final Ever Show. Su Pollard and Michael Bentine are the guests (1986)
All this talk on page 7 about excerpts of the film Force’s Sweetheart… here’s the whole film.
RAY ELLINGTON
A sighting (jump to 18min 49sec) at movingimage.nls.uk
I’ve worked out a theory about some of Ray Ellington’s choice of numbers to sing and play. They remind me of the Tune-A-Day recorder instruction manuals. Full of songs that are a little bit naff. We remember them, but they are too old to attract threats of copyright, or © to give the full name.
HARRY SECOMBE
The above mentioned telling a brief story about Spike Milligan. Very short, very funny.
An advert for Woolworths featuring a Pantomime character
An advert for the IBA and its advertising standards. And as it goes; that Solvite ad where they glue a bloke to a board with wallpaper paste and then fly him over a city dangling from a helicopter… well, it was true, apparently. Another myth ruined!
Extra
Page 38 of this newsletter mentions the Festival of Ideas event being held by Borthwick Institute for Archives at the University of York on 7th June.
Click these links for the event details, and the crowdfunding campaign to help secure the future of the Galton and Simpson archive.
The Goon Show Preservation Society 