Ladies and gentlemen,
presenting the extraordinary talking-type wireless Goon Show.
This is a short version of the story of the Goon Show. There are much longer reads in the Features section.
The period after World War II was an exciting time in British show-business. Huge numbers of aspiring performers, many who had gained ‘entertaining the troops’ experience, were trying to get booked to appear in theatres around the country. Getting onto BBC radio was their next target, on the horizon was the hope that television would take off.
Four of these hopefuls came together to become the Goons, united by their brand of comedy which would bring new levels of surrealism and anarchy to rival the Marx Brothers and Spike Jones, and certainly unknown on this side of the Atlantic. They were the happy-go-lucky Welshman Harry Secombe, Spike Milligan and Michael Bentine, who were both full of ideas ready to be written into scripts, and Peter Sellers, who was already making his name on the wireless thanks to the remarkable range of voices he could produce. Their base was a London pub, the Grafton Arms, where the publican, Jimmy Grafton, was also an experienced comedy scriptwriter. It was Grafton who became mentor to the Goons and helped them develop a show which could be broadcast.
Getting such an out of the ordinary show onto the airwaves of the BBC, which was still run by ex-officer establishment types, was never going to be easy. However, with the support of Grafton, and established BBC producers Pat Dixon and Dennis Main Wilson, the Goons made their radio debut on 28th May 1951.
Series 1
The BBC wouldn’t accept the name ‘The Goon Show’, so the programme was generally listed as ‘Crazy People, featuring Radio’s Own Crazy Gang, the Goons’. This was, at least, an improvement on “The Junior Crazy Gang” which the BBC planners had wanted to call it.
It may have been revolutionary radio comedy, but the show conformed to the standard music hall-type format of the day. The rules dictated that the show wasn’t a drama, therefore it was light entertainment, and the rules said it light entertainment had to include musical interludes. Therefore, the show had short sketches separated by musical acts. It had an orchestra and an announcer, who was Andrew Timothy, drawn from the BBC’s announcing staff. There were 17 shows in the series. The scripts were written by Spike Milligan and Larry Stephens, edited by Jimmy Grafton, and the producer was Dennis Main Wilson, who was another Grafton Arms regular. – more on series 1
The show was recorded in front of a live audience and broadcast weekly on the Home Service. As it grew in popularity, it would get a repeat a few days later on the Light Programme. Beyond that however, the BBC of those days didn’t recognise the value of repeating programmes and recordings of the shows weren’t kept. This was the situation for the first four series and, sadly, there’s very little from that period for us to listen to today. At least we have copies of the scripts, and a little film footage courtesy of the film London Entertains.
Series 2
The BBC relented a bit for this series. It was billed as “The Goon Show, Featuring Those Crazy People”, and lasted 25 episodes. The format was very similar to the previous series. – more on series 2
Series 3
There were major changes as the show returned to the wireless for it’s third series. The “Crazy People” name was finally dropped, “The Goon Show” was the official title. Michael Bentine had decided to leave the team and follow a separate career, and Dennis Main Wilson left too. Peter Eton became the new producer, and he set about making changes to improve the show. The musical content was set for the future too. Max Geldray and the Ray Ellington Quartet would fill the two musical interludes while Wally Stott (as he/she was then) would arrange, and his hand-picked orchestra perform, the incidental music and accompaniments. There was usually one independent sketch before the first musical item, then the second and third parts were either separate sketches or a single plot interrupted by the musical item.
Things didn’t run smoothly though. The pressures of scripting 25 weekly shows, and Spike’s rows with the powers-that-be over timely production of scripts, caused his fragile mental health (a legacy of the war) to fall into a full-blown nervous breakdown. He had to stop work and was committed to hospital. Although he was able to resume script writing after a few weeks, there were several more weeks before he could return to performing. The writing burden was taken up by Larry Stephens and Jimmy Grafton, while Dick Emery and Graham Stark came in on alternate weeks to round out the cast. – series 3 listings
Series 4
During the fourth series, the Goon Show was evolving into its familiar final form. The first few shows had an initial sketch occupying the slot before the first musical number, and then a second sketch in the remaining two slots. By the end of the series, the shows would mostly have a single plot.
The production values of the show were being raised. Peter Eton, with his experience producing drama, had taught the cast advanced microphone techniques. Wally Stott’s incidental music was becoming cinematic in scale, while Spike was demanding more and more outlandish, legendary even, things from the sound effects team.
Even the recording technology was evolving. The master recordings started to be made on 15″/sec. magnetic tape rather than 33⅓ rpm coarse groove 16″ disk.
Another future-settling change came when Wallace Greenslade replaced Andrew Timothy as the announcer. The scripts had always called on the announcer to do more than just announcements, and from then on Greenslade joined Ray Ellington in regularly playing a significant part on stage. It was at this time too that the character Neddie Seagoon first appeared. Almost all future plots would revolve around him. – series 4 listings
Series 5
We’ve reached September 1954. The Goon Show had settled into the format it would keep until the end and, with classic episodes like The Dreaded Batter-Pudding Hurler and The Phantom Head Shaver, the quality of the shows was top-notch too. Indeed, with Eric Sykes having been recruited to help with the writing, the plots were stronger than ever.
And there was more good news. The show had reached such a level of popularity that it was taken up by Transcription Services, the arm of the BBC which licensed programmes for overseas broadcasters to use. No more, thankfully, were all the recordings being wiped from posterity. Today, more or less, we can listen to every show which was made from then on. – series 5 listings
Series 6
This series kept up the momentum of series 5, including more all-time favourite episodes such as Napoleons Piano and The Greenslade Story. The next change was a sign that television was overtaking radio as the dominant medium. After episode 21, Peter Eton left the BBC to work at the newly formed Independent Television. Pat Dixon, who as already mentioned, had long been a supporter, took over. – series 6 listings
The Goons saw the importance of TV too and started to create Goons type programmes for TV. Series called The Idiot Weekly, Price 2d and A show Called Fred appeared on ITV in 1956 (though only in the London area.) They were largely written by Spike Milligan, and featured Peter Sellers and other performers connected to the Goons.
Series 7
Spike Milligan considered Pat Dixon to be the best producer they had. His production style was less strict than Eton’s, and the characters were allowed more time to have funny conversations which didn’t progress (or often relate at all) to the plots. Larry Stephens was back contributing to the scripts though, and the standard of the shows was still consistently high. The Flea, Wings over Dagenham and The Histories of Pliny the Elder are great examples. Dixon’s involvement came to an end with this series. He too was moving on to television, although tragically he succumbed to health problems too soon. – series 7 listings
Series 8
The lack of a committed producer was a problem during this series. The first five episodes had the very talented writer and producer Charles Chilton in charge. This wasn’t really his type of show though, and he was largely content to just allow the cast to get on with it. Roy Speer was next up for the following eight shows. He was nearing retirement and didn’t interfere much either. The third producer of the series was prepared to interfere. Tom Ronald actively disliked the show and tried to make his mark, but not in a good way. After only two weeks, Charles Chilton was brought back to complete the series. Around this time, Larry Stephens, who’d contributed so much of the writing over the years, dropped out with failing health.
The quality of shows of series 8 is mixed. Some are messy and indulgent, but others reflect that the Goons could produce great work, no matter what. Even the Tom Arnold influence couldn’t stop The String Robberies being an enjoyable show. – series 8 listings
Vintage Goons
This series was recorded at the same time as Series 8. The shows weren’t intended to be broadcast in the UK, although six of them soon were. To various degrees, they were reworkings of scripts from series 4, made to supplement the selection which Transmission Services had to sell overseas. The world, and Canada in particular, had been clamouring for more Goons – Vintage Goons listings
Series 9
The lack of a permanent producer during Series 8 had obviously been a bad thing, and Spike demanded changes. John Browell was identified as the man to take on the job. He had history with the Goons, as he’d been the sound man during the second series and then was the studio effects manager during series 3-5. More importantly to BBC management, he was now a trained producer.
The scripts for this series were mostly written by Spike on his own, while Browell brought in tighter editing and allowed less messing around. The result was an improved 17 episode series, featuring highlights including The Call of the West and The Gold Plate Robbery. – series 9 listings
Series 10
The Goon Show might have ended after Series 9. The success of their ‘outside’ careers was making it increasingly difficult to get Milligan, Sellers and Secombe together to record a series, and Spike was struggling to write the scripts. In its time however, the show had attracted audiences of up to seven million listeners and, by popular demand, the Goons returned for this series of six programmes. These were to be the last (but read on). It was January 1960 when the series ended with The Last Smoking Seagoon and Greenslade’s final announcement: “Yes, that was it. The last of them. So, bye now.” – series 10 listings
The Telegoons
The cast were reunited for to do voices for another attempt to get the Goons on TV. The Telegoons puppet series was shown on BBC TV in childrens slots in 1963/64. Maurice Wiltshire, who’d helped Larry Stephens on some of the radio shows, edited scripts from classic episodes down to 15 minutes and the programmes were made by Grosvenor Films. – Telegoons listings
The Last Goon Show of All
The BBC celebrated its 50th anniversary in 1972 and this was one of the special shows made for the event. As many of the cast as possible were gathered together for an indulgent evening of nostalgia which was recorded for both radio and television. – show listing
It was in a nearby pub after this recording that the Goon Show Preservation Society was first conceived.
Commercial releases
Since the show ended in 1960 it’s popularity has been kept alive by the release of recordings on long playing records, cassette, CD and, nowadays, digital downloads. These have varied greatly in their edits. Some had the musical interludes taken out. Others came from Transcription Services versions which had been edited to remove references deemed too topical for the overseas audience, or which might offend them. Originally they were produced by record companies who’d licence the material from the BBC. More recently, the BBC has released its own versions. Many of these recordings have been restored to high quality audio, thanks to the wonderful work of Ted Kendall.
BBC7/BBC Radio 4 Extra
When DAB radio appeared on the scene, one of the stations launched in 2002 was BBC7. The channel provides an outlet for the corporation’s archive of recorded material (Oh, what a contrast to the early 1950s!). It’s been renamed as BBC Radio 4 Extra, and The Goon Show has a regular slot . The episodes it uses are made available to stream, or ‘listen again’, on the BBC Sounds website.
Today
Nowadays, we have streaming services, downloads, CDs, people with collections of LPs and cassette tapes, but no device to play them on. Basically, it’s never been easier to listen to The Goon Show.
We get concerned about Goon Shows being censored, about the Spike Milligan humour being lost, although there was always some censorship. The original scripts had cuts to comply with the Green Book of BBC standards of the 1950s. Transmission Services made cuts, even back then, of comments which might offend, or topical references deemed too obscure for their overseas audiences. And then, some material just gets cut so a show will fit a particular time slot.
In the broadcasts on BBC 4 Extra, there have certainly been bits cut out as they’ve been deemed offensive by the standards of today. We’ll moan about that and talk about recognising older humour as ‘of it’s own time’ and the need to preserve history. But modern standards aren’t a bad thing in themselves. Imagine the outrage there would be in the 1950s if some of our modern comedy could be transported back to then.
At the Goon Show Preservation Society, we do our best to preserve every bit of material so it can be appreciated by listeners of today and in the future.
The Goon Show Preservation Society 