Also known as “Confessions of a Secret Senna-pod Drinker”.
Starring Harry Secombe, Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan
Announcer: Wallace Greenslade
Music by Max Geldray and The Ray Ellington Quartet
The Orchestra was conducted by Wally Stott
Script: Eric Sykes and Spike Milligan
Producer: Peter Eton
Recorded: Sunday 20 March 1955
First Broadcast : Tuesday 22 March 1955 on the BBC Home Service
Neddie Seagoon is addicted to senna-pod tea. In the basement of a club in East Acton, he obtains a fresh supply of the dreaded pods from Moriarty. He barely escapes a police raid by throwing away his supply of senna-pods. He visits Dr. Grytpype-Thynne to get a fresh supply on the National Health. Grytpype sends him to away to the Seaview Rest Home, Greenacres, in Paddington. While in a phone box brewing a pot of senna-pod tea, Neddie is interrupted first by a phone call from Sabrina and then by Willium, who is looking for a murderer. He arrives at the rest home, run by Henry and Minnie. His private patient’s silence cure consists of sitting for an hour in dead silence in a tin box. While in the box, he encounters Eccles. They seem to be in a cinema. The big picture is set in Africa, where tribesmen pull a little fellow out of a tin box. Just then, Neddie is pulled out of the box by Ellinga, and Eccles is forced to get out, too. Ellinga takes them to the chief, Bluebottle. Ellinga demands that Neddie be killed for bringing “stick that go bang”. Neddie says nonsense, it’s an umbrella, and points it at his head to prove it. It goes off and Ned screams for a doctor. Bloodnok arrives, accompanied by vultures riding horses. It is then that Seagoon realises he is in a senna-pod delirium. Bluebottle, being a figment of the imagination, goes into a long thinks routine involving Marilyn Monroe in a shower bath, but Eccles is in there with her. Since Neddie is imagining all this, Bloodnok steals his imaginary wallet. Willium shows up and asks Ned if he’s found a murderer yet. He says yes, he has, and shoots Willium. Just then, Minnie and Henry open the lid of the tin box. Neddie is back in the rest home – it was all a dream. He finds he is cured – he can’t stand the taste of senna-pod tea anymore. The cast sing “On the Crest of a Wave” to bring Series 5 to a triumphant conclusion. And, of course, to fill in time in a program that was under-running.
The Goon Show Preservation Society 