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 7 November 1954
First Broadcast : Tuesday 9 November 1954 on the BBC Home Service
Doctor Ned Seagoon is contacted by Count Moriarty, who tells him the tale of his bus trip the previous evening, when the bus conductor was struck down by the deadly disease lurgi, which causes an uncontrollable urge in its victims to yell ‘yakabool’. The highly contagious disease spreads to the medical personnel treating the bus conductor. If Seagoon contacts Dr. Hercules Grytpype-Thynne, he can be the man to save Britain from lurgi and can attain a knighthood, position, and most importantly. . . money. Grytpype sends Seagoon to talk to the British Medical Council, to urge them to isolate the lurgi victims at Yakabool Centres in Blackpool. The centres will be paid for by a special charity concert. At the concert, the great tenor, Giovanni Saponni, starts to sing, but on signal from Moriarty, breaks into fits of ‘yakabool’. Seagoon, convinced that the singer has lurgi, runs for his life. Grytpype tells Neddie the cure for lurgi and sneaks him into the Houses of Parliament. Seagoon reveals to Parliament a vital observation – the one thing that all the lurgi victims have in common is that none of them plays in a brass band. Parliament puts Seagoon in charge of the anti-lurgi campaign, and fifty million pounds’ worth of brass band instruments are ordered from the instrument-makers, Goozey and Bawkes. Major Bloodnok and his troops are to airlift the instruments and drop them to the lurgi victims in Blackpool. The news reports the mysterious dropping of the instruments over Blackpool, and that Scotland Yard are searching for a short, fat man in connection with a non-existent disease called lurgi. Seagoon, fleeing from the police, finds Grytpype-Thynne and Moriarty counting out a large sum of money and preparing to leave for the south of France. It turns out that their professional names are Messrs. Goozey and Bawkes, makers of brass band instruments . . . .
The Goon Show Preservation Society 