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 Bruce Campbell
Script: Spike Milligan
Producer: Pat Dixon
Recorded: Sunday 12 February 1956
First Broadcast: Tuesday 14 February 1956 on the BBC Home Service
It is 1914. Superintendent Grytpype-Thynne and Inspector Moriarty take Doctor Neddie Seagoon blindfolded to Tower Bridge to observe a strange phenomenon. Scientific tests show that Tower Bridge is growing hair. Moriarty and Grytpype conclude that the composition of Tower Bridge is such that it can grow hair. They scheme to replace the bridge with a life-sized photograph and to grind the bridge into a paste that they will sell as a baldness cure. But then comes word of a Choking Horror – hair is growing on all of London’s great monuments and buildings. As Parliament debates the proper hairstyle for the Albert Hall, word arrives that Germany has declared war on England. Three weeks later, it is clear that St. Paul’s is going bald. In the second year of the war, the hairy buildings have gone prematurely grey, obviously due to the worry caused by the Zeppelin raids. The Secret Service discovers the reason for the hairy buildings. Just before the war, German saboteurs painted them with a secret hair-growing paint that turns silver-grey, thus enabling the Zeppelins to bomb the buildings in the dark. As a counter-move, every hairy building is fitted with a bowler hat. The German spy Justin Eidelburger bribes Grytpype and Moriarty to remove the bowler hats. The traitors are given 1000 gallons of the secret hair-growing paint, hidden in a tank on the Air Ministry roof. Meanwhile, Seagoon, Eccles, and Bluebottle are on watch on the Air Ministry roof. Bluebottle is frightened and hides in a nearby tank, only to find it contains the hair-growing formula. The Air Ministry building starts growing grey hair and thus is the prime target for the approaching Zeppelins. Neddie, Bluebottle, and Eccles run for it. Grytpype and Moriarty arrive on the roof to claim their reward, only to find that they’re on the only grey-haired building in London. They dance as the bombs start to fall. Forty years later, the years of wearing tight bowlers have caused premature baldness in the buildings. Don’t believe us? Just look at St. Paul’s today—not a hair on its head.
The Goon Show Preservation Society 