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: Spike Milligan and Larry Stephens
Producer: Pat Dixon
Recorded: Sunday 30 September 1956
First Broadcast: Thursday 4 October 1956 on the BBC Home Service
The British garrison at the Burami Oasis is under attack from that fiendish Arab chieftain, Sheikh Rattle And Roll. Admiral Neddie Seagoon, commander of the family-operated battleship HMS Thespus, is called up to fill the woeful lack of sailors in the Army. Intelligence reveals that the Burami garrison are scheduled to play football against the Arabs next month, and the attacks are designed to tire the British men and guarantee an Arab victory. The chiefs of Army, Navy, and NAAFI decide to send a gunboat. The 42,000-ton HMS Thespus is duly broken down into four-inch squares and sent to Burami. Colonel Grytpype-Thynne and his assistant, Moriarty, hear of the scheme and inform the Sheikh, who tells them that they will get no more money unless the Arabs win the football match. Meanwhile, in the Burami oasis, Sheikh Rattle And Roll tries to collect the back rent from the British commander, Major Bloodnok. Seagoon arrives at the oasis and his technicians, Eccles and Bluebottle, reassemble the battleship, no mean feat as the oasis is only ten feet long, requiring the battleship to be stood up on one end. Just before dawn, 2000 Arabs, cunningly disguised as sailors, take away all the oasis water. Seagoon nonetheless navigates the battleship over sand to the Sheikh’s fort, where he ambushes the Sheik, Grytpype, and Moriarty. There is a stand-off when Grytpype threatens to have his men drink the oasis water, until Bloodnok phones Seagoon to tell him that the water is actually 20,000 gallons of gin that Bloodnok stored there. Seagoon therefore calls Grytpype’s bluff, and the Arabs unwittingly drink 20,000 gallons of neat gin. The Arab football team staggers onto the field in no condition to play. The result is a foregone conclusion – British Garrison 12, drunken Arabs 68.
The Goon Show Preservation Society 