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 24 February 1957
First Broadcast: Thursday 28 February 1957 on the BBC Home Service
As Ned is trying to buy a piano-playing penguin, he encounters Grytpype and Moriarty. The two scoundrels give Neddie a deed to the English Channel and then convince him to buy a £48,000 policy insuring the Channel against catching fire. Ned immediately sets out to Pevensey Bay, where he finds match factory worker Eccles. He catapults Eccles into the Channel and then sets about trying to light it with a tinder-box. The rescue team of Crun and Bannister sets out in a lifeboat to save Eccles. Seagoon finds the Channel won’t catch fire because it’s damp and returns to confront Grytpype and Moriarty, who tell him to wait until summer, when the Channel will be a tinder-dry fire-trap. On the wireless they hear Min and Henry rescue Eccles. They had to pump 1000 gallons of oil onto the sea to calm it. They set fire to the oil to get rid of it, and so the Channel is on fire. When Neddie tries to collect on the insurance, Grytpype and Moriarty escape at gunpoint. Neddie is fooled by insurance, the white man’s burden.
The Goon Show Preservation Society 