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
Producer: John Browell
Recorded: Sunday 2 November 1958
First Broadcast : Monday 3 November 1958 on the BBC Home Service
The first third of the show, up to the first musical break, is free-form clowning around and has no plot. The Sahara Desert Statue occupies the remaining two-thirds of the programme. The House of Commons is debating the fact that the British Atomic Commission have no idea what effect an atom bomb would have on a nude Welshman holding a rice pudding. The Russians do not have this information, so it is an opportunity for Britain to take the lead. The Government offer to pay £2000 for any Welshman willing to stand naked holding a rice pudding while hit by the power of an atom bomb. Grytpype and Moriarty rush off to find Neddie Seagoon. They tell him that Moriarty has been commissioned to sculpt a statue of the Sahara Desert holding a rice pudding and wishes Ned to pose for it. He agrees and soon is standing in the Sahara. He meets Eccles, a lost British soldier, there. The Riffs (singing their theme from Desert Song) arrive and think Neddie is a statue. Their chief thinks a statue of a fat white man holding a rice pudding is just the thing for his harem. They carry Neddie off. Just before the atom bomb goes off, the long lost number 8 touring company of The Desert Song arrives on the scene, and it is they who are hit by the explosion. Grytpype and Moriarty pick up the pieces and take them to the Atomic Commission. Meanwhile, Bloodnok discovers Neddie’s abduction and sets off with Bluebottle and Eccles to rescue him. The Atomic Commission conclude that when a nude Welshman holding a rice pudding is struck by an atom bomb, he turns into a fully-clad number 8 touring company of The Desert Song. Soon, reactors were set up for the purpose, and thus it is that Britain leads the world in production of number 8 touring companies of The Desert Song. Neddie? He’s still standing stock still as a statue in the Red Bladder’s harem. One move would mean the unkindest cut of all.
The Goon Show Preservation Society 