Starring Harry Secombe, Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan
Announcer: Andrew Timothy
Script: Spike Milligan
Producer: Peter Eton
Recorded: Wednesday and Thursday 11-12 August 1954
First Broadcast : Tuesday 31 August 1954 on the BBC Home Service
With the world overshadowed by doubts, fears, international conflict, and the prospect of nuclear Armageddon, Parliament is debating serious matters – starlings are ruining London’s great public buildings. The inventive genius of the country is called upon, and for three years the starlings are attacked with a series of frightening devices: stuffed owls, wriggling rubber snakes, high-frequency sound beams, rice puddings fired from catapults, recordings of a female starling in trouble, and recordings of a female starling not in trouble. All to no avail. Mr. Ned Bladdock (Seagoon), Minister of Grit, Filth, and Exportable Heads, comes up with a new plan – three brigades of Guards in Trafalgar Square with noise-making equipment. Operation Cacophony is put into action, but succeeds only in deafening the guards. Augmenting the noisemakers by the bagpipes of the Highland Brigade causes the population of London to drop by 10000 overnight, but the starlings rest peacefully. The plan is an abject failure. Then Bladdock gets a visit from Jim ‘Tigernuts’ Bluebottle, who has a new plan. He has invented a special explodable bird-lime, indistinguishable from the real thing. The bird lime can be put down wherever there are starlings and then detonated by pressing a remote-controlled button. Woolwich Arsenal is set to work producing 40000 tons of the artificial explodable bird-lime. Of course, an inauguration ceremony must be held, since exploding the bird-lime requires the pressing of a button, and it is common law that all cutting of tapes and pressing of buttons must be carried out with due ceremony. The BBC cover the occasion with Brian Ginstone on the roof of St. Martins and Richard Dingleby covering the buttonpressing ceremony in Trafalgar Square. Accompanied by a procession of cavalry and heralds, the Duchess Boil de Spudswell (Peter Sellers, sounding suspiciously like the Queen) arrives to press the button. After some problems with the Great Microphone of State, she presses the button, the bird-lime starts exploding, and the starlings are driven off. But the bird-lime was a mite too powerful – St. Martins was destroyed. Bladdock tells Parliament to fear not – St. Martins will be rebuilt. Should the starlings come back to roost there, it will be blown up again. It’s finally decided to try a new invention to deal with the pests – rice puddings fired from catapults.
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