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The Goon Show

BBC Radio show broadcast from 1951 to 1960

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The show's creator and primary writer was Spike Milligan, who performed in the series alongside Harry Secombe, Peter Sellers and (for the first two series) Michael Bentine. The scripts mixed ludicrous plots with surreal humour, puns, catchphrases and an array of bizarre sound effects. There were also light music interludes. Some of the later episodes feature electronic effects devised by the fledgling BBC Radiophonic Workshop, many of which were reused by other shows for decades. Elements of the show satirised contemporary life in 1950s Britain, parodying aspects of show business, commerce, industry, art, politics, diplomacy, the police, geography, the military, education, class structure, literature and film.

The show was released internationally through the BBC Transcription Service (TS). It aired regularly from the 1950s in Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, India, and Canada, although these TS versions were frequently edited to avoid controversial subjects. In the United States, NBC began broadcasting the programme on its radio network from the mid-1950s.

Subversive and absurdist, The Goon Show exercised a considerable influence on the development of British and American comedy and popular culture. It was cited as a major influence by the Beatles, the American comedy troupe the Firesign Theatre, and the British comedy troupe Monty Python.

Background

The series was devised and written by Spike Milligan, with the regular collaboration of other writers including; Larry Stephens (contributing to around 140 episodes), Eric Sykes (who co-wrote most of the episodes in Series 5), Maurice Wiltshire and John Antrobus, initially under the supervision of Jimmy Grafton.

Milligan and Harry Secombe became friends while serving in the Royal Artillery during the Second World War. Famously, Milligan first encountered Lance Bombardier Secombe after Gunner Milligan's artillery unit accidentally allowed a large howitzer to roll off a cliff, under which Secombe was sitting in a small wireless truck: "Suddenly there was a terrible noise as some monstrous object fell from the sky quite close to us. There was considerable confusion, and in the middle of it all the flap of the truck was pushed open and a young, helmeted idiot asked 'Anybody seen a gun?' It was Milligan." Secombe's answer to that question was "What colour was it?" After the war, Secombe met Michael Bentine at the Windmill Theatre, after which they met Peter Sellers at the recording of a BBC radio series titled Third Division. Bentine introduced Sellers to Milligan at the Hackney Empire, where Secombe was performing, and the four became close friends.

The group first formed at The Grafton Arms Pub & Rooms, 2 Strutton Ground, Victoria, London, Jimmy Grafton's London public house in 1948. Sellers had already débuted with the BBC. Secombe was often heard on Variety Bandbox. Milligan was writing for and acting in the high-profile BBC show Hip-Hip-Hoo-Roy with Derek Roy. Bentine had just begun appearing in Charlie Chester's peak-time radio show Stand Easy.

The four clicked immediately. "It was always a relief to get away from the theatre and join in the revels at Grafton's on a Sunday night," said Secombe years later. They took to calling themselves "The Goons" and started recording their pub goings-on with a Pickersgill aluminium disk recorder. BBC producer Pat Dixon heard a recording and took interest in the group. He pressed the BBC for a long-term contract for the gang, knowing that it would secure Sellers for more than just seasonal work, something for which the BBC had been aiming. The BBC acquiesced and ordered an initial series, though without much enthusiasm.

The series, under the title Crazy People, had its premiere in May 1951 and audience figures grew rapidly, from around 370,000 to nearly two million by the end of the 17th show. During each episode, musical interludes would be provided by the Ray Ellington Quartet and The Stargazers. No recordings of any episode of this series are known to have survived. The BBC commissioned a second series and a number of changes occurred. The show's title was changed to The Goon Show, musical interludes were shortened, Max Geldray joined the musical lineup, and the Stargazers left partway through the series.

Bentine left the show at the end of series 2, citing a desire to pursue solo projects, although there had been an increasing degree of creative tension between him and Milligan. As well as the departure of Bentine, series 3 brought a change of producer, with Peter Eton, from the BBC's drama department, replacing Dennis Main Wilson. Eton brought stricter discipline to the show's production. He was also an expert at sound effects and microphone technique, ensuring that the show became a far more dynamic listening experience. A few episodes into the series Milligan suffered a major nervous breakdown. He was hospitalised in early December 1952, just before the broadcast of episode five, but it, and the following episode, had already been written, and the next 12 episodes were co-written by Stephens and Grafton. Milligan was absent as a performer for about two months, returning for episode 17, broadcast in early March 1953.

Milligan blamed his breakdown and the collapse of his first marriage on the sheer volume of writing the show required. His then ground-breaking use of sound effects also contributed to the pressure. All this exacerbated his mental instability that included bipolar disorder, especially during the third series. The BBC however made sure he was surrounded by accomplished radio comedy writers—Sykes, Stephens, Antrobus, Wiltshire, and Grafton—so many of the problems caused by his ill-health were skilfully covered over by composite scripts.

Many senior BBC staff were variously bemused and befuddled by the show's surreal humour and it has been reported that senior programme executives erroneously referred to it as The Go On Show or even The Coon Show. The show's title was inspired, according to Spike Milligan, by Alice the Goon, a character from the Popeye comic.

Several of the Goons' nonsense songs were recorded in the late 1950s such as the "Ying Tong Song", number 3 in the UK Singles Chart in 1956. The radio show had high audience ratings in Britain at its peak; tickets for the recording sessions at the BBC's Camden Theatre (now known as KOKO) in London were constantly over-subscribed and the various character voices and catchphrases from the show quickly became part of the vernacular. The series has remained consistently popular ever since, with the show being broadcast weekly by Australia's ABC network as late as 2012. The show is also regularly broadcast on BBC Radio 4 Extra.

The scripts exist mostly in fan-transcribed versions via dedicated websites. Although three books were published containing selected scripts, they are out of print, and typically available only in libraries or second-hand. Some more recent biographical books contain selected scripts.

There were 10 series in total, plus an additional series called Vintage Goons, recorded at the same time as the eighth series, which comprised re-recordings of early shows which had not been recorded by transcription services. The first series (1951) had 17 episodes plus one special, Cinderella; the second series (1952) had 25 episodes; the third series (1952–53) had 25 episodes plus one special, The Coronation Special; the fourth series (1953–54) had 30 episodes plus one special, Archie In Goonland; the fifth series (1954–55) had 26 episodes plus one special, The Starlings; the sixth series (1955–56) had 27 episodes plus three specials; the seventh series (1956–57) had 25 episodes plus two specials; the eighth series (1957–58) had 26 episodes; the Vintage Goons series (1957–58) comprised re-performances of 14 episodes from series four; the ninth series (1958–59) had 17 episodes; and the tenth series (1959–60) had six episodes. A one-off reunion special, The Last Goon Show of All, was recorded and broadcast in 1972.

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