Some 50 years on from their original broadcast on BBC Radio, The Goon Show continues to entertain audiences through the medium of audiobooks.
Cited by everyone from Monty Python’s Flying Circus to The Beatles as influences, the surreal cartoon caricatured humour of Spike Milligan, Harry Secombe and Peter Sellers still tickles the funny bone and fires the imagination of the listener when hitting the play button.
Digitally Remastered Goon Show Recordings Blow A Raspberry At Realism
The Goon Show Compendium Volume Six, Series 7 Part 2 is the latest in a collection which brings together all surviving recordings from the series. 12 Episodes from early 1957 have been digitally remastered giving the performances a greater clarity than ever before and making them sound like they were only recorded last week.
Writers Spike Milligan and Larry Stephens clearly wrote for the imagination of the radio audience at the time. The limitless imagination of the radio scripts untainted by the restraints of film and television show budgets and frequently blowing a raspberry in the face of realism.
From the outset it is clear that the three stars of the show Spike Milligan, Harry Secombe and Peter Sellers are in their element having fun with the scripts, each other and the audience. All the favourite Goon Show characters are here including Bloodnock, Moriarty, Neddie Seagoon, Grytpype-Thyme, Little Jim and Eccles.
Surreal Humour Revisited On The Goon Show Compendium
This collection features several surreal moments such as one from The Emperor Of The Universe. Moriarty (Milligan) emerging from a fountain pen after Grytpype’s secret meeting with Neddie Seagoon (Secombe) with the complaint "Grytpype, I nearly drowned in there!"
"I'm sorry, Moriarty," apologises Grytpype,"I filled the pen without thinking. Take a message!"
As Moriarty begins typing, Grytpype immediately intercedes: "No, no, don't use the typewriter. You might be overheard."
Moriarty replies "Right. I'll use a saw. Then no-one will saw it except me."
The Goons are never afraid to gently remind their listeners that they are listening to cleverly executed comedy sketches. As Seagoon falls into the water in The Rent Collectors his cries for help are met with what sounds like a motorboat arriving: "What's that?” asks Seagoon before answering himself:” It's a nautical gramophone playing a recording of a motor-boat!"
The Goons Compare Caesars Attack To A Football Match
The Goons also take a stab at playing with history when dramatising Caesar’s attack on England in The Histories of Pilny the Elder. Caesar’s attack is played into context as a football match: “We can't do with all this javelin practice when the ball's in play!" complains Seagoon "And another thing, you're only allowed eleven men on the field. I've counted 693 of yours so far!"
Perhaps the most interesting inclusion on this collection is the episode The Reason Why. The episode was meant to take on a new direction for The Goons as it was not recorded in front of an audience or featured the usual musical interludes from Max Gildray and Ray Ellington.
Featuring a guest appearance from Valentine Dyall, the episode is still incredibly funny and demands more of the listener’s attention to listen out for Milligan’s clever jokes.
The Goon Show Compendium Volume Six, Series 7 Part 2 Contents And Extras
The episodes featured in The Goon Show Compendium Volume Six, Series 7 Part 2 are as follows: Emperor of the Universe, Wings over Dagenham, The Rent Collectors, Shifting Sands, The Moon Show, The Mysterious Punch-up-the-Conker, Round the World in Eighty Days, Africa Ship Canal, Ill Met by Goonlight, The Missing Boo Constrictor, The Histories of Pliny the Elder and The Reason Why.
The release rights for another episode from this series, Insurance – The White Mans Burden were not available so have prevented its inclusion. Instead a PDF script has been featured in the collection for the completist.
An out-take from The Mysterious Punch-Up-The-Conker plus alternate takes from Round The World In Eighty Days and Africa Ship Canal and some appearances by Colonel Chinstrap (who appears in The Goon Show episode Shifting Sands) on Tommy Handley’s post-war Radio Show It’s That Man Again (ITMA) are also included as bonus items .
The Goon Show Compendium Volume Six, Series 7 Part 2 is spread across 6 Compact Discs with a total running time of over 6 hours. Packaged in a presentation box with 2 booklets detailing the history of the original shows this collection is sure to be a must for all Goon fans and would make an ideal gift for any fan of classic comedy.
Sources:
- The Goon Show Compendium Volume Six, Series 7 Part 2, AudioGO
- Script extracts: The Goon Show Website
