Goon Pod Q&A

“Aw, don’t come the raw prawn!” (Barry McKenzie)“There’s too many Barrys!” (Tyler)Based on the character created for Private Eye, The Adventures of Barry McKenzie was a huge hit in Australia when it was released in 1972, surpassing $1m in box office receipts thus making it the first Australian film to do so. Starring Barry Crocker in the titular role, it tells the story of the misadventures of a lantern-jawed larrikin when he leaves Australia and travels to London with his aunt (Edna Everage, played by co-writer and creator of Barry McKenzie, Barry Humphries). See what I mean about too many Barrys?Directed by the up-and-coming Bruce Beresford (thankfully Mr & Mrs Beresford decided against christening him Barry too), the film explores the cultural gulf between Australian and British culture in the early nineteen-seventies in a comic and often quite dark fashion. Jokes about ‘chundering’ and ‘unbuttoning the mutton’ abound as Barry navigates his new environment, along the way falling in with a sex-mad actress, a flamboyant ad man, a masochistic war veteran, his repressed daughter and her mad mother, exploitative hippies, a hard-nosed agent, doctors, a loopy psychiatrist, a lesbian and her sympathetic friend, a fickle television executive and Spike Milligan. Barry McKenzie is one of life’s innocents, a fish out of water, and we could almost believe he’s a distant cousin of Mick Dundee, though possessing none of the latter’s intuition, agility, courage or ‘success with the sheilas’. And what about the charge often levelled against the character that he is an outrageous depiction of the typical Aussie male?  Barry Humphries said “I consider Barry McKenzie as no more representative of the average Australian than Macbeth was of the average Scotsman in Shakespeare’s audience.”The film is worth watching for the Spike scene alone, but there is plenty else amusing enough – the ‘One Eyed Trouser Snake’ song, the terrible Gort family, Barry with underpants full of beef curry – to keep audiences engaged. Joining Tyler this week to talk about it is co-host of Waffle On podcast Simon Meddings. You can check out Waffle On HERE: https://waffleon.podbean.com/As mentioned in this week’s show, Griff Rhys Jones is currently touring: https://www.ents24.com/uk/tour-dates/griff-rhys-jones

This is the earliest Goon Show we've covered on the podcast so far - the second show of Series 4 and while not fully matured to the level of quality we've come to expect it is still a solid and amusing edition with both cast and audience on fine form. It begins with a short sketch about Handsome Harry trying to save an heiress from drowning in order to glom a large reward but the story proper begins following Max's number. London is gripped by terror as a madman is at large threatening to blow up notable landmarks. Seagoon is tasked with tracking him down and enlists help from the likes of Bloodnok, Eccles and Henry Crun - a bomb diviner. Bluebottle is easily confused by pins and we also meet William Gladstone... or is it Churchill? Roger Stevenson joins Tyler and along the way they discuss Eva Bartok, Anna Neagle, Edwardian Dynamite genre fiction, Mrs Dale's Diary, the Robin Hood radio panto, James Finlayson, Ray's A Laugh, Hermione Gingold, Marilyn Monroe... and there's a couple of rounds of "Is It Spike Or is It Peter?" for good measure. They also look at the lead up to Series 4 and the mysterious 'Fred Flange'.

Goon Pod listeners were asked to send in their questions and comments about the show, the Goons or comedy in general and they didn't disappoint! Adam Leslie (Award-Winning Novelist) joined Tyler to work through the list of listener folderol and there was so much that they only managed to get through half of it! So - in a packed show you will hear us covering a wide range of topics and among many other things we discussed: PuckoonThe different Goon Show theme tunesAlexei Sayle's StuffAndrew TimothyThe best Spike film?Great Scott It's Maynard!Young Barry CryerThe Bride of FrankensteinShows for newbies?The Ray Ellington Quartet lineups Hancock vs SteptoeLater Bentine collaborations ... and much much more!

At first glance you may be forgiven for thinking this fairly obscure 1962 British film was one of those forgettable ‘let’s put the show on right here!’ teensploitation flicks full of popular music acts of the day, bland and generic enough to offend nobody other than crusty old colonel-types who objected to young people being seen to have fun. But this film, the feature directorial debut by Richard Lester, was something a little different, with an eye for visual flair to differentiate it from the formulaic British musical films which had preceded it. Lester pretty much determined that he had to make the absolute most of what he was given to work with and we see in the film the earliest knockings of what would later become known as the music video; and he would use these techniques to greater effect a couple of years later in A Hard Day’s Night. There was also actual proper comedy, not in abundance but any dads in the audience would have been reassured by the presence of Derek Nimmo, Mario Fabrizi, Frank Thornton and Hugh Lloyd – not to mention the soothing tones of Deryck Guyler as ‘The Narrator’. Lester employed cartoonish, one might almost say Goonish flourishes throughout the film: fast motion, reverse spooling, the aforementioned omnipresent narrator who’s in on the joke and there’s even a custard pie gag. The pairing of just-about-still-relevant pop stars Helen Shapiro and Craig Douglas as the film’s colourless leads was necessary to draw the target audience but by 1962 how many teenagers were still into Mr Acker Bilk, Chris Barber or even Chubby Checker? The Beatles’ heavy footfall was a creak on the stair and within months this sort of music would be swept away as Merseybeat and beat groups in general bestrode the Hit Parade. Joining Tyler to discuss “the whole swingy parade [which] goes like a good-humoured bomb” (The Daily Mirror) is Andrew Hickey, host of A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs who believes it is a standout film of its genre, but says the credit is largely owed to Richard Lester and his unique directorial style. He discusses the musical and cultural climate in Britain at the time, the origins of Trad Jazz, the early career of Lester and how films like this were usually largely cinematic landfill, plus talks about his show and plans for the future. (Recorded February 2025 and first heard on Goon Pod Film Club)

The year is 1656 in Ninfield, Sussex. Grytpype-Thynne and Moriarty arrive at the stately home of Lord Neddie Seagoon, seeking shelter for the night. As he shows them to their room, Lord Seagoon notices that the seats of their trousers are burned out... a ghastly indication of the dreaded Nadger Plague!This is definitely one of those Goon Shows where you have to ask yourself, how did they get away with it? This week Tyler and returning guest Sean Gaffney discuss all things nadgers - plagues and otherwise. It's definitely a rather unsettling episode with a gothic undercurrent and a couple of ideas which prefigured Harry Potter by a good forty-odd years. There's a witch, an apothecary, talking clocks and gas-stoves, treasure chests, lantern slides and even early homeopathy!They also discuss the death of Son Of Fred, The Telegoons, Bernard Levin getting chinned on live telly, Lady Docker and Liberace!

Over the course of his relatively short film career Peter Sellers appeared in a lot of movies but this week we are looking at those film projects that he was at one stage attached to and were either never made or made without his involvement. Joining Tyler is actor Patrick Strain and the two of them consider such 'might have beens' as The Alien, God Ha Ha, Arigato, I'm All Right Jack 2 and The Phantom Vs The Fourth Reich. They also wonder how different 10, Topkapi and The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes - among many others - might have been had Sellers starred in them.

This week a bit of a diversion. MJ Price of Quite A Boast podcast - all things Reeves & Mortimer - joins Tyler to talk about his love of the Goons and considers what sort of influence or impact (or otherwise) they may have had on future comedians, specifically Vic Reeves & Bob Mortimer. Later the chat turns more generally towards R&M and their body of work, including Vic Reeves Big Night Out, Smell of Reeves & Mortimer, Bang Bang It's Reeves & Mortimer, Shooting Stars and Catterick (with dishonourable mentions to Randall & Hopkirk Deceased and that Ulrika special).They muse on how different generations of comics and comedians tended to flit into and out of each others' orbits and turn up in each others' shows and this is a tradition which applied equally to the Goons as it did to Reeves & Mortimer. It's a fun chat about a pair of comedy legends who crop up all too infrequently on Goon Pod but whose humour and inventiveness chimes with that of Milligan (although he would never have acknowledged that at the time!)You can find Quite A Boast here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL11Ba_QI4Z2_rczxZtu83mE7L4ZW6npL_&si=66WgrMaYtKOT0jEl

Adolf Hitler: My Part in His Downfall is a 1973 British comedy film directed by Norman Cohen and starring Jim Dale, Arthur Lowe and Spike Milligan. It is based on Milligan's best-selling first volume of war memoir of the same name but differs markedly in several respects. It was adapted by Milligan, Cohen and Johnny Byrne; Byrne said of the film: “We want to get away from the idea that Milligan is a clown. He is a clown but first of all he is a human being. As this is a film about the early Milligan, Milligan was more of a human being than a clown at that time.”The casting of Jim Dale as young Spike was inspired, and he received a BAFTA nomination. While the film prioritises comedy, it occasionally crowbars in a clunky 'war is hell' narrative and it struggles to find the right tone. Nevertheless it is a serviceable 90 minute 70s British comedy with a host of familiar faces such as Bill Maynard, Tony Selby, Geoffrey Hughes, Pat Coombs and Windsor Davies.Joining Tyler this week to discuss the film is comedy writer Matt Owen who can be found at https://www.mathew-owen.co.uk/

The Life & Death of Peter Sellers caused something of a stir upon original publication in 1994. Rather than being a dispassionate account of the actor's life and work it leaned in quite heavily on his failings as a man and the author himself wasn't afraid to offer his personal views. That author, Roger Lewis, joins Tyler this week as the book is out in a brand new edition to coincide with Sellers' centenary this year. Roger has written a new afterword: The Centennial Sellers and Steve Coogan supplied a foreword. They discussed Sellers' strengths and weaknesses, his films, the Goon Show, people he worked with and fell in and out with and tried to nail down what it was about his self-destructive melancholy private personality that so absorbed Roger early on in the writing of the book. Alexander Walker comes in for a bit of a kicking too! There's also quite a bit about the film of the book and speculations about what Sellers might have done had he lived beyond 1980. Added to this, Roger talks about his previous book on Charles Hawtrey which is being reissued next year and the book he is currently engaged upon: Victoria Wood, and the women in comedy who influenced and shaped her unique talent.

“I like the Pickwick score, it’s robust and British. I’ve often been offered parts in American musicals but I’ve always turned them down. No matter how good they are, I always feel they are not part of us. That’s why I waited and thought of this idea of making a musical of ‘Pickwick.” - Harry Secombe, 1963.And so the idea was realised, based on the 1837 Charles Dickens novel The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, better known simply as The Pickwick Papers. Harry got the idea for the musical while on holiday in the Bahamas, inspired by the success of Oliver! The writer Wolf Mankowitz agreed to turn it into a musical but faced the considerable challenge of condensing the 250,000words and loosely-linked anecdotes from the original novel into a workable stage production. He eventually decided to use the Pickwick-Bardell breach of promise action as a basic skeleton from which to hang the two-act musical adaptation. Pickwick premiered in Manchester in summer 1963 and as well as Secombe as the titular rotundity featured the likes of Anton Rodgers, Julian Orchard, Hilda Braid, Peter Bull and Norman Rossington among the cast.It swiftly transferred to the West End and two years later opened in the United States. Some of the original British cast reprised their roles (obviously including Harry) but Charlotte Rae came on board as Mrs Bardell and a young scapegrace called Davy Jones took up the part of Sam Weller. The story is he was spotted and signed up for The Monkees during this, and was subsequently replaced by the great Roy Castle. An original cast recording was released on LP in 1963 and in 1969 the BBC broadcast a 90-minute colour adaptation of the musical, adapted for the screen by James Gilbert and Jimmy Grafton. It reunited Secombe with Roy Castle and Julian Orchard and introduced us to Hattie Jacques as Mrs Bardell, Aubrey Woods as Mr Jingle and Robert Dorning as Tupman.This week returning guest Tim Worthington talks all things Pickwick but as you would expect with someone like Tim the conversation is wide-ranging and he pulls many a thread from the tapestry of sixties popular culture!