“Spike wrote 250 episodes of The Goon Show in a 10-year period,” says Newman. “In every series, there are many, many references to the war. Pretty much after that, he stops – and in his later work, hardly mentions it again.”
Sorta missing the books there, no?
So Hislop wants to claim that he is as anarchic as Spike Milligan by emphasising as many points of similarity as possible. Unfortunately he couldn’t find any so he just tries to claim he was woke
I think his war memoirs are among his best work.
“What the Goons did,” says Hislop, “was channel the khaki election” that swept the 1945 Labour government to power.
Spike was quite right-wing and compared Atlee unfavourably to Churchill as looking like a bank clerk.
Despite it being in the guardian I think the article is fair. Hislop did a good job of the Wipers Times from WW1. I don’t think they have a chance in hell of putting some Spike impersonator in a play and getting the spirit.
I loved Telegoons. I wonder what happened to the tapes.
Telegoons was my introduction to the Goons, being a bit young for the radio shows, and it not being my parents’ thing so it was never on. I would love to see some of them again.
Hislop might have been OK when he took over at Private Eye but he’s just turned into a lefty curmudgeon. Perhaps he ought to follow Ingrams to The Oldie.
Hislop has that smug self satisfied superiority of Oxbridge. And thus puts my teeth on edge. I am reminded that these are the people who presided over the decline of a world spanning empire to a third rate shit-hole.
According to the encyclopedia of lies, bootleg Telegoons compilations are available on eBay. So make of that what you will. Probably worth a look, anyway.
BiS +100.
One of many leftie ‘alternative comedians’ that were thrust onto the telly (well, lets be frank, the BBC) over the last thirty years with one thing in common – Smug, arrogant and not funny. Oh, sorry, that’s three…..
Re actual funny comedians RIP Barry Cryer, just announced
You can watch some episodes of “Telegoons” on YouTube.
Surprising that Milligan so far survives cancel culture.
Most likely because cancel culture has so far forgotten about Q. The pakistani daleks being a particularly funny sketch that would have their heads exploding in a nanosecond.
Oh, they’ve forgotten nothing:
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/oct/15/lenny-henrys-race-through-comedy-review-britains-blackface-shame
For some reason they can’t get him yet.
His war books were excellent, my grandfather gave them to me, said they were the only account of the war he had read or intended to read
I do wonder is Spike is so wacky they can’t get away with sticking an offence label on as it’s just too much for anyone to watch his stuff and take it in the slightest bit seriously
Bloke in Wales: Good glod, wait until they discover Curry And Chips.
The Goon Show was on at 9pm on Sundays for a number of years while I was a teenager, and I missed not that many episodes. You could buy tapes of the show, and there were the “Goon Show Scripts” books with a dozen or so of the best known ones included. I was able to introduce my children to the Goons via the tapes, and although not as fanatic as I, they certainly appreciate the humour. Recalling “The voice came from a man with a military bearing, which he tossed into the air and caught. He walked from the darkness into the light…clunk, ow ow ow”
The Telegoons was shown on local TV briefly, but just IMHO, the cartoons were so badly done, very amateurish and cheap looking, that the visuals detracted from the humour which was written to be listened to. I watched a few but didn’t find them anywhere near as good s the radio versions for that reason.