Goon Pod

The first half of the 1970s was not a particularly fruitful period for Peter Sellers, at least in terms of critical and commercial success. He made a slew of films which failed to take off or, in some cases, weren't even released. Some of his worst films date from this period, chiefly the execrable Where Does It Hurt?, which we previously covered on Goon Pod with Paul Litchfield and Jeremy Limb.

Those two return this week to tackle Sellers' 1974 wartime 'comedy' Soft Beds, Hard Battles, in which he takes on six roles – an elderly French General, a gung-ho British Major, a sinister Gestapo officer, a Japanese Prince, the President of France and, er, Adolf Hitler.

While not as bad as Where Does It Hurt? (few things are), SBHB is a bit of a slog, an attempt by the Boulting Brothers to cash in on the then-vogue for sex comedies without fully committing, while weighing the film down with ill-judged set-pieces such as a group of German officers farting, belching and dying.

It was during the production that Sellers embarked upon a six-week romance with Liza Minnelli, which was front-page news and rather got in the way of filming. An unhappy affair all round, the Boultings ended up losing a lot of money, the film was generally panned and didn't do much business at the box office.

Join Jeremy, Paul and Tyler as they try to make sense of it all!

This week, special guest Richard Moore joins Tyler for what we're going to call Sellers & Milligan Mixtape.

Richard has pulled together a number of rarities and curios from the recording careers of the two ex-Goons and created a couple of fantasy compilations: Sellers From The Cellars and Miscellaneous Milligan.

To try and describe some of these tracks would rather give the game away, so we'll restrict ourselves to saying that some will be familiar to diehard Goons enthusiasts, but we guarantee there'll be a fair few surprises, especially from Spike!

There is at least one instance of "What was he THINKING??", but also a number of toe-tappers and the odd sad song... plus some Muppets, a couple of trips to Wonderland and Milligan channelling Status Quo!

Enjoy! (hopefully!)

The Silent Bugler is a good example of Spike Milligan revisiting earlier material, with the later Vintage Goons remake refining rather than reinventing the original.

The original story from Series 4 opens with a Cold War setting and digs at Senator McCarthy, Winston Churchill and the world of secret agents before introducing Seagoon as MI5's Agent X2. The Vintage Goons remake necessarily tweaks some of the more topical material.

Much of the enjoyment comes from the performances rather than the plot which is a bit confusing and follows X2's mission to thwart a Russian time machine, leading to an adventure involving spies, concerts, mistaken identities, explosions and improbable escapes in typical fashion.

Peter Sellers' later portrayal of Willium the ticket inspector is noticeably richer and more developed, while the original Series 4 recording has Sellers corpsing repeatedly. The episode also contains the first use of Bluebottle's immortal line, "Pauses for audience applause... not a sausage" though early Bluebottle is less pleasing to the ear.

As with most Goon Shows the storyline is largely incidental, serving as a framework for Spike's imagination and the interplay between the cast. While the Vintage Goons version benefits from more polished performances, some listeners may prefer the original Series 4 recording for its freshness and spontaneity and the fact it was a glimpse of the Goons reaching the peak of their powers in 1954.

Tyler and guest Chas Early examine the two shows and look at what was happening in the Goons' world the week the original show aired, including a fascinating tale of Ray Ellington coming to the aid of one of JFK's closest friends.

The wan Don who thinks he’s Don Juan – a Welsh librarian gets the seven-year-itch.

This week writer Paul Whitelaw makes his first faltering steps into Goon Pod territory to talk about a favourite film: Only Two Can Play, directed by Sidney Gilliat and starring Peter Sellers, Virginia Maskell and Mai Zetterling.

Released barely a year before Sellers breasted the tape of international stardom with The Pink Panther, it is a delightfully quirky, darkly amusing tale based on a Kingsley Amis novel. Amis himself got caught up in the filming and was regularly present during the production; he and Sellers became friendly and tried to outdo each other in who could spin the filthiest yarn.

This is the film where Sellers was beastly to Virginia Maskell throughout, suggesting she ‘couldn’t act for toffee’ and trying to get her fired. One cannot fault Sellers for his sound judgement, as Maskell went on to win a Bafta for her performance as Jean Lewis, down-trodden wife of the film’s antihero, provincial Welsh librarian John Lewis (Sellers).

Lewis has a roving eye and soon gets caught up in a sort-of-affair with an influential councillor’s wife who is amused by him but clearly sees him as a temporary dalliance until someone else comes along.

X-rated upon release and addressing issues and themes considered racy for the time, the film was very successful despite Sellers’ insistence that it would be a disaster.

The Daily Post wrote: “What will surely be one of the year’s funniest comedies keeps its hero moral by accident… Peter Sellers has provided another rich character study, reflecting not only the hero’s obvious attitudes but the interior life from which they arise. In short, there is reality here as well as wit.”

We discuss the film’s origins, the cast (including Richard Attenborough and Kenneth Griffith) and our favourite lines and scenes. Also: Bryan Forbes’ softened screenplay; how Sellers got ‘the voice’; the big deal they made about it in Swansea; Mai Zetterling and MI5; dirty Graham Stark; and the ghastliness of stag wallpaper.

“Caw!” said the crow. “Balls!” said the Milligan.

This week, we look at a book that Spike Milligan claimed took either five years - or ten years and fifteen secretaries - to write, and which “damn nearly drove me mad.” But just how much of Spike himself and his life bled into the narrative? And how did a marriage proposal expedite its completion?

Puckoon was, for a long time, Spike’s only novel, and it proved both a commercial and critical success. Set in the fictional Irish village of Puckoon, a casually drawn border line places graves, a pub, and even church grounds in British territory. From this spring comic scenarios involving two ragged-arsed IRA men attempting to smuggle explosives past a Customs post in a coffin, the digging up of the late Dan Doonan, and an escaped panther on the prowl.

And what of the cast of characters? We meet the hapless Dan Milligan and his “poorly written” legs; the financially desperate Father Rudden; Murphy with the unfeasibly hairy eyebrows; the regulars of The Holy Drinker pub; and the - slightly problematic - Constable Lee Ah Pong.

We discuss Spike’s complex relationship with Ireland, despite having spent very little time there, and ask whether Puckoon is a satire on partition, bureaucracy, religion, marriage… or simply the human condition itself. There’s also a look at the novel’s darker undercurrents, including the heartbreaking story of Farmer O’Mara and sequences Spike later regretted destroying.

It’s rather like The Goon Show in novel form, with hints of Joyce, Flann O’Brien, and even Hollywood screwball comedy.

Join Tyler and voice actor/podcaster David Wills as they try to decide where Puckoon sits among the pantheon of great comic novels in English.