Goon Pod

“You’re worth more dead than alive!”

We’ve talked a lot about Steptoe & Son – and its principle artistes – recently on Goon Pod and the sister show so it feels appropriate this week to air this interesting chat.

It is July 1973 and the second feature film based on the hit BBCTV sitcom about a pair of rag-and-bone-men has just come out. Unfortunately its release coincides with a much more popular film in the shape of Roger Moore’s maiden Bond outing Live And Let Die and most people go to see that instead. Although Steptoe & Son Ride Again worked better than the first film, as it anchored the characters in familiar territory, it did badly where the first had done well. Co-writer Alan Simpson said “I suspect the majority of people hadn’t liked the first one so didn’t go back for the second, which is a shame.”

When their aging horse Hercules has to be put out to pasture,father-and-son totters Albert and Harold Steptoe face galloping financial calamity. Falling in with Frankie Barrow, the ‘Godfather of Shepherd’s Bush’, Harold foolishly buys a greyhound, hoping ‘Hercules II’ will be the answer totheir pecuniary woes… only to discover the dog is extremely short-sighted and useless for racing. With money owing to Barrow Harold hits on a scheme which if pulled off would get Frankie off his back but would require him and his father to start a new life where nobody knows them (“I could be Harry Faversham”): they will fake Albert’s death and claim his life-insurance money.

From this fairly simple premise comes great comedy and some marvellous character work, not least from the two leads, Wilfrid Brambell and Harry H. Corbett. They are ably supported by a cast which includes Milo O’Shea as a brandy-ridden sawbones, Henry Woolf as Frankie, Yootha Joyce as Harold’s Auntie Freda, Frank Thornton, Bill Maynard, Neil McCarthy, Richard Davies and, memorably, Diana Dors as a recently-widowed housewife wanting a bit of the other from a frankly terrified Harold.

Joining Tyler are Michael Livesley & Paul Carmichael, and while discussing the film the three regularly meander down conversational alleyways, chatting about the lost art of home taping, antiquated or regional profanities, the history of Live TV, the great British tradition of innuendo, and boomer nostalgia, while referencing the likes of One Foot In The Grave, The Goodies, Married With Children and even Bottle Boys! Plus they talk about their great love for the Steptoe TV series, the actors involved and even envisage Wilfrid Brambell squaring up to Frank Zappa!

This was recorded in October 2025 and originally put out as part of Goon Pod Film Club: Patreon.com/GoonPod

Broadcast on Channel 4 on 2nd December 1985, The Last Laugh Before TV-am was Spike Milligan’s attempt to bring his particular vein of humour to a new generation... although very little about it suggested that Milligan had changed his approach since the early Q series.

The show assembled a familiar Milligan blend of sketches,visual jokes, corpsing, unfinished ideas and rehearsed improvisation. The recently late Chris Langham, Emil Wolk and a young Mark Steel were among the supporting performers, while the alternative circus group Ra-Ra Zoo added anappropriately offbeat physical dimension to the show. There were also, because Spike, the Royal Corgis.

Creaky old comedy sketch stand-by Mastermind saw Milligan as Magnusson, the Queen as a bit of cardboard and a banana down some underpants. A library skit featured some language which caused the entire edifice to sway as if ready to go down with all hands (Herbert Kretzmer, reviewing the show in TV Mail, considered this “pure, distilled Milligan”, arguing that the joke was driven by Spike's contempt for what he regarded as the absurdities of censorship. Hmmm.)

Joining Tyler this week to chew over this oddity and discussthe wider television landscape at the time is podcaster, author and broadcaster Ben Baker.

Broadcast on Channel 4 on 2nd December 1985, The Last Laugh Before TV-am was Spike Milligan’s attempt to bring his particular vein of humour to a new generation... although little about it suggested that Milligan had changed his approach since the early Q series.

The show assembled a familiar Milligan blend of sketches, visual jokes, corpsing, unfinished ideas and rehearsed improvisation. The recently late Chris Langham, Emil Wolk and a young Mark Steel were among the supporting performers, while the alternative circus group Ra-Ra Zoo added an appropriately offbeat physical dimension to the show. There were also, because Spike, the Royal Corgis.

Creaky old comedy sketch stand-by Mastermind saw Milligan as Magnusson, another routine had the Queen as a bit of cardboard and a third featured a banana down some underpants. A library skit featured some language which caused the entire edifice to sway as if ready to go down with all hands (Herbert Kretzmer, reviewing the show, considered this “pure, distilled Milligan”, arguing that the joke was driven by Spike's contempt for what he regarded as the absurdities of censorship. Hmmm.)

Joining Tyler this week to chew over this oddity and discuss the wider television landscape at the time is podcaster, author and broadcaster Ben Baker.

Field Marshals are queuing up to draw their pensions – it’s the first time they ever really wanted to go to the front. But Gunner Ned Seagoon, former Ablutions Orderly at Alamein, has other ways of making a mint. He’s writing his memoirs and reckons they’ll earn him a fortune. For – shock horror – they reveal the truth about the hygiene of the General Staff and the secrets of the military laundry.

Written by himself and Maurice Wiltshire, this was the last Goon Show script Larry Stephens ever worked on (he died the following month) and although it has its moments it rarely rises above the average. Tyler and returning guest Andy Bell talk about its highlights and lowlights, the career of Maurice Wiltshire and whether More Goon Show Scripts should be on the school curriculum.

An annual tradition dating back to the year the Titanic went down – a useful metaphor to describe some of the subsequent acts who sank without trace – the Royal Variety Performance brings together entertainers from around the world to perform in front of faintly bored members of the Royal Family for charity.

Arguably the most memorable and significant show was in 1963, when a group from Liverpool took to the stage and belted out four numbers for the Queen Mum. This was the height of Beatlemania, yet John, Paul, George and Ringo were still sufficiently awed by the occasion that John’s well-rehearsed spontaneous quip about jewellery was delivered with a rather nervous, impish grin.

Harry Secombe bookended the television coverage and also appeared on stage with the cast of Pickwick, wearing a bald wig so wrinkled and skew-whiff that it looked like a piece of ham on the turn with barbershop sweepings. He also closed the show with a joke about the Fab Four that nearly brought the house down.

And speaking of ham, Pinky and Perky showed up too. The likes of Steptoe & Son (including Paul’s future grandfather), Marlene Dietrich and Eric Sykes are still remembered today, but whither Susan Maughan, Los Paraguayos and Buddy Greco in the public’s collective memory? Certainly, Goon Pod listeners will be familiar with the work of Flanders & Swann, Tommy Steele and even – gah! – Charlie Drake, but how many of them recall Dickie Henderson?

Steven Cockcroft, erstwhile co-host of Nothing Is Real, describes the event as the ‘British Ed Sullivan Show’, introducing a much wider audience at home to the Beatles and giving them a rather sanitised look at what all the fuss was about. As one viewer wrote in a letter to The Daily Mail: “It was possible, for once, to hear as well as see the Beatles. What a pleasant change to be able to hear the celebrated Mersey Sound without the inevitable accompaniment of adolescent hysteria that passes weirdly these days.”

Join Tyler and Steven as they navigate this bloated extravaganza of singers, funsters, jugglers and dancers. Fans of Elvis Costello may want to tune in too for some shameless name-dropping and his familial connection to the show.