The original chapter of an literary examination of Spikes masterpiece, The Goon Show.' The construction of the goon show was as haphazard as the shows themselves. When the show was thrown on, in late May 1951, Milligan had no idea what he was doing. He was, he thought, continuing the occasional writing which he had contributed to the ‘Derek Roy Show’ and ‘Crazy People’ and expanding it into his own series, “Those Crazy People – The Goons” staring Sellers, Bentine and Secombe, with himself doing odd voices on occasion. Bentine lasted two series, and by the third series, Milligan was in the throes of his first major nervous breakdown since Volturno, and his writing, which had been underpinned by other casual comedy writers known to the BBC, (like Larry Stephens, James Grafton and Eric Sykes) had to be taken over for a short time by a committee of these writers until Milligan could resume work from his sanatorium bed. His scripts, variable as they were, and ranging in quality from naff and amateurish to inspired and off-the-wall, were already showing some sort of direction. He had begun by using small adventure-type plots, usually three per show, interspersed with Geldray and Ellington, with a cast of shifting characters that already featured some of the archetypes that were to grow into the main characters of the later series, Seagoon (Ossie Pureheart) and Bloodnok in particular. These two were to become the corner stones of the eventual shows. After the return of Milligan towards the end of the 3rd series he began the 4th series treating each episode as one plot. This was often not very clear, and when he found an interesting incident he tended to dwell on it and over use it to the detriment of the entire episode, but still they were one fully conceived dramatic whole. By the end of the fourth series it is fair to say that his writing, though variable, was on occasion quite striking. It is actually not funny writing, a point often overlooked by goon-o-philes; it is characteristic writing. The modern day equivalent would be ‘Seinfeld’, ‘MASH’, or much of Billy Connelly’s narration material. I think of it as the serious end of comedic writing. I also think of it as a branch of comedy very much overlooked by both serious and comic analysts due to its inability to sit comfortably into either literary camp. It is also educated. Milligan’s education occurred later in his life, (ie; in his twenties and thirties) and as he discovered various events in world history he tended to utilise them in the shows. You can spot these easily. Carthage was discovered from some history books he flitched from an abandoned girls school in Bexhill-on-Sea, then visited in the middle of the blood-letting in North Africa, followed by a visit to Pompey during a break in the Italian campaign; India was where he was born and where he had spent his formative years, right in the middle of the cantonments and the native apartheid; the English counties he had discovered on the occasion of his family’s dismissal from the foreign service. At that point, he discovered greenery, foliage, flowers, country inns, Lordly manors, and the war with Holland, Samuel Pepys, English superstition, the Scotch, ghosts and London, (that great Leviathan.) (The references here are; ‘The Histories of Pliny the Elder; The Red Fort; The Vanishing Room; The Rent Collectors; Queens Anne’s Reign; The Nadger Plague; The Gold Plate Robbery; The Personal Narrative of Captain Ned Seagoon, RN: The Spectre of Tintagel; and any number of London based episodes; The Sinking of Westminster Pier; Wings Over Dagenham; The Great Statue Debate; The Treasure in the Tower. Etc) Consequently we must think of the goons as the literary children of James Joyce, Charlie Chaplin, Kipling, George Orwell and Pliny the elder, written by a historian, a social commentator, a poet, a comedian and a tragedian, almost the literary child of National Geographic, the Boy’s Own Annual of 1923 and early Disney, except ultimately with more sanity than any of these publications. But the real historical position of the Goon Show is Edwardian. This is not surprising as it was the decade of Milligan’s parents early years of marriage and family raising, it was the decade in which they set up in India as Sahib and Mem Sahib and practised amateur dramatics and theatrical concert parties for the other British nationals in Poona. It was the decade of ‘Great War’ in the shadow of Edward the VII’s death and the loss of colonial certainty. It was this upbringing that Milligan remembered the most in later decades; as he said in one of the war memoirs - the sights, smells and sounds of India were indelible, (as his war experiences in North Africa were to remind him), and were easily conjured up again by the heat, dust and flies, the pariah dogs and the natives, and the marching columns of occupying forces. The sight of Algerian farmers re-ploughing their field around the shell holes (which he observed as his regiment advanced into Algiers) is both a retrogressive picture to Milligan of his family's upbringing in India as survivors amongst a nation of survivors and a forward-ism of his own life, constructing sanity amongst the craters of the frontiers of his own insanity. His plots never stray far from frontiers, the frontiers of the Wild West - (Welcome to America, the land of plenty!), Africa, (Deep in the liver of Africa…Don’t you mean heart? No. It’s much deeper than that!) India, (In the Street of a thousand Households), China, (‘WE’RE GOING TO SEND A GUNBOAT!’) even outer space, the Sahara, the North/South poles and drug addiction feature in the plots, (The End), all versions of frontiers. The ultimate frontier of SCOTLAND was even eventually tackled. The percentage of shows which involve, or refer to frontiers is 86%. What was Milligan doing? His actual writing was doing the same thing. In tackling the frontier of laughter he created a comedic language I refer to as ‘sound-cartooning’, only for the reason that it has never been recognized as such, or acknowledged, and because of its individuality needs at least a name. The world of radio was its life-source, and because it was invented during the late 40’s to 50’s was superseded almost immediately by television, with it’s rigid adherence to visual forms and realities. Milligan instinctively honed his comedic portrayals of life, the universe and everything, to the realm of sound. Why? How did he know about this? What addiction to this medium taught him the language of this comedic writing through long hours of listening? I can’t find a place or time for this instruction. Like every teenager in the thirties and as a young man in the war years of the forties he heard the voice of the BBC with its stiff upper lip announcers, the Prime Ministers, the King’s Christmas messages, the calm reports of the blitz, the doom laden warnings of imminent invasion, the ‘Home Guard’ reminders of neighbourhood security; (Is your journey REALLY necessary? & ‘Put that light out!’) Through all this, this troubled, musical, listening lad was trying to find himself after a full and lively childhood lived in India. I think that the world of the radio was an odd sort of perspective-finder for Spike. Through this medium he tried, as a youngster, to sort out his suddenly upside-down world, a world where far off India and its cantonments, servants and smell of sandalwood funeral pyres was replaced by rain washed backstreets of middleclass poverty, whitewashed stoops, and the ever present parsimony of frugal nineteen-thirties Britain. I love his episodes set in these two contrasting places. The London episodes always have a distant fog-horn sounding through the gloomy damp of a September evening. Listen to the scene settings of ‘Forog’, ‘Dishonoured’, ‘The Moriarty Murder Mystery” and ‘Emperor of the Universe’. Much of his writing here is on a par with Dylan Thomas, even Matthew Arnold, in its beauteous use of evocative British impressionist writing. Even Evelyn Waugh never manages to approach Milligan’s sheer descriptive capability, though the two writers have much in common as regards their sense of black humour. Closest of all is George Orwell. His bleak and picturesque forms were even imitated by Milligan in the show ‘1985’ which after its first broadcast was judged so successful by the BBC that it had to re-broadcast the episode a few weeks later because of public demand. In the Indian episodes Milligan reverts to the quasi Hindu patois of his youth, using the hybrid language he must have used with his childhood Indian friends. His references to Charpoy, to dufta, to a Babu, Chotta peg, were all part of his style of creating a super real reality occupied by the super bizzare. This was his life's experience. Settings, scenery and life magnified in intensity to such a pitch that human existence inside it becomes extremely odd. (eg; Man Found Dead in Matchbox! [The Secret Espiotoire]; ) The next most evocative setting Milligan used was desert frontiers. India chief of all but subsequently the Sahara and Arizona. Odd that he liked these places. Odd that the gullies, Waddies and sand dunes brought out of him writing as evocative as his London episodes. Odd that they all deal with loneliness, violence and isolation (The Sahara Desert Statue) while the London episodes deal with delusion, greed and cold. (Forog) Both settings deal however with some form of madness. Allied with violence (in the desert episodes) and delusion (in the London episodes) it makes for an interesting contrast in settings, both physical and psychological. (To be continued...)
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