Entertainment
Have I got Spike for you! Private Eye’s Ian Hislop talks about his new play celebrating the genius of Spike Milligan-Ashley Davies-Entertainment – Metro
‘The way he was treated by officers… while he was suffering from shellshock, gave him a real edge’.
Ian Hislop (bottom right) and co-writer Nick Newman have brought the crazy life of Spike Milligan (top right) to the stage (Pictures: Pamela Raith Photography/Jamie Simpson/ATG/Shutterstock)
When The Goon Show burst onto BBC radio in 1951, listeners experienced something they’d not heard before.
Broadcast comedy entertainment up until that point had been dominated by variety shows, but all of a sudden young rebels had the microphones.
Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers, Harry Secombe and, initially, Michael Bentine introduced listeners to an anarchic world of crazy characters, vivid sound effects and the kind of satire that the Beeb would previously not have dared to broadcast.
Spike, the latest touring play from Private Eye editor Ian Hislop and his co-writer Nick Newman, aims to shine a light on the creative genius of Spike Milligan.
It’s set during what Ian describes as the ‘golden age’ of The Goon Show and, while the focus is on reminding audiences of how funny and unusual Spike was, it doesn’t shy away from his not insignificant mental health problems, many of which were brought on by his wartime experiences.
Ian got to know Spike when the Goons creator contributed to Private Eye (Picture: Jamie Simpson/ATG)
‘At one point we were going to call the play Milligan’s War,’ says the Have I Got News For You captain. ‘Essentially, he spent the war fighting against this buffoonish officer class in the army and then came out and found out they were in charge of the BBC as well.
The war continued and that was the original premise of that play, but we were very keen to write a celebration of his comic genius.’
‘Before he was blown up in World War Two, Spike’s attitude towards authority was bemused rather than critical,’ explains Nick.
Robert Wilfort (centre) as Milligan with the cast of Spike (Picture: Pamela Raith Photography)
‘The way he was treated by officers after that, and while he was suffering from shellshock, gave him a real edge.
‘He took this with him to the BBC and this is where a lot of the friction and conflict comes from.
‘It became apparent from reading all the correspondence we managed to get from the BBC that he was continually writing to the management complaining about this, that and the other.’
From left, Patrick Warner as Peter Sellers, Jeremy Lloyd as Harry Secombe and Robert Wilfort as Spike (Picture: Pamela Raith Photography)
Not all of his gripes were valid, but many were. One of the things he complained about was only getting paid half of what his co-stars were receiving.
BBC managers believed that because Peter Sellers was a film star, and Harry Secombe was an all-round entertainer, they should get more than he did, even though Spike was doing most of the writing.
Spike in later life (Picture: Shutterstock )
Spike Milligan’s headstone is inscribed in Gaelic – part of it reads ‘I told you I was ill!’ (Picture: Derek Shuff/Shutterstock)
This is not Ian and Nick’s first foray into comedy born out of wartime. Their acclaimed 2016 play, The Wipers Times, brought to life the titular newspaper created during the First World War.
The new play also guides us through some of the battles Spike, played here by Robert Wilfort, had to get his comedy vision onto the airwaves.
And it revels in the inventive use of sound effects on The Goon Show, with Radio 4 favourite Margaret Cabourn-Smith playing a fictionalised Foley artist developing funny noises live on stage.
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‘Something I hadn’t appreciated as a Goon Show fan is how satirical and subversive the shows were,’ says Ian.
‘They did an episode lampooning the coronation. The BBC thought this was treasonous and that he’d go to Traitors’ Gate, but it turned out the Royal Family were big fans and thought it was incredibly funny.’
Nick adds: ‘He was comic genius and has made millions and millions of people happy over the years. He probably infuriated a few hundred, too.’
When Ian took over editing Private Eye, Spike often contributed letters and cartoons. ‘He would ring up and shout, “Bloody BBC!” and you’d know who it was,’ Ian recalls. ‘He was getting more stroppy as the years went by.’
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And while that obstreperous character might be what sticks in people’s minds, Ian and Nick are determined to remind us of the talent behind Spike and pals’ rise to fame in strange times.
As Ian puts it: ‘These were three completely brilliant working-class young men, who came out of the army in the 1950s and thought, “How can we be funny?” and in three years the entire nation was saying, “Now, they’re funny.”’
Goons paved way for alternative comedy
When The Goon Show blazed on to the airwaves in 1951, its mixture of surreal wordplay, absurd humour and crazy sound effects helped to revolutionise British comedy.
Michael Bentine departed after two series but the other three, Harry Secombe, Spike Milligan and Peter Sellers, became beloved stars – a view, in Spike’s case, not always shared by the BBC.
Goons all! Secombe, Bentine, Milligan and Sellers (Picture: AJ Pics / Alamy Stock Photo)
Secombe, Sellers and Milligan, circa 1959 (Picture: Kobal/REX/Shutterstock)
The trio live at the BBC (Picture: Moviestore/REX/Shutterstock)
The Goon Show ended after ten series in 1960, returning for one last hurrah in 1972, but its anarchic comedy influence continued to be felt, from Monty Python’s Flying Circus, through to The Goodies, The Young Ones and The League Of Gentlemen.
Spike is at Hippodrome, Darlington until Saturday, and touring.
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