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 Spike
Milligan died yesterday aged 83. He was one of four young men who
created a radio show called The Goon Show for the BBC immediately
after World War II.
This simple statement describes a man who essentially transformed
British comedy: the distant ripples from this are even now affecting
comedy in the United States, but distant ripple describes it. Milligan
played with words: one of his fans was Prince Charles, who commented
in a statement released on his death of his "genius for the art
of the nonsensical unexpected". Others have used the word 'surrealist'
to describe his approach.
He largely wrote The Goon Show, and played many of the loonier
characters. It is interesting that the art of the creative non sequitur
is easy in radio, just because there is no picture: achieving the
same result on television is possible only by the sort of devices
that Monty Python's Flying Circus used to, in effect, destroy
the visual image's continuity. Spike rode the thin edge between
inspired creativity and insanity all his life: he suffered shell
shock during the war, and was hospitalized frequently with what
was described as manic depression. In his later years he appeared
often on television talk shows, frequently looking vaguely puzzled
as to what he was doing there; but every so often finding the opportunity
to puncture pomposity.
The Goon Shows were required listening for a post war generation
with not a lot to feel good about. They helped us more than they
knew, and produced a characteristic slant to English wit in everyday
conversation that depends on a real feeling for the subtlety of
words, and for the true destructiveness of pointing out the alternative
interpretations available for the speech of those careless in the
way they choose them. Now would seem to be an excellent time to
use again the epées that Spike bequeathed to us!
I must go down to the sea again, to the lonely sea and the sky:
I left my vest and socks there - I wonder if they're dry?
Find
Out More:
Check out some
of his poems here.
Check
out Q, Spike's TV show (yes, it pre-dates Python!).
Here's a Goon
Show site with plenty of sounds for the uninitiated.
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