on the show. However, these topical inserts are useful for placing the Goon Show in its 50's context.

Snagge appeals to Greenslade's sense of fair play - "Remember you are British! Aren't you happy with us? Man alive! Isn't £3.10s a week enough? And a free copy of the Radio Times…" To clinch the deal he is empowered to offer £4.0.0 a week. (When one remembers Spike's salary for writing and appearing in the show at first was about £18.0.0 a week, this part of the script can't be that far-fetched).  It is to no avail and Wallace is soon topping the bill at the Palladium with his stage act. (I wonder what is was?)
 
Enter Lew, Greenslade's agent and another of Peter's great voices. As it is at the expense of Jewish agents in general, Sellers is partly mocking his own origins. The weak joke about Lew's father being a Duke appears here for no apparent reason, other than to fill a couple of lines of dialogue. We feel here that Spike is beginning to lose direction with the script. Min' and Hen' are introduced here as a couple of autograph hunters, fairly inconsequentially, and Ray Ellington intervenes to prevent things grinding to a halt.

The final part of the show has us at the Palladium, Star Dressing-Room, with Greenslade enjoying a black Russian cigarette. Lew re-appears, in a terrible state: he is ruined because the audience has departed. It is nearly nine and everybody's gone to hear - yes - "Winds light to variable" by Eccles. The tables are turned; Wallace is out of a job and reduced to busking.

Eccles the new Star arrives by taxi. Lew seems to have Eccles on his books as well (he seems a very active agent), "Eccles schmeckles, my lovely boy, you're going to make a lot of money for me." However, the euphoria doesn't last long, as once again the audience disappears, deserting the live theatre for the steam radio, but this time the announcer is……… Bluebottle,   with the news.

Thus ends a happy show, one which is very down to earth with no surrealism, neatly constructed, and giving a breather to our old favourites, Bluebottle, Bloodnok, Minnie and Crun, who make only token appearances.

Mike Coveney
GSPS Founder

The four cartoon drawings used to illustrate this article are taken from newsletter no: 63 and  are Copyright   © Tim Leatherbarrow.

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