The Man Who Never Was

"The Man Who Never Was"
The Goon Show episode
Episode: no.	Series: 3 Episode: 20
Written by	Spike Milligan Larry Stephens
Announcer	Andrew Timothy
Produced by	Peter Eton
Music	Orchestra: Wally Stott Geldray: Lady is a Tramp Ellington: My Mother’s Eyes / Hurry on Down
Editing by	Jimmy Grafton
Recording Number	TLO 52769
First broadcast	31 March 1953 (1953-03-31)

The Man Who Never Was is an episode from The Goon Show. It is the twentieth show in the third series. The show was recorded at 9.30pm on Sunday 22 March 1953 The recording took place at The King’s Theatre, Haymarket, London.

The first British public broadcast was originally scheduled to be on the Home Service on Tuesday 24 March 1953 at 9.30pm. However the nation was in a state of mourning after the death of Queen Mary, as such the show was replaced by recordings of sombre orchestral music. The show was eventually broadcast a week later on Tuesday 31 March 1953 at 9.35pm (except the Midlands). It reached a peak listenership of 2.2m. The show's scheduled repeat slot of Sunday 29 March 1953 at 1.45pm was also replaced with a revised schedule due to Queen Mary's death, however, in this case the replacement was a broadcast of the state funeral. The repeat on the Light Programme was also broadcast a week later on Sunday 5 April 1953 at 1.45pm to a Goon Show ratings record of 6.6m listeners.

The show starred Harry Secombe, Peter Sellers, Spike Milligan, Max Geldray, the Ray Ellington Quartet with Wally Stott and the BBC Dance Orchestra. The show was produced by Peter Eton and was announced by Andrew Timothy.

Sketches

• Moriarty phones Harry and has him report to the British Embassy to act as a bodyguard for Marshalls Goonces while he is visiting London;
• The Man Who Never Was tells the best kept secret of the war as Lord Hairy Seagoon, Major Bloodnok and Mr Crum work on a plan to fool the Germans with fake plans as part of Operation Baldock in April 1944.

Music

• Max Geldray plays Lady is a Tramp (Richard Rodgers (music) / Lorenz Hart)
• The Ray Ellington Quartet plays My Mother’s Eyes (Abel Baer / Wolfe Gilbert), Hurry on Down (Nellie Lutcher)

Technical

Originally recorded on SLO 24764 (33⅓ rpm, coarse-groove 16" disk recorded at Broadcasting House).

Show Notes

• The Sunday recording was not broadcast as planned. During Tuesday 24 March, Queen Mary died and the output of the Home Service was devoted to sombre orchestral music for the evening. This now placed the series in advance of transmission, and on Friday 27 Peter Eton planned ahead, confirming that the performance on Sunday 12 April would be at 8.30pm back at the Aeolian. Although the previous show had not aired, the next one was recorded at King’s as usual on Sunday 29 – albeit with no fixed transmission date. This script was somewhat rushed, drawing upon sketches from early editions of the previous series and substituting Pureheart with Crun in a tale about the Suez Canal. Earlier that day, the scheduled repeat of The Goon Show had again been pre-empted by the funeral of Queen Mary which was carried on all stations.

• On Tuesday 2 April, the cast were informed that the period of national mourning meant that they were now a show in hand – as such, the problematic recording scheduled for Sunday 12 April was being cancelled, but they would be paid anyway. Spike was also offered a contract to appear in six more editions through to the start of May.

• On Monday 9 March, Roy Speer noted that it was desirable to make six more editions of Educating Archie, recording one on Sunday 5 April and two on Sunday 12 April. The second of the two shows on Sunday 12 would share the audience with The Goon Show, indicating that this could take place at King’s so that they could use Wally Stott’s band… and so avoid Harry having to dash between studios.