Show 35

"Handsome Harry Secombe Hunted by a Gang"
The Goon Show episode
Episode: no.	Series: 2 Episode: 18
Written by	Spike Milligan Larry Stephens
Produced by	Dennis Main Wilson
Music	Stanley Black and The BBC Dance Orchestra Max Geldray: When I Take My Sugar to Tea Ellington Quartet: Ain't Misbehavin' It’s a Sin to Tell a Lie The Goons We Saw the Sea
Editing by	Jimmy Grafton
Recording Number	SLO 8179
First broadcast	27 May 1952 (1952-05-27)

The series 2 shows didn't have 'official' episode names per se, but for ease of reference using the show number and Handsome Harry sketch name is to differentiate them.

The show had now changed its name from Crazy People to "The Goon Show, featuring those crazy people…"

Show 35 (aka Handsome Harry Secombe Hunted by a Gang) is an episode from The Goon Show. It is the eighteenth show in the second series.

The show recording session was on Sunday, 25 May 1952 at 9pm and was recorded at The Playhouse Theatre, Northumberland Avenue, Central London.

The first British public broadcast was on the Home Service on Tuesday, 27 May 1952 at 9.30pm (except Northern Ireland). It reached a peak listenership of 1.5m.

The show's repeat was broadcast the following Thursday at 7.30pm, 29 May 1952 on the Light Programme to an audience of 4.4 million listeners.

Sketches

• Handsome Harry Secombe hunted by Gang: In which Harry tells Tim how he called upon Inspector Thud for help when he was hunted by a group of sound effects men on a radio play.
• Captain Pureheart photographs Ghosts: Features Pureheart leaving a conference of photographic experts to get a shot of the family ghost at Henry Crun’s castle.
• Manoeuvres': Includes commentary from Peter Sellers and Michael Bentine about the annual exercises of Great Britain’s armed forces on Goonsbury Plain.
• Napoleon’s hours before Waterloo’ focuses on when Napoleon and Marshall Le Bloodnok received news of Nelson destroying the French fleet.

Music

• Max Geldray played When I Take My Sugar to Tea (Sammy Fain/Irving Kahal/Pierre Norman).
• The Ray Ellington Quartet (pays tribute to Fats Waller with) Ain't Misbehavin' (song) (Fats Waller/Harry Brooks/Andy Razaf) and It’s a Sin to Tell a Lie (Billy Mayhew).
• The Goons sing We Saw the Sea (Irving Berlin).

Show Trivia

This show saw the return of one of Bloodnok’s ancestors in the closing sketch, and also the first pairing of the ‘Miss Bannister’ character with Crun (now named Henry) when Pureheart was informed that they were man and wife.

Technical

Originally recorded on SLO 8179. (33⅓ rpm, coarse-groove 16" disk recorded at Broadcasting House).