Ill Met by Goonlight

"Ill Met by Goonlight"
The Goon Show episode
Episode: no.	Series: 7 Episode: 23
Written by	Spike Milligan
Announcer	Wallace Greenslade
Produced by	Pat Dixon
Music	Orchestra: Wally Stott Ellington: Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea Geldray: Basin Street Blues
Recording Number	TLO 24461
First broadcast	14 March 1957 (1957-03-14)
Running time	31:53

Ill Met by Goonlight is an episode from The Goon Show. It is the fifteenth show in the seventh series.

A pre-recording session took place Sunday 17 February 1957, 5pm. at The Camden Theatre, Camden Town, London (DLO 25010). The recording for transmission was created later that same Sunday, also at The Camden, at 9pm (TLO 22507).

The first Home Service broadcast was the following Thursday at 8.30pm 3 January 1957, its ratings were 2.6 million.

The show was repeated:

• Wednesday 9.31pm, 17 December 1958, on the Light Programme to 2.3 million listeners.
• Friday 9.30pm, 6 March 1964 on the Home Service in Vintage Goons, to 0.5 million listeners.
• Friday 9.30pm, 20 August 1965 on the Home Service in Let's Laugh Again, to 0.2 million listeners (the broadcast was affected by a fault on the reproduction equipment).

Transcription Service Synopsis

'To open the scene, take a knife and cut along the dotted line. Inside you will find the Great North Road in an icy blizzard.' This is how Spike Milligan describes the setting for the start of the latest unexpurgated edition of Seagoon's memoirs. Listeners can, in fact, buy a copy (in a plain sealed envelope) at any local Second Class Slipper Bath.

Music

• The BBC Radio Orchestra was conducted by Wally Stott
• Max Geldray plays I Kiss Your Little Hand, Madame (Ralph Erwin (music) / Fritz Rotter (lyrics))
• The Ray Ellington Quartet plays The Late Late Show (Murray Berlin (music) / Roy Alfred (lyrics))

Technical

Originally recorded on TLO 72138 (15 ips ¼" tape recorded at Broadcasting House).

The TLO 72138 master tape no longer exists, and the version of the show included on The Goon Show Compendium Vol 6 was compiled from the TGS disc, the POTG master tape and domestic recordings of both the original transmission and the 1964 repeat.

Show Notes

• Ill Met by Goonlight, a script written by Spike alone which sent up the newly released wartime movie Ill Met by Moonlight starring Dirk Bogarde and based on a true commando mission to capture a German general in Crete.

• This show required the sound effect of a sackful of spaghetti being flung at someone, and – striving for authenticity – Spike couldn't capture exactly the noise he wanted. In desperation, he asked the BBC canteen to cook him some spaghetti, took his sock off, poured the spaghetti in, took it down to the studio and recorded it… only to find it still didn't sound right.

• The show also saw the debut of a character referred to as Cyril based on a Jewish impresario acquaintance of Peter's (‘I seen 'im! I seen 'im!’).