Dishonoured

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"Dishonoured"
The Goon Show episode
Episode no.Series 05
Episode 12
Written by
Presented byWallace Greenslade
Produced byPeter Eton
Music
  • Orchestra: Wally Stott
  • Geldray: A Sky-Blue Shirt and a Rainbow Tie
  • Ellington: Pam-Poo-Dey
Production codeTLO 68149
Original air date12 December 1954 (1954-12-12)
Running time30 mins 40 secs
Episode Order
← Previous
"The Spanish Suitcase"
Next →
"Forog"
List of episodes

Dishonoured (or The Fall of Neddie Seagoon) is an episode from The Goon Show. It is the twelfth show in series 5. It was recorded on Sunday 12 December 1954 at 9.30pm. It was recorded at The Camden Theatre, London.

The first Home Service broadcast was on Tuesday 14 December 1954 at 8.30pm. It attracted a peak listenership of 3.0m listeners.

Technical

Originally recorded on TLO 68149 (15 ips ¼" tape recorded at Broadcasting House). This tape survived at TS until the 1970 purge where it was wiped. A future-seeing BBC TS engineer unofficially created a 7½ ips copy before the original TLO tape was wiped. In 1986 this unoffical copy was discovered in a cupboard in TS and was used to create the version included on Compendium Vol 1.

Story

Young Ned, driven to distraction by the hum-drum life at the bank where he works, decides to abscond with the contents of the strong-room. One night, without so much as saying goodbye to Mrs Seagonn and with his pockets bulging with notes, he joins a banana boat sailing for the blue Mediterranean. But Neddie, unused to sudden wealth, begins to lose heavily to the purser at Snap until, in desperation, unable to pay his bar bill, he dives overboard and swims to India. There he joins the army and, continuing in the path of degradation, he sells military secrets to the Waziri tribesmen. And then, falling further into the abyss of shame, he becomes the confidant of the notorious scourge of the North-West Frontier — 'The Red Bladder' — until, finally, in the foothills of the Himalayas, he meets his tragic end.