Shifting Sands
| "Shifting Sands" | |
|---|---|
| The Goon Show episode | |
| Episode: no. | Series: 7 Episode: 17 |
| Written by | |
| Announcer | Wallace Greenslade |
| Produced by | Pat Dixon |
| Music |
|
| Recording Number | TLO 21509 |
| First broadcast | 24 January 1957 |
| Running time | 31:23 |
| Guest appearance | |
| Jack Train | |
Shifting Sands is an episode from The Goon Show. It is the seventeenth show in the seventh series and featured as a guest, Jack Train as Colonel Chinstrap.
A pre-recording session took place Sunday 20 January 1957, 5pm. at The Camden Theatre, Camden Town, London (DLO 21509/A). The recording for transmission was created later that same Sunday, also at The Camden, at 9pm (TLO 21509).
The first Home Service broadcast was the following Thursday at 8.30pm 27 January 1957, its ratings were 1.5 million.
The show was repeated:
- Monday 8pm, 28 January 1957, on the Light Programme to 3.6 million listeners.
- Saturday 8pm, 5 September 1970 on the Radio 4 in Vintage Goons, to 0.6 million listeners.
Transcription Service Synopsis
One of Britain's far-flung outposts is in danger. Only one man can restore the situation - Lieutenant Harry Seagoon, who leaves post-haste for the besieged Fort Thud (close to the frontier of Waziristan) with the plans of a Union Jack in his pocket. But the Fort has been built on shifting sands and is travelling north at the rate of twenty miles a day. What happens when it crosses the frontier into Waziristan is revealed in this gripping episode of turmoil in one of the outposts of the British Empire.
Music
- The BBC Radio Orchestra was conducted by Wally Stott
- Max Geldray plays Isn't This a Lovely Day? (Irving Berlin)
- The Ray Ellington Quartet plays All of You (Cole Porter) / All of Me (Seymour Simons / Gerald Marks)
Technical
Originally recorded on TLO 21509 (15 ips ¼" tape recorded at Broadcasting House).The programme was preserved in Sound Archives on T32818 and the version of the show included on The Goon Show Compendium Vol 6 has been mastered from a DAT copy of the shelf tape made in 1990.[1]
Show Notes
The show was complete with gags about the newly released historical drama film Anastasia, plus references to Hughie Green's game show Double Your Money and the western series ‘for adults’ The life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, then running on commercial television.
Notes on Chinstrap
- At the start of January 1957, Milligan and Stephens wrote Shifting Sands, which featured the character of the dipsomaniac Colonel Humphrey Chinstrap (‘I don't mind if I do’) who had originated in the earlier BBC radio comedy ITMA in 1942, and had subsequently appeared in the 1950 series The Great Gilhooly. Pat Dixon requested special permission to hire Jack Train – who had played Chinstrap in ITMA – to take part in the recording at the end of the month.
- Roger Wilmut's notes in The Goon Show Companion says: "It is interesting that the character, although from a different show from a decade earlier, fits into the Goon Show framework with no sense of strain".
References
- ^ Kendall, Ted (2012). The Goon Show Compendium Vol 6 (Booklet 2). BBC Worldwide. p. 13. ISBN 978-1408-468548.
