The Sahara Desert Statue

"The Sahara Desert Statue"
The Goon Show episode
Episode: no.	Series: 9 Episode: 1
Written by	Spike Milligan
Announcer	Wallace Greenslade
Produced by	John Browell
Music	Orchestra: Wally Stott Geldray: When I Grow Too Old to Dream Ellington: Razzle Dazzle
Recording Number	TLO 68887
First broadcast	3 November 1958 (1958-11-03)
Running time	33:10

The Sahara Desert Statue (in which the title isn't coherently announced) is an episode from The Goon Show. It is the first show in the ninth series. There was a pre-recording rehearsal show recorded (DLO 68888) at 4.15pm Wednesday 29 October 1958 at Aeolian Hall Studio 2, London. And then at 4pm on Sunday 2 November 1958 The Camden Theatre (DLO 68887/A).

The broadcast show itself was recorded at 8pm at The Camden Theatre on Sunday 2 November 1958 (TLO 68887.

The first British public broadcast was on the Home Service on Monday 3 November 1958 at 8.30pm. It reached a peak listenership of 1.1m. The show's first repeat on the Light Programme at 9.31pm Wednesday 5 November 1958 had a peak listenership of 2.3m.

Story

The Steam Count has been commissioned to do a statue of the Sahara Desert holding a rice pudding and Neddie has been chosen to pose as the desert. Overcoming his scruples on posing in the nude (the fat fee of Bank of England Cigarette Cards in the series of Criminal Footballers helped). Neddie agrees. Unknown to him, of course, the promoters of the scheme, Major Bloodnok and Grytpype-Thynne, have a wicked plan in mind — to see what effect an atomic bomb would have on a naked Welshman holding a rice pudding.

Music

• The BBC Orchestra was conducted by Wally Stott
• Max Geldray plays When I Grow Too Old to Dream (Henry Nemo)
• The Ray Ellington Quartet plays Razzle Dazzle (Sigmund Romberg (music) / Oscar Hammerstein II (lyrics))

Technical

Originally recorded on TLO 68887 (Agfa FR tape stock at 15 ips ¼" tape recorded at Broadcasting House). The tape survived in TS but was cut about in the making of the PotG issue, but the cuts were kept and later restored. TS recorded the show at the time and kept the tape, although the show did not appear in the TGS issues. The issue used on the Compendium Vol 10 was sourced from an unedited tape in the Bernie Andrews collection. It was also the source of the warm-up and unused material that appeared on CD7 of the Compendium Vol 10.