The Archers (The Goon Show)

"The Archers"
The Goon Show episode
Episode: no.	Series: 3 Episode: 6
Written by	Spike Milligan Larry Stephens
Announcer	Andrew Timothy
Produced by	Peter Eton
Music	Orchestra Conductor: Wally Stott Geldray: Slow Train Blues Ellington: Five Guys Named Moe
Editing by	Jimmy Grafton
Recording Number	SLO 19414
First broadcast	16 December 1952 (1952-12-16)

The Archers (aka Show 48) is an episode from The Goon Show. It is the sixth show in the third series. The show was recorded at 9.30pm on Sunday 1952-12-14 December 1952 The recording took place at Piccadilly I, 16 Denman Street, London.

The first British public broadcast was on the Home Service on Tuesday 16 December 1952 at 9.30pm. It reached a peak listenership of 2.2m. Its first repeat was on the Light Programme at 4.30pm on Sunday 21 December 1952 increased the peak listernship to 5.1m. Due to illness, Milligan was absent from this episode.

Sketches

Crun may have crossed his wires

• Handsome Harry Secombe is directed by Moriarty to fly to Algiers on the Peter Sellers Private Plane Service to collect contraband cigarettes.
• The Archers changes style significantly when the script is taken over by writers more used to crafting American PI drama, horror tales and BBC comedy.
• March of Science: The Hydrogen Bomb sees the government employing Henry Begongegroin Crun to work on the deadly atomic device.

Music

• Max Geldray plays Slow Train Blues (Bob Anthony).
• The Ray Ellington Quartet plays Five Guys Named Moe (Jerry Bresler (music) / Larry Wynn (lyrics)).

Show Trivia

• At the start of December, the strain became too much for Spike. He was exhausted from writing and performing, June (his wife) had been in terrible pain with a breast abscess, and Laura (his newly born daughter) had been ill from shortly after her birth. In addition, Peter Eton was asking for early delivery on scripts, and Peter Sellers wanted to drop by at all hours to discuss ideas with his friend. Spike began to hallucinate. Taking a potato knife, he made his way to Peter’s flat, later explaining: ‘I was so mad that I thought that if I killed Peter it would all come right. I think I just wanted them to lock me up. I was totally demented. Poor Peter hadn’t done anything.’
• Spike was hospitalized for a few weeks in Muswell Hill. Strait-jacketed and in isolation, within days he wanted to be back at work writing The Goon Show – which he saw as his only means of supporting his wife and daughter. His therapists however wanted him to rest and he was given sedatives, with the doctors and nurses taking pencils away from him to enforce rest.

Technical

Originally recorded on SLO 19414 (33⅓ rpm, coarse-groove 16" disk recorded at Broadcasting House).