Show 37

"Harry Writes a Daytime Radio Serial"
The Goon Show episode
Episode: no.	Series: 2 Episode: 20
Written by	Spike Milligan Larry Stephens
Produced by	Dennis Main Wilson
Music	Robert Busby’s Revue Orchestra Max Geldray: Dinah The Goons 'Widecombe Fair Ellington Quartet: Stormy Weather I Feel So Smoochie 'Deed I Do
Editing by	Jimmy Grafton
Recording Number	SLO 9307
First broadcast	10 June 1952 (1952-06-10)

The series 2 shows didn't have 'official' episode names per se, but for ease of reference using the show number and Handsome Harry sketch name is to differentiate them.

The show had now changed its name from Crazy People to "The Goon Show, featuring those crazy people…"

Show 37 (aka Harry Writes a Daytime Radio Serial) is an episode from The Goon Show. It is the twentieth show in the second series.

The show recording session was on Sunday, 8 June 1952 at 9pm and was recorded at The Paris Cinema, 12 Lower Regent Street, Central London.

The first British public broadcast was on the Home Service on Tuesday, 10 June 1952 at 9.30pm (except Northern Ireland). It reached a peak listenership of 0.7m.

The show's repeat was broadcast the following Thursday at 7.30pm, 12 June 1952 on the Light Programme to an audience of 4.3 million listeners.

Sketches

• Harry tells Andrew that he is writing daytime radio serials like Mrs Dale's Diary.
• Michael Bentine and Brian Johnston deliver sports reports for the Whitsun Bank Holiday including the Five Timber Car Races and the World Chess Championship.
• Harry receives a visit from his agent, the Honourable Terence Blatt, who restyles him as a Peruvian Soprano.
• The Further Adventures of Dr Henry Crun in the Amazon Jungle chronicle the events of May 1881 when the expedition crosses the River Karpartee and arrives in the Spanish Mexican Town of San Itary.

Music

• Max Geldray played Dinah (Harry Akst (music)/Joe Young (lyrics)/Sam M. Lewis (lyrics)).
• The Goons sang Jimmy Grafton's parodies of Widecombe Fair (trad).
• The Ray Ellington Quartet (pays tribute to Lena Horne with) Stormy Weather (Ted Koehler/Harold Arlen) and I Feel So Smoochie (Phil Moore), 'Deed I Do (Walter Hirsch/Fred Rose).

Show Trivia

• The Head of BBC Variety was concerned about ineffectual endings to sketches and indistinct shows, feeling that ‘the cast have got somewhat out of control at the microphone, out of balance, and more than once out of audibility range. I do not expect them to perform within the dramatic limitations of [the daily Light Programme soap] Mrs Dale's Diary but I do expect them to give an exclusively microphone performance without pandering, as they frequently do, to the studio audience. If these tendencies are not arrested very quickly the show may well collapse like a pricked balloon.’
• Dennis replied to his boss’ earlier memo and noted that the start of the Goons not exclusively performing for the microphone coincided with their move to the Playhouse. This new venue was structured so that the laughter for a pay-off gag would be lost in the auditorium dome and not heard by the performer on stage. ‘It is for this reason that there has been an atmosphere of near-panic in the last Goon Shows,’ wrote Dennis, explaining that ‘the cast were convinced their material was falling flat … while in the control room the audience reaction was strong’. ‘When the Goon Show moves to the Paris Cinema on Sunday, I am sure that the show will get back to normal.’
• Michael Mills commented to BBC copyright on Wednesday 28 May that ‘I am using very little of the original material’ in his revised version of a script which was now entitled Goonreel. There was similar analysis of the team’s radio work in the Variety (Sound) Department. ‘I think the Goons are in danger of being submerged by the very qualities that have helped them to success, namely their own gusto and extreme eccentricity,’ wrote Michael Standing to Dennis Main Wilson on Thursday 29 May.
• Main Wilson agreed with Michael’s comments on the scripts and explained ‘there has been a rift between Milligan and Stephens who instead of working together on all four comedy spots, are now writing two apiece as solo efforts […] Milligan is an excellent gag and ideas man with little or no sense of pure wit, construction, line or situation. Stephens is a good situation and character writer […] but he has a weaker sense of purely gag comedy. Added to this, we lost quite a lot of headway on scripts when Milligan was away ill for two weeks some while ago.’ Dennis noted that he hoped to bring the two writers ‘to their senses’ shortly to resolve the ‘silly, childish situation’.

Technical

Originally recorded on SLO 9307. (33⅓ rpm, coarse-groove 16" disk recorded at Broadcasting House).