The Nadger Plague

"The Nadger Plague"
The Goon Show episode
Episode: no.	Series: 7 Episode: 3
Written by	Spike Milligan Larry Stephens
Announcer	Wallace Greenslade
Produced by	Pat Dixon
Music	Orchestra: Wally Stott Geldray: Two O'Clock Jump Ellington: Green Door
Recording Number	TLO 14585
First broadcast	18 October 1956 (1956-10-18)
Running time	31:25

The Seagoon Memoirs is an episode from The Goon Show. It is the seventh show in the ninth series.

Pre-recording: Sunday 7 October 1956, 5pm,Aeolian I. DLO 14297. Recording: Sunday 7 October 1956, 9pm,Aeolian I.TLO 11799. First Home Service Broadcast: Thursday 11 October 1956, 8.30pm. Ratings: 2.3 million.Repeats: Monday 15 October 1956, 8pm, 4.5 million [Light Programme];Friday 31 January 1975,6.15pm, 1.0 million, RI: 74 [Radio 4 (except Scotland and Wales) in Encore the Goons]; Saturday 2 May 1992, 1.02pm [Radio 2 in Comedy Hour: the Radio 2 Comedy Season] Tronscription Service Reissue Synopsis:The Hon. Nedward Seagoon, last heard off the coast oflreland, learns from his solicitors, Messrs. McRed Hairy McLegs, that he has inherited £1,000,000. He establishes his identity with the solicitors, but in order to claim his inheritance he must become a Peruvian. His quest leads him to South America, where he attempts to prove amongst other things that all Peruvians are Welsh. Unfortunately Neddie discovers that the man who left him the money - Baron Seagoon - is not dead, but had merely overslept. Music: Max Geldray plays Mountain Greenery (Richard Rodgers/Lorenz Hart); The Ray Ellington Quartet plays Giddy-Up a Ding Dong (Freddie Bell/Joey Lattanzi).

Two pre-recording sessions took place:

• Wednesday 28 January 1959, 4.15pm/5.15pm. Aeolian Hall Studio 2 (TLO & C/DLO 76382, TLO 77924)
• Saturday 1 February 1959, 5.45pm, The Paris Cinema (DLO 76513/A)

The recording for transmission was created at 8pm on Sunday 14 December 1958, at The Camden Theatre, Camden Town, London (TLO 72138).

The first Home Service broadcast was the next day at 8.30pm on Monday 15 December 1958, its ratings were 1.1 million.

The show was repeated:

• Wednesday 9.31pm, 17 December 1958, on the Light Programme to 2.3 million listeners.
• Friday 9.30pm, 6 March 1964 on the Home Service in Vintage Goons, to 0.5 million listeners.
• Friday 9.30pm, 20 August 1965 on the Home Service in Let's Laugh Again, to 0.2 million listeners (the broadcast was affected by a fault on the reproduction equipment).

Transcription Service Synopsis

'To open the scene, take a knife and cut along the dotted line. Inside you will find the Great North Road in an icy blizzard.' This is how Spike Milligan describes the setting for the start of the latest unexpurgated edition of Seagoon's memoirs. Listeners can, in fact, buy a copy (in a plain sealed envelope) at any local Second Class Slipper Bath.

Music

• The BBC Radio Orchestra was conducted by Wally Stott
• Max Geldray plays I Kiss Your Little Hand, Madame (Ralph Erwin (music) / Fritz Rotter (lyrics))
• The Ray Ellington Quartet plays The Late Late Show (Murray Berlin (music) / Roy Alfred (lyrics))

Technical

Originally recorded on TLO 72138 (15 ips ¼" tape recorded at Broadcasting House).

The TLO 72138 master tape no longer exists, and the version of the show included on The Goon Show Compendium Vol 10 was compiled from the TGS disc, the POTG master tape and domestic recordings of both the original transmission and the 1964 repeat.

Originally recorded on TLO 14585. This tape no longer exists, and the master tape of the TGS issue was destroyed in 1963.This issue has therefore been compiled lrom the TGS disc and a domestic recording ol the original transmission.