The Invisible Acrobat
| "The Invisible Acrobat" | |
|---|---|
| The Goon Show episode | |
| Episode: no. | Series: 4 Episode: 28 |
| Written by | Spike Milligan |
| Announcer | Wallace Greenslade |
| Produced by | Peter Eton |
| Music |
|
| Recording Number | TLO 52346 |
| First broadcast | 5 April 1954 |
The Invisible Acrobat (announced as Bulletto) is an episode from The Goon Show. It is the twenty-eighth show in the fourth series. A pre-recording show started at 7.45pm on Sunday 28 March 1954 (TLO 52346a). The show that was broadcast was recorded at a performance on Sunday 4 April 1954 at 9pm. Both the pre-recording show and the recorded show took place at the Camden Theatre, Camden Town, London.
The first British public broadcast was on the Home Service on Monday 5 April 1954 at 8.30pm. It reached a peak listenership of 1.9m.
The show's first repeat was at 1.10pm, Monday 10 May 1954, on the Home Service. It was listened to by 1.5 million.
No publically available recording is known to exist as of 10 November 2024.
BBC Audio Synopsis
The circus of Bogg and Crun opens at Boulton… but is the faced with closure when Bulletto, the human cannonball, is injured tripping over a cigarette. Hairy Seagoon embarks on a worldwide tour to find new acts, encountering wild animal trainer Major Bloodnok up the Zambezi, the underwater soprano Princess Minnihaha of the Harfanikker Tribe, the nomad mind-readers Parloss and Malina, and finally books an invisible Mongolian acrobat captured by Bloodnok.
Music
- The BBC Radio Orchestra was conducted by Wally Stott
- Max Geldray plays When You're Smiling (Mark Fisher / Joe Goodwin / Larry Shay)
- The Ray Ellington Quartet plays Any Old Iron (Charles Collins / Fred E Terry / EA Sheppard) (pre-recorded)
Technical
Originally recorded on TLO 52346 (Agfa FR tape stock at 15 ips ¼" tape recorded at Broadcasting House).[1]
References
- ^ Kendall, Ted (2018). The Goon Show Compendium Vol 14 (Booklet 2). BBC Worldwide. p. 19. ISBN 978-1-7875-3266-3.
