GOON SHOW: TLO 45270
8TH SERIES: No 14
BROADCAST: 30 Dec 1957
Script by Spike Milligan and
Larry Stephens
GREENSLADE: We present those
friends of royalty, The Goons.
GRAMS:
(Recording) Regal fanfare. Stops
suddenly.
ORCHESTRA: Tatty chord.
SEAGOON: Yes folks. And now
it’s time for ME!
GRAMS:
Cheers, applause.
SEAGOON: Stop! Stop!
GRAMS:
Cheers, applause suddenly stop.
GREENSLADE: This week our story
is set in the year 1914.
ORCHESTRA: Dramatic intro.
Sellers: The German colony
in
PLUCK: Yes. My name is
Terence Pluck, M.O. I and my unit had been captured on the first day of the
hostilities. We were all marched to a German prison camp five hundred miles two
inches deep in the heart of the jungle. It was a comfortable camp and we were
well treated. Trouble started the day a new batch of English type prisoners
were brought in.
GRAMS:
Battalion marching double time.
MAJOR
SPON:
(As Alec Guiness) Keep up men. Don’t
lag. Feet in line with the seats of the underpants.
SEAGOON: That was Major
Spon, B.O.
MAJOR
SPON:
And that was Captain Seagoon our C.O. A brilliant soldier. When the Germans attacked
SEAGOON: Yes. Rather than
surrender we gave ourselves up.
MAJOR
SPON:
And so we marched into the naughty German prison camp.
GRAMS: Battalion slow marching. Continue under.
MAJOR
SPON:
That’s it men. Show them we’re still soldiers. Left, left, left left left…Um,
what’s next?
SEAGOON: Right.
MAJOR
SPON:
Right. Company halt!
GRAMS:
Recording of marching grinds to a halt.
PLUCK: Gad! What
discipline I thought.
SEAGOON: Eyes front!
MAJOR
SPON:
Eyes are always at the front Mr Seagoon.
SEAGOON: Here comes the
German camp commandant, and what luck sir, look, he’s shorter than I am!
COMMANDANT: This camp will try
to keep you occupied until the war is over. Tomorrow you will all start work on
a railway bridge over the river Kapatee.
MAJOR
SPON:
Did you say work?
COMMANDANT: Ja.
MAJOR
SPON:
But we’re English.
COMMANDANT: Makes nein the
difference. You must work.
MAJOR
SPON:
My dear fellow, according to article three etcetera etcetera of the Geneva
convention it states categorically that officers must not work.
COMMANDANT: You refuse?
MAJOR
SPON:
Yes.
COMMANDANT: Then you will be
shot!
MAJOR
SPON:
Ah well then, that’s much more reasonable.
SEAGOON: Major, I’d rather
work than die.
MAJOR
SPON:
You know what you’re saying?
SEAGOON: Yes. I speak the
same language. Ahhh! They’re pointing a machine gun at us.
MAJOR
SPON:
How rude. Pretend we haven’t seen them.
COMMANDANT: I will count up to
one then I will fire. A quarter, half, three quarters, four fifths…
SEAGOON: If you kill us
we’ll refuse to stand up.
COMMANDANT: Very well. I change
my mind. But I’ll also make you change yours. (Gives orders in german.)
GRAMS:
Shouting of troops.
SEAGOON: We were forced into a corrugated iron hut, one foot tall by three inches wide.
MAJOR
SPON:
No food, no water and the temperature inside was 130 degrees in the shade.
FX: Banging on door.
SEAGOON: Let me out! I can’t stand it any longer. We’ll die. No water, no food! I can’t stand it. Let me out you devils. Ahahahahaha!
MAJOR
SPON:
Steady! Steady! We’ve only been in here thirty seconds.
SEAGOON: There’s a limit to
what a man can stand.
FX: Door opens.
MAJOR
SPON:
Who the devil are you?
PLUCK: It’s alright, you
can put your hands down. I’m British.
MAJOR
SPON:
So are we. You can put your hands down.
PLUCK: Thank you. I am
Lieutenant Pluck. I’m the
GRAMS:
Massed male cheering.
SEAGOON: For the next three
weeks the officers did nothing but gad, we did it magnificently. We did it
magnificently folks! Hello folks!
GRAMS:
Night sounds. Frogs, crickets etc.
GREENSLADE: It wasn’t long
before escape committees were organised.
MAJOR
SPON:
Now gentlemen, before we start are there any questions?
ECCLES: Yer. I want to know
how I became a Field Marshal.
MAJOR
SPON:
Wouldn’t we all. Now, I’ve studied the jungle around this camp and I find it’s
impenetrable.
SEAGOON: One of the men is
determined to escape sir.
MAJOR
SPON:
Escape from this place? Is he mad?
SEAGOON: He has a
certificate.
MAJOR
SPON:
It means certain death.
SEAGOON: Yes. It’s a death certificate.
MAJOR
SPON:
No. I won’t agree to it. He’ll die out there. Die for sure. Who is he?
ECCLES: Er, me.
MAJOR
SPON:
Goodbye and good luck to you.
SEAGOON: Well said sir. It’s
the duty of every English soldier to try and escape. I’ve done it myself twice.
MAJOR
SPON:
Where from?
SEAGOON:
ORCHESTRA: Dramatic chords.
GRAMS:
Night sounds continue.
OMNES: Massed military snoring.
SEAGOON: Pssst. Doc! Doc!
Are you awake?
PLUCK: Yes. That’s why I’m
standing up.
SEAGOON: What’s the time?
PLUCK: Let’s have a look
at your wristwatch. Ah, it’s nearly midnight.
SEAGOON: By dawn I should be
well clear of the camp.
PLUCK: Ah, good. Now
listen. If ever you get to the stage that there’s no hope, swallow this little
black capsule.
SEAGOON: What…what is it?
PLUCK: Concentrated
liquorish. It gives a man something.
SEAGOON: Thanks doc. And
here to take my place is prisoner Max Geldray.
ORCHESTRA: Dramatic link
GREENSLADE: Hello folks. Take
your seat for part two of the wireless play ‘African Incident’. Long live the
miracle of sound wireless broadcasting.
GRAMS:
Many boots approaching at speed.
MAJOR
SPON:
Gather round chaps. I’m glad to say that we seemed to have scored a moral
victory.
SEAGOON: Oh, good show.
MAJOR
SPON:
The German Commandant has asked me to take charge of this bridge over the
river.
SEAGOON: Jolly good news
sir.
MAJOR
SPON:
Oh. I thought you’d escaped.
SEAGOON: I did, but I came back
for lunch.
MAJOR
SPON:
Jolly good. Then you can help. Just stand in this hole and read these
statistics on the river.
SEAGOON: Well sir, the river
is two thousand miles long.
MAJOR
SPON:
Two thousand miles. How wide?
SEAGOON: Three yards.
MAJOR
SPON:
Well that settles it. We’ll build the bridge across it. General, when is this
bridge supposed to be completed?
COMMANDANT: It must be finished
by April the first.
MAJOR
SPON:
What’s the date today?
SEAGOON: April the
fourteenth.
MAJOR
SPON: So it’s not going to be easy is it? If we
wait for April the first to come round again it will be over a year.
SEAGOON: Well, let’s work
backwards. Then it’s only a fortnight away.
MAJOR
SPON:
That’s a very good idea. Field Marshal Eccles, have you any knowledge of trees?
ECCLES: I was born in one.
MAJOR
SPON:
Good, good. Well, see those wooden ones on the opposite bank?
ECCLES: Um, oh yer, yer.
MAJOR
SPON:
Do you think you could chop them down?
ECCLES: Um, not from here.
FX: Clubbing.
ECCLES: Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow!
ORCHESTRA: Dramatic link.
GRAMS:
Night sounds. Crickets, frogs etc.
SEAGOON: That night I made
my second attempt to escape and succeeded in walking a thousand miles and
swimming the
SELLERS: Then suddenly
Lieutenant Seagoon was summoned to British Hind Quarters at
ORCHESTRA: Bloodnok theme, fast.
FX: Door opens
SEAGOON: Lieutenant Seagoon
reporting from the front sir.
BLOODNOK: Pull up a chair man
and sit down.
SEAGOON: I’d rather stand.
BLOODNOK: Well stand in a
chair then. We respect these old Welsh idiot customs you know. Now, this man in
the shredded vest is our French A.D.C. Count Moriarty, ex-actor and has played
the male lead in over fifty postcards.
MORIARTY: Ah, mon pleasure
mon ami, mon pleasure.
BLOODNOK: Yes, yes. We want
you to take a raiding party and destroy that bridge they’re building. Boom,
boom, boom. Crash, thud, bang. Um…bang, bang, boom, thud, crash. One of those
combinations should prove fatal.
SEAGOON: I’ve only just
escaped from the place. It’s too dangerous. Apart from which I’m a married man.
BLOODNOK: I’m ordering you to
go.
SEAGOON: Can’t I see my wife
before I go?
BLOODNOK: No.
SEAGOON: But I love her.
BLOODNOK: So do I! That’s why
I’m sending you.
SEAGOON: Alright. I’ll go.
But one last favour. If I don’t come back could you give this to my father?
BLOODNOK: Oh. Your cheque
book.
SEAGOON: Yes. He always
wanted it.
BLOODNOK: Don’t worry. I’ll
get it to him, even if I have to cash every cheque in it myself.
MORIARTY: Now come Seagoon.
We leave at dawn tonight by legs on feet on ground.
ORCHESTRA: Dramatic chords.
GREENSLADE: Meantime a hundred
miles away in the German camp a soldier lies dreaming on a palm leaf.
ECCLES: (Sings rubbish) I can’t stand this
singing. I wish I’d escaped with Lieutenant Seagoon. I wonder if he got back to
the base.
SEAGOON: Yes I did.
ECCLES: Oh. Where are you
den?
SEAGOON: I’m a mere six hundred miles away.
ECCLES: Oh goodie. I won’t
tell anybody.
BLOODNOK: Seagoon you fool.
Stop talking to that man six hundred miles away.
SEAGOON: It’s alright sir,
he’s one of ours.
BLOODNOK: I know, and I wish
he wasn’t. Now then, according to British intelligence April the first is only
three days away.
SEAGOON: Gad! How do those
chaps get the information?
BLOODNOK: They captured a
German calender – alive! Well men, forward!
ORCHESTRA: Dramatic safari link.
GRAMS:
Cutting through jungle sounds.
GREENSLADE: For a hundred miles
Bloodnok and his party hacked their way through the jungle that ran alongside
the arterial road. En route they had managed to enlist ten Mabutu women to help
carry their supplies.
BLOODNOK: We were just good
friends you understand, nothing more.
MORIARTY: Nevertheless it was a mistake having women porters. On the second day of the trip Lieutenant Seagoon became terribly amorous.
GRAMS: (Recording)
Hawaiian guitar.
SEAGOON: You - very beautiful. Hahahahahah. I’ve seen lots of girls in my time but you – much prettier than any white girl.
BLOODNOK: I know I am and it gets very embarrassing at times I can tell you. Where’s Moriarty?
SEAGOON: The native girls were having a bathe and he’s guarding their clothes.
BLOODNOK: It was my turn for that! Where’s my binoculars?
MORIARTY: (Approaching) Sapristi! There’s a patrol of German colonial troops coming this way.
BLOODNOK: What!
SEAGOON: We must stop them.
No shooting now.
PLUCK: Meantime, back at
the camp – the German POW camp, (that’s an abbreviation of prisoner of war. I
say POW so it saves the necessity of saying prisoner of war. It’s much shorter.
Takes less time.) At this camp we were having a party. We’d completed the
bridge and all the lads were having a sing-song to celebrate.
GRAMS:
(Recording: Massed singing of ‘Blighty is
the Place for Me”. Sped up. Quick burst of applause.)
SERGEANT
MAJOR:
Right men. Settle down! Now, here …from….Major Spon.
MAJOR
SPON:
Thank you men. Well as you can see we’ve taught our captors how we English can
build a wooden bridge over a water river. So let us stand, raise our right legs
and sing our national anthem.
GRAMS:
(Recording.) Male voice choir singing La
Marseillaise. Fade behind.
SEAGOON: Nonsense. That’s the British national anthem in disguise. They didn’t want it captured.
BLOODNOK: Good lads!
MORIARTY: Psssst! Information. The first German puff-puff goes over that bridge at dawn.
BLOODNOK: What! Action. Here’s the explosive, men. Off you go. I would come with you myself if it weren’t for this terrible hand-painted wound on my foot.
SEAGOON: Then we’ll need one more volunteer. How about you?
BLUEBOTTLE: Let go of me, man! Let go! I’m not working this week. I’m on christmas hols. I’m doing a bit of carol singing. (Sings)
Good King Wenceslas looked out,
on the feast of Stephen…
FX: Slapstick
BLUEBOTTLE: Ohhee! Right on my music stand!
SEAGOON: Lad! Lad! Little looney lad. Help us destroy that bridge and you can have this ‘Junior Rock-and-Roll’ set.
BLUEBOTTLE: Cor! Yes.
SEAGOON: Out of tune bakelite banjo and a pair of genuine Tommy Steele earplugs.
BLUEBOTTLE: Cor! Thank
you. That will make me the centre of attention at the school party. Thinks,
that Eileen Shoulders likes rocking and rolling. Let me try that for that Eileen
Shoulders. (Sings feeble rock and roll
over timid foot tapping.)
GREENSLADE: Now while Bluebottle is deliberating, Ray Ellington will play a melody devine in a clockwise fashion.
RAY ELLINGTON QUARTET
ORCHESTRA: Exotic jungle link.
GRAMS: River running
strongly.
SELLERS: In the darkening
night Seagoon and his saboteurs dived in and attached limpid mines to the
bridge over the ice-cold river Kapatee.
SEAGOON: And there’s nothing
worse than a cold Kapatee!
ORCHESTRA: Tatty chord in C. Cymbal snap.
SEAGOON: Thank you folks!
Thank you.
MORIARTY: Shhhhh! The German
guards will hear us.
BLUEBOTTLE: It’s alright. They
don’t understand English.
SEAGOON: Turn the wireless
on and let’s hear the rest of the show.
GRAMS:
Wireless tuning into frequency.
BLOODNOK: Ohhhh! Oh. It’s
nearly dawn. Well, I wonder when Seagoon’s coming back.
NATIVE
GIRL:
White man is not really worried about them?
BLOODNOK: Oh, not really you
know. It’s just that I don’t really want to be caught like this.
NATIVE
GIRL:
Is this what English call ‘embarrassing situation’?
BLOODNOK: Yes. I mean, after
all, me half way up a tree dressed as Timon of Athens - you whitewashing the
grass; well, no one would believe us.
NATIVE
GIRL:
Oh, come Major. Let us dance.
BLOODNOK: Yes. After all,
even though we are in the jungle we’re still civilised aren’t we? I’ll put this
record on my portable military gramophone.
GRAMS:
(Recording) Romantic string tango.
BLOODNOK: What a strange
sight it must have been. Me and the dusky beauty tangoing through the dense
jungle on foot.
NATIVE
GIRL:
I only had eyes for him and he only had eyes for me.
BLOODNOK: That explains why
we fell over a cliff.
SEAGOON: Major! Major
Bloodnok! Where are?
NATIVE
GIRL:
He’s here with me.
SEAGOON: Great spondilikons!
Well anyhow, we’ve laid the detonation cable. We’re all ready to blow up the
bridge.
ORCHESTRA: Dramatic link
GREENSLADE: Meantime on the
bridge, Major Spon walks across to make sure all is well.
FX: Hollow footsteps.
MAJOR
SPON:
I’m walking across the bridge to make sure all is well. That’s why I’m walking
across the bridge…for christmas.
COMMANDANT: Er, good morning
Major Spon.
MAJOR
SPON:
Oh good morning Von Gutern. Cigarette?
COMMANDANT: Thanks. I have one.
MAJOR
SPON:
Ah, but von Gutern deserves another. Jolly English joke.
COMMANDANT: Definate German
silence. You are early this morning.
MAJOR
SPON:
Well there’s an old English proverb, ‘The early bird always catches the worm.’
COMMANDANT: Please, what’s the
meaning of that?
MAJOR
SPON:
It means that I’ve had worms for breakfast.
GRAMS:
Locomotive approaches. Whistles. Very
fast.
COMMANDANT: Ah geblunden! I can
hear the first puff-puff approaching. I must go and lay out the railway lines
and my combined chair.
MAJOR
SPON:
Goodbye. There he goes, poor fellow. Little does he know
ECCLES: Ooo! Then I’d
better take this German uniform off.
MAJOR
SPON:
Field Marshal Eccles, why have you left your post?
ECCLES: It had woodworm in
it. I didn’t want to catch it.
MAJOR
SPON:
Look down there. You see it, down in the river?
ECCLES: Water!
MAJOR
SPON:
Yes, but just above it – a cable.
ECCLES: I wonder who it’s
from.
FX: Multiple slapsticks.
ECCLES: Oh oh oh oh oh oh
oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh !
SEAGOON: Watching from the
opposite bank we all held our breath. As Major Spon went down the river bank we
all asked ourselves the same question…
BLOODNOK/ECCLES/SEAGOON: (Various questions simultaneously.)
BLOODNOK: He’s got eyes like
a hawk.
SEAGOON: And legs like a
kangaroo. I wonder what he’s going to do?
BLOODNOK: Join a freak show
perhaps.
SEAGOON: If he follows that
cable it will lead him to Private Mate who’s waiting to press the dreaded
plunger!
WILLIUM: Ah, they’ll never
find me mate, in the master disguise. You see I got a lttle bit of twig stuck
out all over me; me old plates stuck in two lumps of grass – I looks like a
perfect tree dere.
ECCLES: Ah! Oooh! A perfect tree with boots on. Must be going somewhere.
WILLIUM: Go away mate, go away, and keep that dog off.
ECCLES: Dere’s no dog here.
WILLIUM: Well you just watch what you’re doing then mate.
ECCLES: Urrrrr, what’s your name?
WILLIUM: My name’s Jim Coconut-Tree.
ECCLES: Oooo!
FX: Sawing
WILLIUM: Oh! Stop! Help! Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeelp! (Fades)
ECCLES: (Distant) Timbeeeeeeeeeeeeer!
GRAMS: Tree
falling.
SEAGOON: Major! Major! They’ve chopped Willium down. I must go and help.
GRAMS: Boots
running off.
BLOODNOK: I shall now keep the audience entertained.
ORCHESTRA: Dramatic chords.
GREENSLADE: And here is a brief resumé with piano accompaniment.
PIANO: Sellers awful arpeggios.
GREENSLADE: Willium lies chopped down; Neddy on his way to assist; Eccles eating coconuts; Major Spon approaching the felled Willium, and suddenly…
SEAGOON: Hands up Major Spon!
MAJOR SPON: You!
SEAGOON: Yes it’s me, you – or you, me – it’s me. We’ve come to blow the bridge up.
MAJOR SPON: You can’t. It’s got a puncture.
SEAGOON: Ha ha ha ha ha ha! Willium, press yer old plunger!
GRAMS: Loud
explosion. Splash in water.
LITTLE JIM: They’ve fallen in the water.
MAJOR SPON: I don’t know how we’d do without that lad.
SEAGOON: Well, that’s the lot for this week isn’t it? Come on lads, back to the old brandy there.
GRAMS: Boots
running away at speed.
GREENSLADE: It’s all in the mind you know.
ORCHESTRA: End theme
GREENSLADE: That was The Goon
Show, a BBC recorded programme featuring Peter Sellers, Harry Secombe, Spike
Milligan and Cécile Chevreau, with the Ray Ellington Quartet, Max Geldray and
the Orchestra conducted by Wally Stott. Script by Spike Milligan and Larry
Stephens. Announcer Wallace Greenslade. The programme produced by Roy Spear.
ORCHESTRA: Playout.