Hugh Hughes Green^[1] (2 February 1920 – 3 May 1997) was the host of numerous British television shows.

Early life[link]

Green was born in London; his Scottish father (Glasgow) was a former British Army Major who made his fortune supplying tinned fish to the Allied forces in World War I, while his mother Violet was the Surrey-born daughter of an Irish gardener. The family had a home in Meopham, Kent where the children lived with their mother, who took regular lovers, while his father did business from and often stayed in the Savoy Hotel.

Career[link]

Child performer[link]

After the family business went bankrupt, Green's father encouraged his stage-obsessed son into performance and by the age of 14 he had his own BBC radio show and created and toured with his own all-children cast concert party called "Hughie Green and his Gang". After an extensive tour of Canada, Green appeared in his first film Midshipman Easy in 1935 then went to Hollywood where he appeared in the film Tom Brown's School Days and at the Cocoanut Grove with his cabaret act.

World War Two[link]

Having already fathered his first illegitimate child with a Canadian usherette at the age of 17 and been caught in North America on the declaration of war, during World War II Green served as a pilot in the Royal Canadian Air Force, ferrying aircraft across the Atlantic with RAF Ferry Command. After being declared bankrupt following a failed legal action against the BBC, he married Montreal society beauty Claire Wilson and took Canadian citizenship, working in the aircraft industry as a ferry transport pilot, a stunt pilot, and from 1947 on his return to London he was involved in business activities that included selling aircraft.

Radio presenter[link]

In 1949 Green devised a talent show called Opportunity Knocks, which was commissioned by BBC Radio. The show lasted only one series, and Green was apparently told it was "too American" for the British audience.^[2] After the show was cancelled, Green sued the BBC, Carroll Levis and six friends and family of Levis, alleging a conspiracy to keep his Opportunity Knocks off the air in order to preserve Levis' rival show "Discoveries". The case came to trial at the High Court in May 1955 with Green represented by Viscount Hailsham.^[3] The case lasted 20 days but on 27 May, after a retirement of only 20 minutes, the jury returned a verdict for the defendants.^[4]

As a result of the costs in the case, Green's creditors filed a petition for his bankruptcy, and a receiving order was made on 8 May 1956.^[1] He was not discharged from bankruptcy until 18 June 1958.^[5]

Mainstream popularity[link]

Green became a household name in 1955, with the ITV quiz show Double Your Money (which had actually originated some years earlier on Radio Luxembourg). Green brought his future co-host Monica Rose to the screen. The chirpy 15-year-old Cockney junior accounts clerk won £8 answering questions on famous women and was later invited back by Green to be a hostess.

In 1966 (aired 8 November 1966 at 7pm), Hughie Green presented the show from The House of Friendship in Moscow, Russia. Along with Monica Rose, he also had Natasha Vasylyeva as assistants. Because the Communist Party would not allow money as a prize, the top prize was a television set (source Television's Greatest Hits, 1993 book).

His most successful show format was his self-developed long-running talent show, Opportunity Knocks. Started as a UK-wide touring show produced for the radio, one of his early finds was singer Frankie Vaughan, who came second as part of a duet.^[6] When it transferred to television on the ITV network, first in 1956 and then again from 1964, it began the show business careers of Les Dawson, Lena Zavaroni, Pam Ayres and Mary Hopkin, among others. Green, who possessed a pilot's licence, would fly the panel of judges between audition venues all over Britain, in his small Cessna aircraft.

His 1970 game show Sky's the Limit was generally considered a failure and was dropped by most ITV regional companies after the first run, though it lasted until 1974 in the Yorkshire and Granada regions, eventually ending due to low ratings, combined with a falling-out between Green and producer Jess Yates.

Right up until its final shows, Opportunity Knocks was a ratings hit that attracted 18 million viewers weekly. But Green, known for his right-wing politics, had decided he was bigger than the show format he devised and began politicising an apolitical family-friendly format. It has been suggested that Green believed that Harold Wilson and his Labour government were Communists and that Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh should replace Wilson as leader of the country and, to that end, used Opportunity Knocks as an end-of-year soapbox, telling the country at the end of 1974 to 'wake up!' Two years later, in December 1976 Green sang a rant about the state of the United Kingdom called "Stand Up and Be Counted" with the words coming up in subtitles: "Stand up and be counted, where the managers manage and the workers don't go on strike". It was released as a single in 1977. Partly seen as an open support of Conservative Party leader Margaret Thatcher, he was disciplined by Thames Television, but continued to make political comments. After numerous viewer complaints, Thames axed the show in March 1978, despite attracting high ratings, something Green mentioned in a bitter rant against Thames in his last show. Family-friendly Opportunity Knocks was replaced by youth-oriented comedy The Kenny Everett Video Show which attracted 10 million viewers.^[7]

After his rather slow-paced and "end of the pier" entertainment-style shows were replaced with more active audience participation formats, Green tried presenting variants on the Opportunity Knocks theme in Ireland, Australia and one show in the USSR, where a TV set was the top prize (no cash prizes were allowed).^[8]

Style[link]

Green was often mocked for his permanent door-to-door salesman's smile and faux-American accent. His catchphrase "I mean that most sincerely" was also mocked, to such an extent that it is sometimes mistakenly believed to have been invented by the impressionist Mike Yarwood, whose impersonation of Green was celebrated. Green told Phillip Schofield in a TV interview in 1992 that he came up with the catchphrase himself.^[9] During Double Your Money Green kept up an occasional but good-natured feud with "rival" quiz show host Michael Miles, who compered Take Your Pick, Miles even appearing on one occasion with a huge bouquet of flowers for a guest, to Green's (mock) indignation.

Personal life[link]

Green met Montreal society beauty Claire Wilson on a cruise liner in the mid-1930s when both were still teenagers. They married in 1942 and settled in Montreal, before moving to London in 1947. The couple had two children, son Christopher and daughter Linda (married name: Linda Plentl). The family lived in a fifth floor flat in Baker Street, London; although with Green's numerous affairs and self-obsession, including taking luxury holidays and spending Christmas often on his own, his children defined it as "highly-dysfunctional."^[10]

Claire and Green separated in 1961 and filed for divorce in March 1975 after Green started an affair with Gwen Claremont, the sister of an earlier lover, Pat. Later that year, Claire married Upstairs, Downstairs actor David Langton. After separation from Claire, Green's drinking became more compulsive, while his affairs continued even during the height of his fame presenting Opportunity Knocks. Journalist Noel Botham approached Green to expose him, but Green countered with a lawsuit threat. Eventually the two became good friends.^[10]

Botham then became key in two stories in Green's life. The replacement producer for Opportunity Knocks after the failure of The Sky's the Limit was Jess Yates. Green grew frustrated by the lack of ITV's action to remove Yates when he requested and (ironically) leaked to Botham the stories of Yates's affair with the young actress Anita Kay, whose story, published in News of the World, destroyed Yates's career. After Green's death from lung cancer, Botham wrote the exposé story, also in the News of the World, of Green being the biological father of Jess Yates's daughter, TV presenter Paula Yates,^[11] a fact Yates had first learned after the tabloids printed the story (although Green being her father had been an "urban legend" for many years). Thus Green had four granddaughters that he never knew: Fifi, Peaches, and Pixie Geldof, and their younger half sister Tiger Lily Hutchence.

Death[link]

After a failed court case against the New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation over a copyright case which cost him £250,000 in 1989,^[12] Green lived out his life away from the media in solitude, confined to his Baker Street flat and lacking many of the financial riches of his former fame. After a lifetime of smoking a pipe, heavy drinking and latterly taking recreational barbiturates,^{[citation needed]} Green was diagnosed with and died from lung cancer in the Royal Marsden Hospital.

Green's son Christopher postponed his wedding and flew from Canada to be at his dying father's bedside.^[13]

The bulk of Hughie Green's estate was bequeathed to his lover at the time of his death, Christina Sharples, widow of Green's friend and Opportunity Knocks musical director Bob Sharples.^[14]

His epitaph at Golders Green Crematorium, reads: "You were the star that made opportunity knock. You will never be forgotten. Christina".^[15]

Retrospective media coverage[link]

In light of the death in 2000 of his daughter Paula Yates, his son Christopher Green, now a Canadian resident, wrote the autobiographical perspective Hughie and Paula: The Tangled Lives of Hughie Green and Paula Yates.

On 2 April 2008 a TV film about Green's life was broadcast on BBC Four. In the film, entitled Hughie Green, Most Sincerely, Trevor Eve was cast in the lead role.^[16] In The Sunday Telegraph of 3 February 2008, his daughter Linda Plentl said the new BBC drama about her father would reopen intolerable wounds. She told of her struggle with his legacy and her three meetings with half-sister Paula Yates.^[17]

Selected filmography[link]

• Midshipman Easy (1935)
• Paper Orchid (1949)

References[link]

• Hughie and Paula: The Tangled Lives of Hughie Green and Paula Yates, by Christopher Green ISBN 1-86105-609-5

Notes[link]

External links[link]

• Hughie Green at the Internet Movie Database

Terence Alan Patrick Seán "Spike" Milligan KBE (16 April 1918 – 27 February 2002) was a British comedian, writer, musician, poet, playwright, soldier and actor. His early life was spent in India, where he was born, but the majority of his working life was spent in the United Kingdom. He became an Irish citizen in 1962 after the British government declared him stateless.^[1] He was the co-creator, main writer and a principal cast member of The Goon Show, performing a range of roles including the popular Eccles.

Milligan wrote and edited many books, including Puckoon and his seven-volume autobiographical account of his time serving during the Second World War, beginning with Adolf Hitler: My part in his downfall. He is also noted as a popular writer of comical verse; much of his poetry was written for children, including Silly Verse for Kids (1959). After success with the ground-breaking British radio programme, The Goon Show, Milligan translated this success to television with Q5, a surreal sketch show which is credited as a major influence on the members of Monty Python's Flying Circus.

Early life[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

Milligan was born in Ahmednagar, India, on 16 April 1918, the son of an Irish father, Captain Leo Alphonso Milligan, MSM, RA (1890–1969), who was serving in the British Indian Army. His mother, Florence Mary Winifred Kettleband (1893–1990), was born in England. He spent his childhood in Poona (India) and later in Rangoon, capital of Burma (Myanmar). He was educated at the Convent of Jesus and Mary, Poona, and St Paul's Christian Brothers, de la Salle, Rangoon. He lived most of his life in England and served in the British Army in the Royal Artillery during World War II.

Second World War[link]

During most of the late 1930s and early 1940s Milligan performed as an amateur jazz vocalist and trumpeter before, during and after being called up for military service in the fight against Nazi Germany, but even then he wrote and performed comedy sketches as part of concerts to entertain troops. After his call-up, but before being sent abroad, he and fellow musician Harry Edgington (nicknamed Edge-ying-Tong which gave birth to one of Milligan's most memorable musical creations, the Ying Tong Song) would compose surreal stories, filled with puns and skewed logic, as a way of staving off the boredom of life in barracks. One biographer describes his early dance band infiltration: "He managed to croon like Bing Crosby and win a competition: he also played drums, guitar and trumpet, in which he was entirely self taught". He also acquired a double bass, which he took lessons on and would strum in jazz sessions.^[2] Milligan had perfect pitch.^{[citation needed]}

During World War II, he served as a signaller in the 56th Heavy Regiment Royal Artillery, D Battery, as Gunner Milligan, 954024 with the First Army in the North African campaign and then in the succeeding Italian campaign. He rose to the rank of Lance Bombardier and was about to be promoted to Bombardier when he was wounded in action in the Italian theatre at the Battle of Monte Cassino. Subsequently hospitalised for a mortar wound to the right leg and shell shock, he was demoted by an unsympathetic commanding officer (identified in his war diaries as Major Evan 'Jumbo' Jenkins) back to Gunner. It was Milligan's opinion that Major Jenkins did not like him because Milligan constantly kept the morale of his fellow soldiers up, whereas Major Jenkins's approach was to take an attitude towards the troops similar to that of Lord Kitchener.^{[citation needed]} An incident also mentioned was when Major Jenkins had invited Gunners Milligan and Edgington to his bivouac to play some jazz with him, only to discover that the musicianship of the aforementioned gunners was far superior to his own ability to play the military tune 'Whistling Rufus'.

After his hospitalisation, Milligan drifted through a number of rear-echelon military jobs in Italy, eventually becoming a full-time entertainer. He played the guitar with a jazz and comedy group called The Bill Hall Trio in concert parties for the troops. After being demobilised, Milligan remained in Italy playing with the Trio but returned to England soon after. While he was with the Central Pool of Artists (a group he described as composed "of bomb-happy squaddies") he began to write parodies of their mainstream plays, that displayed many of the key elements of what would later become The Goon Show (originally called Crazy People) with Peter Sellers, Harry Secombe and Michael Bentine.^{[citation needed]}

Career[link]

[edit] The Goon Show

Milligan returned to jazz in the late 1940s and made a precarious living with the Hall trio and other musical comedy acts. He was also trying to break into the world of radio, as either a performer or as a script writer. His first success in radio was as writer for comedian Derek Roy's show. After a delayed start, Milligan, Peter Sellers, Harry Secombe and Michael Bentine joined forces in a relatively radical comedy project, The Goon Show. During its first season the BBC titled the show as Crazy People, or in full, "The Junior Crazy Gang featuring those Crazy People, the Goons!", an attempt to make the programme palatable to BBC officials by connecting it with the popular group of theatre comedians known as The Crazy Gang.^[3]

The first episode was broadcast on 28 May 1951 on the BBC Home Service.^[4] Although he did not perform as much in the early shows^[5] Milligan eventually became a lead performer in almost all of the Goon Show episodes, portraying a wide range of characters including Eccles, Minnie Bannister, Jim Spriggs and the nefarious Count Moriarty. He was also the primary author of most of the scripts, although he co-wrote many scripts with various collaborators, most notably Larry Stephens and Eric Sykes. Most of the early shows were co-written with Stephens (and edited by Jimmy Grafton) but this partnership faltered after Series 3. Milligan wrote most of Series 4 himself, but from Series 5 (coinciding with the birth of the Milligans' second child, Seán) and through most of Series 6, he collaborated with Eric Sykes, a development that grew out of his contemporary business collaboration with Sykes in Associated London Scripts.^[6] Milligan and Stephens reunited during Series 6, but towards the end of Series 8 Stephens was sidelined by health problems, and Milligan worked briefly with John Antrobus. The Milligan-Stephens partnership was finally ended by Stephens' death from a brain haemorrhage in January 1959 and Milligan later downplayed and disparaged Stephens' contributions.^[7]

The Goon Show was recorded before a studio audience, and during the audience warm-up session, Milligan would play the trumpet, while Peter Sellers played on the orchestra's drums.^[8] For the first few years the shows were recorded live, direct to 16-inch transcription disc,^[9] which required the cast to adhere closely to the script, but by Series 4 the BBC had adopted the use of magnetic tape. Milligan eagerly exploited the possibilities the new technology offered—the tapes could be edited, so the cast could now ad-lib freely, and tape also enabled the creation of groundbreaking sound effects. Over the first three series Milligan's demands for increasingly complex sound effects (or 'grams', as they were then known) pushed the available technology and the skills of the BBC engineers to their limits—effects had to be created mechanically (foley) or played back from discs, sometimes requiring the use of four or five turntables running simultaneously.^[9] With magnetic tape, these effects could be produced in advance and the BBC engineers were able to create highly complex, tightly edited effects 'stings' that would have been very difficult (if not impossible) to perform using foley or disc. In the later years of the series many Goon Show 'grams' were produced for the series by members of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, a notable example being the famous "Major Bloodnok's Stomach" effect, realised by Dick Mills.

Although The Goons elevated Milligan to international stardom, the demands of writing and performing the series took a heavy toll. During Series 3 he suffered the first of several serious mental breakdowns, which also marked the onset of a decades-long cycle of manic/depressive illness. In late 1952, possibly exacerbated by suppressed tensions between the Goons' stars, Milligan apparently became irrationally convinced that he had to kill Sellers, but when he attempted to gain entry to Sellers's neighbouring flat, armed with a potato knife, he accidentally walked straight through the plate-glass front door. He was hospitalised, heavily sedated for two weeks, and spent almost two months recuperating; fortunately for the show, a backlog of scripts meant that his illness had little effect on production.^[10] Milligan later blamed the pressure of writing and performing The Goon Show for both his breakdown and the failure of his first marriage.^[11]

A lesser-known aspect of Milligan's life in the 1950s and 1960s was his involvement in the writers' agency Associated London Scripts. Milligan married for the first time and began a family. This reportedly distracted him from writing so much that he accepted an invitation from Eric Sykes to share his small office leading to the creation of the co-operative agency.

Television[link]

Milligan made several forays into television as a writer-performer, in addition to his many guest appearances on interview, variety and sketch comedy series from the 1950s to the 2000s. The Idiot Weekly, Price 2d (1956) starring Peter Sellers was the first attempt to translate Goons humour to TV; it was followed by A Show Called Fred and Son of Fred, both made during 1956 and directed by Richard Lester, who went on to work with The Beatles. During a visit to Australia in 1958, a similar special was made for the Australian Broadcasting Commission, "The Gladys Half-Hour", which also featured local actors Ray Barrett, and John Bluthal, who would appear in several later Milligan projects. In 1961, Milligan co-wrote two episodes of the popular sitcom Sykes and A..., co-starring Sykes and Hattie Jacques, and the one-off "Spike Milligan Offers A Series Of Unrelated Incidents At Market Value".

The 15-minute series The Telegoons (1963) was the next attempt to transplant The Goons to television, this time using puppet versions of the familiar characters. The initial intention was to 'visualise' original recordings of 1950s Goon Show episodes, but this proved difficult to achieve in practice because of the rapid-fire dialogue and was ultimately frustrated by the BBC's refusal to allow the original audio to be used. 15-minute adaptations of the original scripts by Maurice Wiltshire were used instead, with Milligan, Sellers and Secombe reuniting to provide the voices; according to a contemporary press report, they received the highest fees the BBC had ever paid for 15-minute shows.^[12] Two series were made in 1963 and 1964 and (presumably because it was shot on 35mm film rather than video) the entire series has reportedly been preserved in the BBC archives.

Milligan's next major TV venture was the sketch comedy series The World of Beachcomber (1968), made in colour for BBC 2; however, it is believed all 19 episodes are now lost. That same year, the three Goons reunited for a televised re-staging of a vintage Goon Show for Thames Television, with John Cleese substituting for the late Wallace Greenslade, but the pilot was not successful and no further programmes were made.

In early 1969 Milligan starred in the ill-fated situation comedy Curry & Chips, created and written by Johnny Speight and featuring Milligan's old friend and colleague Eric Sykes. Curry & Chips set out to satirize racist attitudes in Britain in a similar vein to Speight's earlier creation, the hugely successful Till Death Us Do Part, with Milligan 'blacking up' to play Kevin O'Grady, a half-Pakistani/half-Irish factory worker. The series generated numerous complaints because of its frequent use of racist epithets and 'bad language' - one viewer reportedly complained of counting 59 uses of the word "bloody" in one episode - and it was cancelled on the orders of the Independent Broadcasting Authority after only six episodes.

Director John Goldschmidt's film The Other Spike dramatised Milligan's nervous breakdown in a film for Granada Television, for which Milligan wrote the screenplay and in which he played himself. Later that year, he was commissioned by the BBC to write and star in Q5, the first in the innovative "Q" TV series, acknowledged as an important precursor to Monty Python's Flying Circus, which premiered several months later. However there was a hiatus of several years before the BBC commissioned Q6 in 1975. Q7 appeared in 1977, Q8 in 1978, Q9 in 1980 and There's a Lot of It About in 1982. Milligan later complained of the BBC's cold attitude towards the series and stated that he would have made more programs had he been given the opportunity. A number of episodes of the earlier "Q" series are now missing, presumed wiped.^{[citation needed]}

From 1995-98 he voiced the highly successful children's animated series Wolves, Witches and Giants for ITV. The series was written by Ed Welch, who had featured in the "Q" series and had collaborated with Spike on several audio productions and produced and directed by Simon & Sara Bor. The series was show in over 100 territories including the UK and USA.^{[citation needed]}

Poetry[link]

Milligan also wrote verse, considered to be within the genre of literary nonsense. His poetry has been described by comedian Stephen Fry as "absolutely immortal - greatly in the tradition of Lear."^[13] His most famous poem, "On the Ning Nang Nong", was voted the UK's favourite comic poem in 1998 in a nationwide poll, ahead of other nonsense poets including Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear.^[14] This nonsense verse, set to music, became a favourite Australia-wide, performed week after week by the ABC children's programme Playschool. Milligan included it on his album No One's Gonna Change Our World in 1969 to aid the World Wildlife Fund. In December 2007 it was reported that, according to OFSTED, it is amongst the ten most commonly taught poems in primary schools in the UK.^[15]

While depressed, he wrote serious poetry. He also wrote a novel Puckoon, and a series of war memoirs, including Adolf Hitler: My Part in His Downfall (1971), "Rommel?" "Gunner Who?": A Confrontation in the Desert (1974), Monty: His Part in My Victory (1976) and Mussolini: His Part in My Downfall (1978). Milligan's seven volumes of memoirs cover the years from 1939 to 1950 (his call-up, war service, first breakdown, time spent entertaining in Italy, and return to the UK).^{[citation needed]}

He also wrote comedy songs, including "Purple Aeroplane", which was a parody of The Beatles' song "Yellow Submarine". Glimpses of his bouts with depression, which led to the nervous breakdowns, can be found in his serious poetry, which is compiled in Open Heart University.^{[citation needed]} He is also the author of the famous story of a Christian boy who has cancer, Goodbye Peace Letter.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Treasure Island

Bernard Miles gave Milligan his first straight acting role, as Ben Gunn, in the Mermaid Theatre production of Treasure Island. Miles described Milligan as:

"a man of quite extraordinary talents...a visionary who is out there alone, denied the usual contacts simply because he is so different he can't always communicate with his own species...".^[16]

Treasure Island played twice daily through the winter of 1961-62, and was an annual production at the Mermaid Theatre for some years. In the 1968 production, Barry Humphries played the role of Long John Silver, alongside William Rushton as Squire Trelawney, and Milligan as Ben Gunn. To Humphries, Milligan's "best performance must surely have been as Ben Gunn ... Milligan stole the show every night in a makeup which took at least an hour to apply. His appearance on stage always brought a roar of delight from the kids in the audience and Spike had soon left the text far behind as he went off into a riff of sublime absurdity."^[17]

[edit] The Bed-Sitting Room

In 1961-62, during the long pauses between the matinee and the evening show of Treasure Island, Milligan began talking to Miles about the idea he and John Antrobus were exploring of a dramatized post-nuclear world. This became the one-act play The Bed-Sitting Room, which Milligan co-wrote with John Antrobus, and which premiered at the Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury on 12 February 1962. It was adapted to a longer play, and staged by Miles at London's Mermaid Theatre, making its debut on 31 January 1963. It was a critical and commercial success, and was revived in 1967 with a provincial tour before opening at London's Saville Theatre on 3 May 1967. Finally it was made into a film in 1969.^[18][19]

[edit] Oblomov

On 6 October 1964, Milligan appeared in Frank Dunlop's production of the play Oblomov at the Lyric Theatre in London, based on the novel by Russian writer Ivan Goncharov. Per Scudamore's biography, "Milligan's fans and the theatrical world in general found it hard to believe that he was to appear in a straight play...He refused to be serious when questioned about his motives. In the story, Oblomov decides to spend his life in bed. Spike decided to identify with his character, and told disbelieving reporters that he thought it would be a nice comfortable rest for him. This was of course, prevarication. Spike was actually intrigued with Oblomov and had read a translation of Ivan Goncharov's novel."^[20]

Milligan's involvement transformed the play. The first night started poorly. Joan Greenwood played Olga and later recalled that her late husband Andre Morell thought the show was so appalling, they should get her out of the play. Per Scudamore:

Nobody seemed at all comfortable in their roles and the audience began to hoot with laughter when Milligan's slipper inadvertently went spinning across the stage into the stalls. That was the end of Spike's playing straight. The audience demanded a clown, he became a clown. When he forgot his words, or disapproved of them, he simply made up what he felt to be more appropriate ones. That night there were no riotous first night celebrations and most of the cast seemed to go home stunned. The following night Milligan began to ad lib in earnest. The text of the show began to change drastically. The cast were bedevilled and shaken but they went along with him ... Incredibly, the show began to resolve itself. The context changed completely. It was turned upside down and inside out. Cues and lines became irrelevant as Milligan verbally rewrote the play each night. By the end of the week, Oblomov had changed beyond recognition. Andre Morell came again... and afterwards said 'the man is a genius. He must be a genius - it's the only word for him. He's impossible - but he's a genius!'. After Oblomov had run for a record-breaking five weeks at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, it was retitled Son of Oblomov and moved to the Comedy Theatre in the West End.^[21]

In an interview with Bernard Braden, Milligan described theatre as important to him: "First it was a means of livelihood. And I had sort of lagged behind my confederates, that I…remained in the writing seat. And I realise that basically I was quite a good clown…and the one and only chance I ever had to prove that was in Oblomov when I clowned my way out of what was a very bad script…I clowned it into a West End success and uh, we kept changing it all the time. It was a tour de force of improvisation… all that ended it was I got fed up with it, that's all."^[22]

Ad-libbing[link]

As illustrated in the description of his involvement in theatre, Milligan often ad-libbed. He also did this on radio and television. One of his last screen appearances was in the BBC dramatisation of Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast, and he was (almost inevitably) noted as an ad-libber.

One of Milligan's most famous ad-lib incidents occurred during a visit to Australia in the late 1960s. He was interviewed live on air and remained in the studio for the news broadcast that followed (read by Rod McNeil), during which Milligan constantly interjected, adding his own name to news items.^[23] As a result, he was banned from making any further live appearances on the ABC. The ABC also changed its national policy so that talent had to leave the studio after interviews were complete. A tape of the bulletin survives and has been included in an ABC Radio audio compilation, also on the BBC tribute CD, Vivat Milligna [sic].

Film and television director Richard Lester recalls that the television series A Show Called Fred was broadcast live. "I've seen very few moments of genius in my life but I witnessed one with Spike after the first show. He had brought around a silent cartoon" and asked Lester if his P.A. took shorthand. "She said she did. 'Good, this needs a commentary.' It was a ten-minute cartoon and Spike could only have seen it once, if that. He ad-libbed the commentary for it and it was perfect. I was open-mouthed at the raw comedy creation in front of me."^[24]

Cartoons and art[link]

Milligan contributed occasional cartoons to the satirical magazine Private Eye. Most were visualizations of one-line jokes. For example, a young boy sees the Concorde and asks his father "What's that?". The reply is "That's a flying groundnut scheme, son." Milligan was a keen painter.^[25][26]

Advertising[link]

In 1967, applying a satirical angle to a fashion for the inclusion of "superman" inspired characters in UK television commercials, Milligan dressed up in a "Bat-Goons" outfit to head up a series of television commercials for British Petroleum.^[27] A contemporary reporter found the TV commercials "funny and effective".^[27] From 1980-82, he advertised for the English Tourist Board, playing a Scotsman on a visit around the different regions of England.

Personal life[link]

Family[link]

Milligan married his first wife, June (Marchinie) Marlow, in 1952. They had three children - Laura, Seán and Síle - but divorced in 1960. He had one daughter with his second wife, Patricia Ridgeway (known as Paddy): the actress Jane Milligan (b. 1966). Milligan and Patricia were married in June 1962 with George Martin as best man. The marriage ended with her death from breast cancer in 1978.^[28]

In 1975 Milligan fathered a son, James (born June 1976), in an affair with Margaret Maughan. Another child, a daughter Romany, is suspected to have been born at the same time to a Canadian journalist named Roberta Watt. His last wife was Shelagh Sinclair, to whom he was married from 1983 to his death on 27 February 2002. Four of his children collaborated with documentary makers on a new multi-platform programme called I Told You I Was Ill: The Life and Legacy of Spike Milligan (2005), which includes an accompanying website.^[29]

In October 2008 an array of Milligan's personal effects were sold at auction by his third wife, Shelagh, who was moving into a smaller home. These included a grand piano salvaged from a demolition and apparently played every morning by Paul McCartney, a neighbour in Rye in East Sussex.^[30]

Shelagh Milligan died in June 2011.^[31]

Health[link]

He suffered from severe bipolar disorder for most of his life, having at least ten major mental breakdowns, several lasting over a year. He spoke candidly about his condition and its effect on his life:

I have got so low that I have asked to be hospitalised and for deep narcosis (sleep). I cannot stand being awake. The pain is too much... Something has happened to me, this vital spark has stopped burning - I go to a dinner table now and I don't say a word, just sit there like a dodo. Normally I am the centre of attention, keep the conversation going - so that is depressing in itself. It's like another person taking over, very strange. The most important thing I say is 'good evening' and then I go quiet.^[32]

Controversy[link]

Prince of Wales[link]

The Prince of Wales was a fan, and Milligan caused a stir by calling him a "little grovelling bastard" on live television in 1994.^[33] He later faxed the prince, saying "I suppose a knighthood is out of the question?" It wasn't; in reality he and the Prince were very close friends,^[32] and Milligan was made a Knight Commander of the British Empire (KBE) (honorary because of his Irish citizenship) in 2000. He had been made an Honorary Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1992.

Campaigning[link]

He was a strident campaigner on environmental matters, particularly arguing against unnecessary noise, such as the use of "muzak".

In 1971, Milligan caused controversy by attacking an art exhibition, consisting of catfish, oysters and shrimp which were to be electrocuted, at the Hayward Gallery with a hammer.^[34] He was a staunch and outspoken scourge of domestic violence, dedicating one of his books to Erin Pizzey.

Death[link]

Even late in life, Milligan's black humour had not deserted him. After the death of Harry Secombe from cancer, he said, "I'm glad he died before me, because I didn't want him to sing at my funeral." A recording of Secombe singing was played at Milligan's memorial service. He also wrote his own obituary, in which he stated repeatedly that he "wrote the Goon show and died".^{[citation needed]}

Milligan died from liver disease, at the age of 83, on 27 February 2002, at his home in Rye, East Sussex. On the day of his funeral, 8 March 2002, his coffin was carried to St Thomas's Church in Winchelsea, East Sussex and was draped in the flag of the Republic of Ireland.^[35] He had once quipped that he wanted his headstone to bear the words "I told you I was ill." He was buried at St Thomas's cemetery but the Chichester diocese refused to allow this epitaph.^[36] A compromise was reached with the Irish translation, "Dúirt mé leat go raibh mé breoite", and, additionally in English, "Love, light, peace". According to a letter published in the Rye and Battle Observer, Milligan's headstone was removed from St Thomas's churchyard and moved to be alongside the grave of his wife.^[37]

Legacy[link]

The Holden Road plaque

From the 1960s onwards Milligan was a regular correspondent with Robert Graves. Milligan's letters to Graves usually addressed a question to do with classical studies. The letters form part of Graves's bequest to St. John's College, Oxford.

The film of Puckoon, starring Sean Hughes and including Milligan's daughter, the actress Jane Milligan, was released after his death.

Milligan lived for several years in Holden Road, Woodside Park and at The Crescent, Barnet, and was a strong supporter of the Finchley Society. His old house in Woodside Park is now demolished, but there is a blue plaque in his memory on the new house on the site. The Finchley Society is trying to get a statue of him erected in Finchley. There is also a campaign to erect a statue in the London Borough of Lewisham where he grew up. After coming to the UK from India in the 1930s he lived at 50 Riseldine Road, Brockley and attended Brownhill Boys' school (later Catford Boys' School, which was demolished in 1994). Lynsey De Paul is a patron of the Spike Milligan Statue Memorial Fund.

There is a plaque and bench located at the Wadestown Library, Wellington New Zealand in an area called "Spike Milligan Corner".

In a 2005 poll to find The Comedians' Comedian, he was voted among the top 50 comedy acts ever by fellow comedians and comedy insiders. In a BBC poll in August 1999, Milligan was voted the "funniest person of the last 1000 years".

Milligan has been portrayed twice in films. In the adaptation of his novel Adolf Hitler: My Part in His Downfall, he was played by Jim Dale, while Milligan himself played his own father. He was portrayed by Edward Tudor-Pole in The Life and Death of Peter Sellers (2004). In a 2008 stage play, Surviving Spike, Milligan was played by the entertainer Michael Barrymore.

On 9 June 2006 it was reported that Richard Wiseman had identified Milligan as the writer of the world's funniest joke as decided by the Laughlab project. Wiseman said the joke contained all three elements of what makes a good gag: anxiety, a feeling of superiority and an element of surprise.^[38]

Eddie Izzard described Milligan as "The Godfather of Alternative Comedy". "From his unchained mind came forth ideas that just had no boundaries. And he influenced a new generation of comedians who came to be known as 'alternative'."^[39] Members of Monty Python greatly admired him. In one interview, which was widely quoted at the time, John Cleese stated "Milligan is the Great God to all of us".^[40] The Pythons gave Milligan a cameo role in their 1979 film, Monty Python's Life of Brian, when Milligan happened to be holidaying in Tunisia, near where the film was being shot. Graham Chapman gave him a minor part in Yellowbeard.

After their retirement, Milligan's parents and his younger brother Desmond moved to Australia. His mother lived the rest of her long life in the coastal village of Woy Woy on the New South Wales Central Coast, just north of Sydney. As a result, Milligan became a regular visitor to Australia and made a number of radio and TV programmes there, including The Idiot Weekly with Bobby Limb. He also wrote several books including Puckoon during a visit to his mother's house in Woy Woy. Milligan famously named Woy Woy "the largest above ground cemetery in the world" when visiting in the 1960s. In July 2007, it was proposed that the suspension bridge on the cyclepath from Woy Woy to Gosford be named after him.^[41][42]

Radio comedy shows[link]

• The Goon Show (1951–1960)
• The Idiot Weekly (1958–1962)
• The Omar Khayyam Show (1963–1964)
• Milligna (or Your Favourite Spike) (1972) The title is based on Milligan's introduction in The Last Goon Show of All as "Spike Milligna, the well-known typing error".
• The Milligan Papers (1987)

Other radio shows[link]

Milligan contributed his recollections of his childhood in India for the acclaimed 1970s BBC audio history series Plain Tales From The Raj. The series was published in book form in 1975 by André Deutsch, edited by Charles Allen.

TV comedy shows[link]

• The Idiot Weekly, Price 2d
• A Show Called Fred
• Son of Fred
• The World of Beachcomber
• The Q series: Q5, Q6, Q7, Q8, Q9, and There's a Lot of It About
• Curry & Chips

Other notable TV involvement[link]

• Six-Five Special, first aired on 31 August 1957. Spike Milligan plays an inventor, Mr. Pym, and acts as a butcher in a sketch.
• The Marty Feldman Comedy Machine, Milligan co-wrote and performed in some sketches.
• This is Your Life, 11 April 1973. With Sellers, Bentine, and many others. Secombe spoke via a TV recording, as did his great friend Robert Graves.
• In 1975 Milligan co-wrote (with Neil Shand) and co-starred in a BBC TV sitcom called The Melting Pot. Its cast of characters included two illegal immigrants, an Irish landlord, a Chinese Cockney, a Scottish Arab and numerous other racial stereotypes; Milligan himself took the part of Mr Van Gogh, described as "an illegal Pakistani immigrant".^[43] After screening the pilot, the series was deemed to be too offensive for transmission. Five episodes remain unseen. Some of the characters and situations were reused in Milligan's novel, The Looney.
• Tiswas - 1981 edition.
• Guest appearing along with Peter Cook in Kenny Everett's Christmas Show in 1985.
• Playing a moaning stranger in an episode from 1987 of In Sickness and in Health.
• Narrator of The Ratties (1987), a children's cartoon series written by Mike Wallis and Laura Milligan, Spike's daughter.
• The Phantom Raspberry Blower of Old London Town ran as a serial in The Two Ronnies in the 1970s.
• Special guest star of 18 January 1979 edition of The Muppet Show
• Guest star in the 3rd episode of the award-winning BBC Scotland drama series Takin' Over the Asylum (1994)
• Narrated the 1995 TV show Wolves, Witches and Giants. A cartoon based on the book of the same name, it retold classic tales such as Little Red Riding Hood and Cinderella, but with a twist. The programme won the 1995 Royal Television Society award for Best Children's Entertainment, and was nominated for the same award again in 1997.
• Guest on Series 4, Episode 3 of Room 101 in 1999

Theatre[link]

• Treasure Island (1961, 1973–1975)
• The Bed-Sitting Room (1963, 1967) written by Milligan and John Antrobus
• Oblomov opened at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, in 1964. It was based on the Russian classic by Ivan Goncharov, and gave Milligan the opportunity to play most of the title role in bed. Unsure of his material, on the opening night he improvised a great deal, treating the audience as part of the plot almost, and he continued in this manner for the rest of the run, and on tour as 'Son of Oblomov'. The show ran at The Comedy Theatre in London's West end in 1965.
• Badjelly's Bad Christmas A play created and performed by the Chickenshed Theatre Company using the works of Spike Milligan and his characters.^[44]

Films[link]

• Let's Go Crazy (1951), played Eccles and a Waiter in this short, which also featured Peter Sellers and Wallas Eaton^[45]
• Penny Points to Paradise (1951) played Spike Donnelly. Features the later Goons, Alfred Marks and Bill Kerr.^[46]
• Down Among the Z Men (1952), played Eccles in a black-and-white secret agent comedy with all the Goons, including early member Michael Bentine and original announcer Andrew Timothy.
• A Kid for Two Farthings (1955), played an Indian with a grey beard (uncredited) ^[47]
• The Case of the Mukkinese Battle Horn (1956), a Goon-like 2-reel comedy ("Mukkinese" = "mucky knees").
• The Running, Jumping and Standing Still Film (1960), a silent comedy, Richard Lester's debut film.
• Watch Your Stern (1960), played Ranjid, the first civilian electrian.^[48]
• The Invasion Quartet (1961), he plays a leader of commandos, also featuring Bill Travers and John Le Mesurier.^[49]
• What a Whooper (1961), played a tramp. The film starred Adam Faith.
• Country postman Harold Petts in Postman's Knock (1962).
• The Bed-Sitting Room (1969), post-apocalyptic comedy with Peter Cook and Dudley Moore and also Arthur Lowe; written by John Antrobus based on the Milligan/Antrobus play. Milligan had a small role as a postman named "Mate", which was also the name of a Goon Show character.
• The traffic warden who eats the ticket in The Magic Christian (1969).
• The court jester in Cucumber Castle (1970).
• The Ruling Class (1972 Peter O'Toole black comedy.) Cameo as traffic policeman in opening titles.
• Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1972) as Gryphon.
• Adolf Hitler: My Part in his Downfall (1972), a film of the first volume of his autobiography. Spike played the part of his father. The role of the young Spike Milligan was played by Jim Dale.
• The decrepit manager of a seedy London hotel in Bruce Beresford's The Adventures of Barry McKenzie (1972).
• Digby, the Biggest Dog in the World (1973) children's comedy.
• Monsieur Bonacieux, husband of Madame Bonacieux (Raquel Welch) in Richard Lester's The Three Musketeers (1973).
• Man About The House (1974) Film version of the popular TV series, playing himself at the Thames Television Studio finale.
• The Great McGonagall (1974), untalented Scottish poet (based on William Topaz McGonagall) angles to become laureate, with Peter Sellers as Queen Victoria.
• The voice of Platypus in the Australian animated film Dot and the Kangaroo (1977)
• The decrepit Geste family retainer Crumpet in The Last Remake of Beau Geste (1977), with Marty Feldman.
• A policeman who briefly talks to Dr. Watson and Stapleton when they first arrive on the moors in The Hound of the Baskervilles.
• The prophet abandoned by his flock in Life of Brian (1979).
• Monsieur Rimbaud in History of the World, Part I (1981).
• A royal herald flunkie who accidentally blows a spy's cover in Yellowbeard (1983).

• "When The Sun Goes In" a film made for the solar eclipse - as himself (1999) now posted complete on YouTube.

Books[link]

• Silly Verse for Kids (1959); the 1968 paperback edition omits one poem and adds some from the next two books
• A Dustbin of Milligan (1961, Dobson Books). Subsequent reprints by Tandem, London, 1965-1975. This book contains a good representation of Milligan's earlier writing style, including poems, cartoons, short stories, letters to Secombe, and his views on some issues.
• Goblins (1978) A collection of poems
• The Little Pot Boiler (1963)
• Puckoon (1963)
• A Book of Bits, or A Bit of a Book (1965)
• A Book of Milliganimals (1968)
• Badjelly the Witch (1973)

• The Goon Show Scripts (1973). London: Sphere. Milligan's selection of scripts.
• More Goon Show Scripts (1974, paperback). London: Sphere. ISBN 0-7221-6077-1. Milligan's selection of scripts. [Original, London, Woburn Press, 1973]
• The Lost Goon Shows (1987). London: Robson. Milligan's selection of scripts.

• The Bed-Sitting Room. First published in Great Britain by Margaret & Jack Hobbs, 1970. Published by Universal-Tandem, 1972. Tandem, 1973. © 1970 Spike Milligan and John Antrobus.
• The Looney: An Irish Fantasy (1987)
• The Bedside Milligan
• "The War (and Peace) Memoirs"
  • The seven memoirs were also recorded as talking books with Spike reciting them in his own inimitable style.
  • Adolf Hitler: My Part in His Downfall (1971)
  • "Rommel?" "Gunner Who?" (1974)
  • Monty: His Part in My Victory (1976)
    • This and the previous two books were released and publicised as the first, second and third part respectively of a trilogy.
  • Mussolini: His Part in My Downfall (1978)
    • This was announced as the fourth part of his "increasingly misnamed" trilogy.
  • Where Have All the Bullets Gone? (1985)
  • Goodbye Soldier (1986)
  • Peace Work (1992)

• Scunthorpe Revisited, added articles and instant relatives. Michael Joseph, London. Published by Penguin. Copyright, Spike Milligan Productions, 1989. ISBN 07181.3356.0
• Small Dreams of a Scorpion (1972)
• Hidden Words: Collected Poems
• Open Heart University
• Startling Verse for All the Family
• Sir Nobonk and the Terrible Dreadful Awful Naughty Nasty Dragon
• A Mad Medley of Milligan
• Transports of Delight (Sidgwick & Jackson 1974)
• More Transports of Delight
• Depression and How to Survive It (with Professor Anthony Clare), medical biography.
• It Ends with Magic
• The Murphy (Virgin, 2001)
• Milligan's Ark
• The Spike Milligan Letters (edited by Norma Farnes)
• More Spike Milligan Letters (edited by Norma Farnes)
• The Unpublished Spike Milligan BOX 18 (edited by Norma Farnes), London, Fourth Estate, 2006. ISBN 978-0-00-721427-3. [posthumous]
• The "According to" Books
  • The Bible—the Old Testament According to Spike Milligan (Michael Joseph, October 1993)
  • Black Beauty According to Spike Milligan (Michael Joseph, 1996)
  • D.H.Lawrence's John Thomas and Lady Jane: According to Spike Milligan—Part II of "Lady Chatterley's Lover" (Michael Joseph, 1995)
  • Frankenstein According to Spike Milligan (Virgin, 1997)
  • The Hound of the Baskervilles According to Spike Milligan
  • Lady Chatterley's Lover According to Spike Milligan (Michael Joseph, April 1994)
  • Robin Hood According to Spike Milligan (Virgin, 1998)
  • Treasure Island According to Spike Milligan
  • Wuthering Heights According to Spike Milligan (Michael Joseph, 1994)
• The Essential Spike Milligan (compiled by Alexander Games, 2002), ISBN 0-00-767358-2
• The Compulsive Spike Milligan (Edited by Norma Farnes, 2004), ISBN 0-00-771702-4

References[link]