Benefit Performance', which goes like this, in the key of G-flat! --------------- The Goon Show Ned's Benefit Performance (An unperformed show) Wal: This is the Needle-nardle-noo Service of the BBC. (deliberately) Vote Labour! FX: PENNY IN MUG Wal: Thank you Tony Blair! Tonight's programme comes from the dustbin of a wealthy and very well known British millionaire, politician and market gardener. Eccles: Richard Branson? Wal: No, no - I refer of course, to the highly steamed, pressed and folded 'Goon Show'! ORCHESTRA: BANG-CRASH FANFARE; ENDS IN APPALLING CRASH; PILE OF CYMBALS DROPPED ON FLOOR, HEAP OF CORRIGATED IRON, KNIVES, FORKS, SPOONS, ETC. PAUSE. SINGLE FORK DROPPED ON CONCRETE. Ned: Yes, they most definitely have been practicing! (through megaphone) Now folks of world, I am standing in the gutter alongside a very ruined castle, and diving for pennies on the pavement. Throat: Here you are sonny! FX: CLINK OF PENNY ON PAVEMENT Ned: Ahh! Thank you lady! (grunt!) FX: SOUND OF BODY FALLING ON PAVEMENT. Ned: Oooh! My head! Darnn it folks, there must be an easier way to make a few bob! Wal: Well why not sing then, Mr Seagoon? Ned: I say, that's a jolly good idea Wal! (sings, badly out of tune) Comrades, Comrades, ever since we were boys. John Snagg (Peter): Oh how the mighty are fallen! Mr Seagoon, here is a photo of a bowl of soup. Come and see me at the BBC someday when you are not so busy! Eccles: Now just a minute, I want some soup too! Ned: All right, you can have this lot then - HERE! FX: SOUND OF ECCLES GETTING HUGE BARREL OF SOUP IN THE FACE. HUGE SPLOSH, WITH CRASH OF BARREL, WHICH THEN ROLLS LOUDLY DOWN A HILL. GOES ON FOR A WHILE. Eccles: (over above) Oooohohohoh!!! Ned: STOOOOOOP! (FX out) I've had enough of this! I think the audience have too! (SHOUTS) HAVE YOU HAD ENOUGH FOLKS?? FX/GRAMS/ORCHESTRA: BOOS, MOOS, CATCALLS, GROANS, CHORUS, FRED THE OYSTER, ETC. LASTS FOR FIVE SECONDS. Ned: (slight panic) Wal! Wal! We got the wrong audience! Wal: Ooops, er, all right, um.Excuse me audience, which show are you supposed to be at? Voice at back: (Peter) We comed in 'ere to see a performance of Eastern Big Band Music put on by the Welsh-Swedish leapfrog team! Wal: Sorry, that is all in the next studio! FX: CROWD EXITS SLOWLY, MUCH TALKING AND CURSING UNDER BREATH. SLOWLY DIES. DOOR SLAM. Wal: So much for them! And now, back to the plot. Unfortunately we have a problem. No audience any more! Bluebottle: Well Mr Green-sleeves, my little brownie friend says that when you're in trouble ask a p'liceman! Wal: I say, that's a jolly good idea! Ned: Yes it is Wal, and LOOK! Just by the purest coincidence, there's a jolly copper there played by the ever popular Peter Sellars! Er...excuse me Mr Rozzer-type policeman! Cop (Peter): (elderly rozzer, approaching): 'Ello, 'ello, 'ello, what's this great steaming idiot standing in the gutter then? Ned: (deliberately) My name is Seagoon constable, Ned Seagoon! FX: FALLING BOMB, HUGE EXPLOSION. (pause) Ned: Curse! Now listen Constable, I would like to know where I am! Cop: You're on Earth... Ned; ...Oh good, I can throw away this map of Mars. Cop: ...in England... Ned: .And I can throw away this map of China! Cop: ...At Land's End! Ned: ...In that case I'd better not throw away this map of England! Cop: Why? Ned: I'm supposed to be in London at the Camden Theatre; not at Lands End! Cop: Well, you'd better hurry up then, hadn't you, son! Ned: Right! FX: WHOOSH Wal: And while we await Ned's arrival in London, here is a recording of a certain nose; it's (broadly) ...Max Gelgray - Ploogie!! (Gelgray and Band - music) Wal: That was Mr Maxwell Ebenezer Murgatroyd Gelgray, spinster of the parish, who wished it to be known. We now take you to Redruth in Cornwall, where a well-known figure is puffing up Main Street. All four lanes are blocked, and motorists are advised to take an alternative route; like New York! FX: STAGGERING FOOTSTEPS APPROACHING. Ned (over above): Whew! Oh my legs! Oh my back! Oh my feet! Oh everything else! Grytpype: (trying desperately to be a cop, and failing rather badly): Ello, ello, ello, what's going on here? Ned: (Chuckle) It's Peter 'Voices' Sellars doing his nut there! Grytpype: Oh please don't give me away! I need the money to buy a new Roll Royce! Ned: But Mr Sellers, you already have Seven hundred and eighty-three of them! Grytpype: Ah yes Ned, but they're all facing the wrong way! (Phone up) Hello, Mr Rolls and Mr Royce, please send me a brochure of all the cars you have facing the other way. Thank you! (Phone down) Right, now back to the plot. Ahem. What's your name sonny? Ned: Seagoon, Ned Seagoon FX: FALLING BOMB, HUGE EXPLOSION. (pause) Ned: (quietly) Curse! Grytpype: OK, now move along now; Main Street is for royalty of no fixed abode! ORCHESTRA: SOLO VIOLIN, HEARTS AND FLOWERS Ned: (helpless victim, laying it on VERY thick): Oh please officer; I'm tired and worn out! Can't I sit here for a little while and rest? Grytpype: (resigned): All right, all right, all right; put that violin down and get up off your knees! Here you are; an Oscar for that performance! FX: HUGE CHEERS AND APPLAUSE! SLOWLY FADES. PAUSE. Spike: Ahh, He's not as popular as he used to be! I'll sing that folks (as Spriggs) He's not as popular as he used to be-hee! FX: GUNSHOT, SCREAM Ned: He had to go! I shot him for nothing, you know! At least someone could pay me for it! FX: TILL Ned: Ah! Thank you sir! What's this, a dud Burmese sixpence? Scotland forever sir! Ray: Ochhh Aye th' Noo - Yum-bum-bulla-boo! Ned; Thank you Ginger! I say, I must have my eyes tested! Ray: I don't know how I get these jobs, folks, I really don't know! Ned: Now may I sit down? Grytpype: Oh very well. FX: BEDSPRINGS, VARIOUS BOINGS, DOINGS, FOLLOWED BY TOTAL COLLAPSE! PAUSE. DUCKCALL. Grytpype: (aside) Ah, at last a chance to make some money! (aloud) That's going to cost you fifty pound or sterling in crisp green half-guineas! Ned: What for? Grytpype; A new seat! Ned: Fifty pounds??? Let me check my wallet. FX: HUGE SAFE DOOR OPENING. SOUNDS OF DIVE-BOMBING PLANES. Ned: Drat these moths! And now I'll count out the massive Seagoon fortune! FX: SINGLE PENNY ON PAVEMENT Ned: One penny. - I'm broke! Grytpype; Well, you'd better get some cash from somewhere, hadn't yer! Ned: Well, I can do a concert in Blackpool!! That ought to get me a bit extra! Scene Two: The Concert Chamber, Opera House, Blackpool! FX: CONCERT AUDIENCE MURMER. Lew: (Echo through very poor PA system, slight feedback squeal, announcing over above) LADIIEEESSS AND GENTLEMENNN! Our next item has been imported at great expense from their World Famous in London concert in Crouch End. The Ray Ellington Quartet! Quartet: music. (applause) Lew: Thank you ladies and gentlemen. And the next item on our programme is that master of the keyboard and mistress of the spoons; .er what's your name, son? Ned: Seagoon, Ned Seagoon FX: FALLING BOMB, HUGE EXPLOSION. (pause) Lew: My life, he's always doing that. Carry on, schnorror! FX: MASSIVE APPLAUSE, FADES, OUT-OF-TUNE PIANO PLAYS OPENING BARS OF "I WANT TO BE HAPPY" VERY BADLY, CHANGING KEYS AT LEAST FIVE TIMES. HARRY SINGS THE OPENING LINES, DESPERATELY TRYING TO KEEP IN TUNE WITH THE PIANO, BUT INTERRUPTED WITH BOOS, CATCALLS, ETC, FOOTSTEPS APPROACHING, RUNNING FOR DEAR LIFE... Ned: (Over footsteps): Right! Got the fifty! Here! FX: TILL Grytpype: Ahh; the old Jewish piano again! Number 1 on the New York Hit Parade, and not doing so badly in Croydon either! Ned: (quick) Can I go now?? Grytpype: Yes, I suppose so; off you go! FX: WHOOSH INTO DISTANCE, FOLLOWED BY ROARING CROWD; ("WE WANT OUR MONEY BACK!!") DISAPPEARS INTO DISTANCE. Wal: (announcing) And Now...! ORCHESTRA: MASSIVE AND VERY IMPRESSIVE FANFARE, GOES ON FOR QUITE A WHILE, GETTING BIGGER AND BIGGER UNTIL IT ENDS ON A GIGANTIC CHORD. (PAUSE) Wal: (slight laugh) ...I've forgotten what I was going to say now! Ned: Allow me Wal! Ladies and Gentlemen. Many people have asked us how Major Bloodnok started out in life. So now we present - The Life and Times of Major Denis Bloodnok, OBE, Coward and Bar!! ORCHESTRA: GREAT BUILDING TIMPANI ROLL; ENDS ON A VERY SOFT TRIANGLE 'TING'. Ned: Thank you. Ladies and Gentlemen, the name of Major Dennis Aloysius Bloodnok is known to everyone the world over. Eccles: I don't know him! Ned: We don't consider you to be anyone! Wal: Can we get on?! Ned: Right. Mr Stott? Mood music please. ORCHESTRA: 'STATESMAN STATELY HOME'-TYPE MUSIC, SECOND PHRASE DROPS INTO THE TAIL OF THE BLOODNOK THEME. FX; EXPLOSIONS, ETC. Bloodnok, (over above): Ooohhh Aughhh! Oh dear, nobody will be asking me out to parties now! Now where was I? Ah yes, My name is Major Dennis Bloodnok! GRAMS: LAST FEW SECONDS OF FRED THE OYSTER, HEAVY ON THE RASPBERRIES. Bloodnok: Thank you. I was born in a little sheltered fishing village on the east coast of England. My mother and father were both football players. It was a VERY sheltered village! The first thing I recall was when my father, Sir Aloysius Gertrude Bloodnok (I told you it was a sheltered village!) held me up on the balcony of the Bloodnok family estate mansion to show me to the villagers. FX: SMALL CROWD; POLITE WEAK APPLAUSE. SWANEE WHISTLE DOWN, THUD. Bloodnok: The next thing I remember was waking up in the local nursing home with a large bump on my head! Father was always a butterfingers! As I grew older, I remember with particular affection, Minnie, one of the village girls. I can hear her voice, even now... Minnie Banister: O, stop that Dennis, stop that, ooooh! Young Bloodnok: (sounding like Bluebottle with adenoids) (puzzled) Stop what, Min? Min: Going home, just when things are getting interesting! ORCHESTRA: CORNY CHORD Bloodnok: Then, during the war, I was called up, but was found to be too mentally stable for national service! Spike: Er.just a minute, shouldn't that be UNstable? Wal: Have you ever done National Service? Spike: Nope; just World War Two in the key of Eb at twenty miles an hour - see my War Memoirs, price fifteen pounds at all good booksellers, - and some rather disreputable ones too! Wal: Any questions? Spike: ...I see! Ahem! Bloodnok: Then during the war, I found myself in great danger! Crun: (Yells furiously) Bloodnok!!! FX: TUMULT OF WAR. LASTS FOR THREE SECONDS Bloodnok: ...But I managed to escape from Min's father, and like all right-thinking cowards, I ran away to sea. FX: HUGE SPLASH Little Jim: He's fallen in da water! Bloodnok: Thank you little Jim. We had to get it in somewhere folks! To continue. This made me all wet. Ned: (laughing) No Comment! Bloodnok: .And so I ran back to the land, and waited for a ship. FX: SEASHORE, ONE OR TWO HARBOUR NOISES... Spriggs, (over above) Ah, Hello Jeem, off to sea? Off - to - See - eeaaa! Young Bloodnok: Yes sir! Spriggs: The sea whistling in your hair and the salt spray in yer face, - In - Your - Fa-hace? Young Bloodnok: Yes Sir! Spriggs: Sailing all them foreign lands! All them lovely ladies, - Love- ly - Ladi - heeees? Young Bloodnok: Yes Sir! Spriggs: Well, there's no good coming to me Jeem, I'm a greengrocer! Greengro-c-er!! Why don't you go and have a word with that tall pouf in blue sitting on that bollard, Jeem? Young Bloodnok: Please sir, what's a pouf? (loaded pause) Spriggs: I don't think you'd better go to sea Jeeem! Why don't you join the British Army Jeem? Bloodnok: I took his advice, and joined the Third Armoured Thunderboxes in India. Due to my reputation I was promoted very quickly to Major. Col Chinstrappe (Spike): Quick, get him out of here! I don't care how you do it, but get him out! Promote him if you have to! FX: VERY FAST 'RULE BRITANNIA' Jim Spriggs: Here Jeem, sew these pips onto your underpants! Bloodnok: Oh good. Then people will think I worked my way up. (big joke) from the bottom! ORCHESTRA: TA-RAA! Bloodnok: Unfortunately after that I do not remember all that went on. Matter of fact I remember very little that went on. FX: POP, POURING GOES ON FOR QUITE A WHILE Bloodnok: (cod drinking sounds, pause) ORCHESTRA: 'LAND OF HOPE AND GLORY' - TYPE LINK VERY FAST IN 2/4 Bloodnok: And so the war ended. I heard all about it on the wireless, you know. Then after the war I began to dabble in the law... ORCHESTRA: HARP GLISSANDO Bloodnok: Father, Father; my articles have come through! Rochester (Spike): I always said you were a late developer! ORCHESTRA: CORNY CHORD Bloodnok: Thank you Alistair Simm!! Well now; I was very fortunate in later life, making my first million very quickly. This came about through two strokes of good luck. The first was marrying a rich widow, and the second was a chance conversation we had on our wedding night... ORCHESTRA: SMOKEY SAX AND PIANO; 'LAURA' Bloodnok: Darling? Spike: (Elle) Yes darling? FX: GUNSHOT. MUSIC OUT Bloodnok: With the money, I purchased the London Star, the Daily Mirror, the Bank of England, the Pink Pussycat Strippery in Soho, the 'Island of Joy' Massage Parlour, and some very interesting compromising photographs of a cabinet minister, and the female half of a mime act! This was the start which launched me on the long and very lucrative career which brought me to where I am today! FX: JAIL DOOR OPENING Hairy Jailer (Throat): Come on 389, it's exercise time! Bloodnok: Thank you warder! Good night all! ORCHESTRA: BLOODNOK THEME, WITH BOOMING BASS DRUM AND UNDAMPENED CYMBAL. ENDS WITH PILE OF CYMBALS LANDING ON FLOOR. Wal: Thank you Sir John Barbarolli, the cheque is in the mail. And now at great expense, (I hope you appreciate all the trouble we go to to bring you all these little snippets of information! Believe me, we do it out of the goodness of our hearts, and we don't get paid for it either...) FX & GRAMS; HUGE CROWD: 'GET ON WITH IT!!!" Wal: Er, yes, well, um, at great expense, we are placing a microphone in the centre of Southampton, to wait for Ned's arrival there... FX: CITY STREET. WHOOSH. FX OUT (pause) Wal: Hardly worth the expense! And now to fill in the time, we have a special import from Italy - Giovani Saphoni!! Bowser: What? Rubbish! Wal: No, not quite; although close! Saponi (Spike, as Spriggs): Ahem...(PROCEEDS TO SING A VERY OUT-OF-TUNE VERSION OF 'IF I RULED THE WORLD'. INTERRUPTED THREE SECONDS LATER BY:) FX: BOOS, MOOS, CATCALLS, FRED THE OYSTER, ETC. Grytpype: Looks like we've got the same audience back! Wal: We can't have that! Audience; go home! FX: AS BEFORE Moriarty: All Right; I'LL sing! ORCHESTRA: BIG GRAND INTRO, MIGHTY BUILDUP, LEADING INTO MORIARTY'S SONG... Moriarty: (sings) I.... Ned: (approaching at speed, out of breath) Hold it, hold it, hold it, Hello folks! Hello folks! Hello folks! Hello folks! Wal: Now just a minute! What's all this? Who are you sir? Explain those Jacobean Knees! Ned: My name.Oh no, you're not going to get me like that again! I'll call my special cardboard cutout Grenadier. Bluebottle!!! Bluebottle: I heard you call me my Capiting, I heard you call me! Enter Bluebottle, waits for audience sausages, but not a clapper in the house! (Thinks of very rude word to say to them!) Ned: Bluebottle, I have a very important job for you to do! Bluebottle: I will do it, I will! I will be a hero! Thinks, this will make that Molly Quills take notice of me! She's a nice big girl! Whooooherrrr! (Pauses to wipe drool off chin) Ned: Bluebottle, stop those naughty thinks! Now,. (ahem) where did you say this Molly Quills lives? Bluebottle: I will not tell you where she lives! You will not touch a hair on her head! Ned: Why not? Bluebottle: Turns to audience and conducts the next line, as they all know it. (audience joins) - SHE'S - BALD!!! ORCHESTRA: GOON CHORD. Ned: Bluebottle, I have the honour to pronounce you OBE first class! Just take this piece of paper and read it. But don't read it until I tell you! Bluebottle: My Capting is going a long way away so that he can hear me shout to him. Ned: (miles away) All right, you can read it out now! Bluebottle: I heard you call..er Reads piece of paper. Ooh, it's not very clear. Eccles? Eccles: Yeah? Bluebottle: Can you read, Eccles?" Eccles: Yeah, I can read Eccles! Bluebottle: OK, then what does that say? Eccles: Er.um.'Then the big giant walked over the hill with a big club in his hand!' Bluebottle: No it doesn't! It says, 'My Name Is Ned Seagoon, and..' FX: FALLING BOMB, HUGE EXPLOSION, BLUEBOTTLE SCREAMS BEHIND. (pause) Ned: (distant) Whoops! Eccles: Ooh, what's this custard on the wall? Bluebottle: Don't you touch me you rotten swine! Scrape me off and take me home! ORCHESTRA: HUGE GLISSANDO DOWN INTO GOON GALLOP. Spike: (over above) Wait a moment, hold on please... ORCHESTRA: COMES TO RAGGEDY STOP. (pause) Spike: Is that all? What a rotten end! I could have done MUCH better! Peter: Well, why didn't you? Harry: Now just a minute, you two. All Three: (Argue very loudly at cross purposes.) ORCHESTRA: HUGE GLISSANDO AGAIN; INTERRUPTING THE ARGUEMENT, DOWN INTO GOON GALLOP, THEN DOWN UNDER: Wal: That was The Goon Show! A recorded radio show presented by the BBC, starring Peter Sellars, Harry Secombe and Spike Milligan, with Ray Ellington and Max Gelgray, and the orchestra conducted by Wally Stott. Script by pastiche Spike Milligan, produced by John Browell, of whom it has been said. And now the last word from Ned Seagoon: Ned: (Shrieking insanely) BRANDYYYYY!!! FX: DOZENS OF BOOTS THUNDERING INTO THE NIGHT. ORCHESTRA: THEME UP, AND RUN OUT, THEN PLAYOUT WITH MAX AND 'CRAZY RHYTHM'. ***************** Hope this is of help! I have worked on a few others in the interim, and maybe I might get to post them when I get around to finishing them! All the best to you and yours, Steve.