Here is the script for SHANGRI-LA AGAIN, the 6th SERIES no.8. This is an amazing episode and I will post an examination of it soon. Meantime enjoy.

Greenslade: This is the BBC Home Service, brought to you by the British Broadcasting Corporation, makers of Faux Pas.

Secombe: Yes indeedy, the makers of Faux Pas! And here is their greatest to date entitled…

Sellers: The extraordinary talking type wireless Goon Show.

Milligan: Improvisation in Eb

ORCHESTRA: (Singing) Antiphony in Eb

Milligan: Further improvisation in Eb

ORCHESTRA: (Singing) Further antiphony in Eb

Milligan: Complicated improvisation in Eb

ORCHESTRA: (Singing) Complicated antiphony in Eb

Milligan: Top note in Eb to Ab

ORCHESTRA: (Straining) Top note antiphony in Eb to Ab

Milligan: That’s the end of that lot! Ha ha ha!

Secombe: Well done Milligoon. Well done! Well done! Well done! WEEELL DONE!

Sellers: Yes, well done! Which leaves only me to announce the story of ‘Lost Horizon.’ Oooooooooh!

ORCHESTRA: Magical scene setting music. Harp glissandi and majestic woodwind chords..

Sellers: (Dalai-lama voice.) The story of Shangri-La is adopted from Fred Hilton’s book ‘Lost Horizontally’…based on the legend of Shangra-Lu, from the play "Across Ava Gardner with stethoscope, Geigercounter." ...Shangri-la….

ORCHESTRA: Further magical scene setting.

Seagoon: (Slightly echoey.) Shangri-la, I still hear the call of it. I - dear listener, was the only man in the world to see it and return … alive. Let me read the story from my diary. "December 24th 1933 – have had news that the Japanese invasion of Manchuria is imminent. "

ORCHESTRA: Harp glissandi.

FX: Telephone rings.

Seagoon: Hello, Seagoon, British Embassy Peking here.

Milligan: (Clerk, at end of line.) Hello sir. Information here. Japanese are closing in on Peking.

Seagoon: Then you must take every precaution.

Milligan: I have sir. Twenty armed men on the roof of the building. We’ve sand-bagged the entrance. Three battalions of guards in the slit trenches and I’ve mined the whole area around me.

Seagoon: Good man. Where are you speaking from?

Milligan: A phone box in East Acton.

Seagoon: Splendid fellow. I’ll see you get Needle Nardle Noo and bar for this.

Milligan: Thank you sir. I must go now. My wife’s boiling over.

FX: Handset down.

Seagoon: I wonder who he was?

FX: Phone rings. Handset lifts.

Milligan: Jim Pills.

Seagoon: Thank you.

FX: Handset down.

Seagoon: Hmm. Things look pretty grim. The situation calls for immediate action. First I must evacuate the British residents.

FX: Door opens.

Grytpype: Oh Neddie. I want to see you.

Seagoon: This was Lord Grytpype-Thynne, British Consul General. How cool he looked in his porcelain vest and automatic self-igniting boots.

Grytpype: Neddie, Major Bloodnok has been detailed to order a plane to fly the British residents to safety. Would you be at Peking airport between midday and noon?

Seagoon: I’ll get ready. Wong?

Wong: Ah, yes sir?

Seagoon: Wong, I'm leaving for England.

Wong: Oh.

Seagoon: Pack my sleeping bag and send the other one home.

Wong: Please sir, cannot my brother Jim Wong and I come with you?

Seagoon: Sorry Wong. Only English people are allowed on the plane.

Wong: But sir, we can pretend we are English.

Seagoon: Haha, nonsense. You know very well too Wongs don't make a white.

Wong: Me don't wish to know that.

Grytpype: Well said Neddie. Who is it says you haven't a sense of humour?

Seagoon: Everybody.

Grytpype: Well, I’ll see you at the airport in scrimpson skanson hours.

Seagoon: Sorry sir, I can’t be there until half-past skansons.

Grytpype: Very well then, half-past skansons but don’t be more than a skanson late will you?

Seagoon: I’ll be there dead on skansons.

Grytpype: Needle nardle skinson!

FX: Door closes.

Seagoon: In half an hour I was ready to leave. I burnt the official documents, set the goat free and swallowed the union jack. I was just about to dismantle the official embassy saxophone when…

FX: Door opens.

FX: Door slams.

Seagoon: I never saw him again.

Bloodnok: Oooh, oh Seagoon. Seagoon…

Seagoon: It was Major Bloodnok of the third Disgusting Fusiliers.

Bloodnok: Rouse me splonger and blun! Ooh I’ve been through hell to get here.

Seagoon: There must be a cooler route?

Bloodnok: Yes, I was surrounded by a Jap patrol but I soon had them crawling for me on their hands and knees.

Seagoon: How’s that?

Bloodnok: I hid in a drain-pipe. Shhh! There’s someone outside the window. Look-out!

Seagoon: What is it?

Bloodnok: It’s a gramophone record.

Seagoon: Quick, put it on.

Bloodnok: Right!

Bloodnok: Stretch me skallibonkers and flatten me Doreen Lundies! It’s a Japanese mirror trick. We shall have to get out of here.

Seagoon: Yes! Yes! Yes! Now what about the plane?

Bloodnok: The plane…the plane. Ooo! Ooo heavens!

Seagoon: What’s up?

Bloodnok: Look - if I tell, promise you won’t blow up?

Seagoon: I promise.

Bloodnok: I forgot to order it.

Bloodnok: You promised!

Seagoon: Bloodnok, I don't like the way you're acting.

Bloodnok: Then get Lawrence Olivier.

Seagoon: Gladys?

Ellington: Yes darling?

Seagoon: Is the transport ready to take us to the aerodrome?

Ellington: Yes darling.

Seagoon: (Close) Thank you darling. Here’s an airing cupboard – go and have some fun. Ha hum. Now, Bloodnok! Where’s your wife.

Bloodnok: My wife? Erm, my wife won’t be coming with us old lad. You see, I…er, well, she can’t leave her bed.

Seagoon: Why not?

Bloodnok: I’ve sewn her in the mattress.

Seagoon: You skindrell of scoundrels, that’s matricide!

Seagoon: They’re getting closer. Eccles!

Eccles: Heeeeello!

Seagoon: Carry these. Oh, and check my automatic to see if it’s loaded.

Eccles: OK. Let me see now. Oh! Ah, they got three bullets in the magazine, (what’s it got?)…oh, one in the barrel and er…

FX: Pistol shot.

Eccles: …the other in my head.

Seagoon: Good man Eccles. Keep up the good work.

Eccles: Thank you.

Seagoon: Now gentlemen, we’re about to journey through war-torn countryside. There’ll be fighting all along the way. We’ve got to travel through it. Twenty-five miles in an open car. Therefore we must take precautions. Here. Here’s two aspirins each. England forever! - followed closely by Max Geldray.

ORCHESTRA: Dramatic link

Greenslade: ‘Lost Horizon’ part two – Escape.

Seagoon: In a tropical storm we arrived at the ruined Peking airport.

Grytpype: I thought you’d never get here Neddie. Let me take your wet saxophone.

Seagoon: Thank you. Ah, any luck with the plane.

Grytpype: Well we’ve had the offer of a private one from Count Fred Moriarty here. Count, this is Mr. N. Seagoon, Minister without portfolios.

Moriarty: I wondered why he wasn’t wearing any.

Seagoon: Who’s going to pilot this machine?

Moriarty: I am, for £10,000.

Seagoon: That’s a lot of money.

Moriarty: Yukkakakkoo I know. You have the embassy funds?

Seagoon: Yes, but…

Grytpype: Yes, yes. Hand them over Neddie, there’s a good boy. It’s our only chance.

Seagoon: I did as I was instructed. But I was suspicious. Who was this Fred Moriarty? I became more suspicious as I watched him and Lord Grytpype rolling on the floor, pouring the embassy funds over their heads. Ha ha ha! Still, you’re only young once.

Moriarty: Or, as in your case twice. Now then gentlemen, back to the story. We’re ready to take off in the flying type aeroplane.

Seagoon: Right. Ladies and gentlemen, there is room for thirteen on the plane. Unfortunately there are fourteen of us. One of us has got to stop behind.

OMNES: Mumbling.

Eccles: I got bad legs.

Seagoon: Don’t rhubarb me! Any volunteers? Bloodnok!

Bloodnok: What? Oh, well look here, I’d love to stay but I made a vow that before I died I’d like to see the old country again.

Seagoon: What old country?

Bloodnok: ANY old country.

Seagoon: Major Bloodnok, you and Lieutenant Greenslade are the only two single men. It’s between you two.

Bloodnok: Greenslade?

Greenslade: Yessir?

Bloodnok: Marry me darling. Marry me!

Seagoon: Stop this Noel Coward dialogue.

Bloodnok: I beg your pardon.

Seagoon: Now, you and Greenslade go behind that hut and decide who is to stay.

Bloodnok: Certainly. Come Greenslade dear lad. (Self fade) I’ve always admired you, you know…

Bloodnok: I’ve always admired you….

FX: Pistol shot.

Greenslade: Ahhhhhhh!

Bloodnok: Oh! The gallant Greenslade has volunteered to stay.

Seagoon: Major Bloodnok! You’re holding a pistol in your hand and it’s smoking.

Bloodnok: Yes, it steadies its nerves you know. It’s very jumpy with the old trigger you know…

Seagoon: Bloodnok, you’ve done a murder. When you go back to England you’ll pay for that.

Bloodnok: How much?

Seagoon: A pound down and three and nine a week.

Bloodnok: They’re costing more these days.

Seagoon: It’s the luxury tax you know.

Bloodnok: Of course, of course!

Seagoon: Needle nardle noo! Silence! Everyone on board the flying aeroplane. Fasten your safety belts. Contact!

ORCHESTRA: Dramatic WWII flying link.

Seagoon: Dawn, December the twenty-fifth. Have been airborne eight hours. Altitude twenty thousand feet, magnificent day, plane running smoothly, engines in perfect working condition, no wind, ideal weather for flying. Crashed.

Moriarty: Seagoon! Nobody’s hurt but the plane is a wreck.

Seagoon: That’s why it crashed. I wonder where we are?

Eccles: Well, I say we’re miles from civilization.

Seagoon: How do you know?

Eccles: Everything’s so peaceful.

Seagoon: Well said. Well done. (Hysterical) Well done! Well done! Well done! Ha ha hum, now…

Eccles: Oh, oh oh!

Seagoon: What have you done?

Eccles: I’ve…I’ve broken my leg.

Seagoon: How did you do that?

Eccles: I just got a hammer and went WHACK!

Seagoon: Splendid man Eccles. Keep up the good work. Here’s a razorblade, have fun.

Bloodnok: Neddie! Neddie! We must repair the plane’s talking radio. It’s our only chance of contact with the outside world.

Seagoon: Don’t worry. I’ve got a man working on it now. We’ll just have to sit and wait. And so dear listener, we sat and waited. Sometimes we stood and waited which is like sitting down only higher. Ha-hum. Three weeks went by and then…

Eccles: Seagoon! The radio set…the radio set…

Seagoon: Yes, yes, yes?!

Eccles: It still ain’t working.

Seagoon: Curse. That does it. We’ve had it chaps.

Bluebottle: No, you’ve not hadded it. I have come to save you little welsh ball.

Seagoon: I turned to meet the maker of this melodious voice. It was a short thin shivering youth heavily wrapped up in rice paper and dental floss.

Bluebottle: I have been sented to save you from the dreaded starvation. Here, have a wine gum.

Seagoon: Little badly constructed wreck, who are you?

Bluebottle: I am the mysterious stranger of the snows. I am known as ‘He who walks bare-footed through the frosty mountains.’

Seagoon: Why?

Bluebottle: My boots is at the menders. He he he! He he he! Always a joke from little merry Bluenbottle.

Seagoon: Intellectual giant where do you hail from?

Bluebottle: Where do I hail from? - he says. It is a place that lives in the memory forever. I got it writted down on a fag-packet somewhere. Oh yes, it is Shangra Lurn, land of eternal youth, land of purity, no drink, no sex, no sin… and I’m fed up with it I am. (Thank you fellow sinners.)

Seagoon: Hurricanes of bunions! This place Shangri-La, it sounds like utopia.

Bluebottle: Well it’s spelt differently, I know that.

Seagoon: Don’t tarry. Lead us to Shangri-La.

Bluebottle: Follow me!

ORCHESTRA: Dramatic Mountain Scaling link.

Seagoon: On we plunged through raging snow storms. Three weeks we battled on, griped with starvation.

Bluebottle: Yes. Many’s the day we had to exist on a handful of caviar and champagne.

Seagoon: Yes. The weight of our baggage became too much. In a moment of desperation we ditched the following vital equipment; eighteen hundred weight of rusty iron piping with fittings…

Spike: Twenty four lead budgerigar perches…

Bloodnok: One long thin object with no fixed abode…

Seagoon: One bronze bicycle with cement parachute ejector seat…

Spike: One …(Improvises in Eb) Oooooo oooooo ooooooo!

Bloodnok: One bus…

Lalkaka: Thirty six cardboard replicas of Nelson’s Column from the inside….

Bloodnok: One rubber Mosque with detachable beard.

Seagoon: That’s enough men. We daren’t risk leaving any more behind. Now, get those pianos on your backs and away we go.

Bluebottle: No. Stop, stop I say! You must not go yet. You must hear the mysterious temple music of Lama Ray Ellington and his gulf stream and unshaven bongos.

Seagoon: Then on the second of January - a miracle!

ORCHESTRA: Sharp chord, woodwind trills (hold under.)

Seagoon: In a natural rocky gorge we reached a tunnel in the sheer cliff face. In darkness we stumbles along its interior, then a shaft of light gleamed at the far end. We reached it exhausted. And lo! There before us lay Shangri-La.

ORCHESTRA: Monumental mountain fanfare. Distant temple bell. Solemn Chinese theme. (Continue under.)

Seagoon: Dear listener, I looked out upon a pastoral scene that I’d only dreamed existed. It almost defied description. In warm sunshine a valley that sang with colour – hillocks topped with banyan trees, and from their secret willow doves sprang their wings bent skywards.

Seagoon: Streams chuckled and vanished in early mists. Surmounting all lay a monastery clean and white in the sun, against which coloured prayer flags fluttered like spilled paint. This then was Shangri-La, my paradise, my predestined resting place. (Shouting.) Moore! What about the old radio awards for that bit there?

Grytpype: You silly twisted boy.

Seagoon: I’d forgotten all about that.

Bluebottle: Yes, I had too. Stop all this. You’re spoiling the game (what is I like.) This is the bit where I take you to see the great head Lama and his great big head.

ORCHESTRA: Gong.

Bluebottle: Thank you J. Arthur Rank. Take off your shoes and face the great cardboard cut-out Kaboda for the Dalai Lama.

Seagoon: Approaching me were two bags of dust on legs.

Bannister: (Distant) I saw it at the window and I said…

FX: Teaspoon drops.

Bannister: Ohhh! What’s happened?

Crun: You can’t get the Yehtis you know.

Bannister: I said we’d all be murdered in our monasteries and you didn’t come.

Crun: Grinn, snit, plung!

Bannister: Ohh!

Crun: Seacroon, welcome to Shangri-La! All mod. cons. light removals with horse and van.

Bannister: Listen Buddy. We’ve brought you here to take Henry Crun’s place when he retires.

Seagoon: You - you mean you want me to stay here until I die?

Crun: You can stop longer if you wish. You see I must retire. I’m seven hundred and nine years old.

Seagoon: Seven hundred and nine yea… I don’t believe it. You look older.

Bannister: Gnyum gnyum…it’s true.

Seagoon: You still alive?

Crun: It’s true.

Bannister: The air in this valley keeps one young. Bluebottle here is only three hundred and ten.

Bluebottle: Yes.

Bannister: Change those shorts.

Seagoon: Very well, I accept the post as Dalai Lama.

Greenslade: ‘Lost Horizonedly’ part three, four, five, six - etc. Ying tong idle I poo. Needle nardle noo. Alls well that ends well; and this is Wallace Greenslade, lover of good english, wishing he were dead.

FX: Pistol shot.

Greenslade: Oh!

Spike: Wish granted.

Seagoon: Bloodnok, you must stop killing Greenslade – he’s not well.

Bloodnok: I’m sorry but my nerves are in rags you know. I can’t stand Shangri-La. We’ve been here nine months and…well look here old man, I mean…I want to go back to Peking. My wife might be carrying on with someone.

Seagoon: How could she? She was sewn in a mattress.

Bloodnok: She might have met a man sewn in another mattress. After all, they’ve got to have something in common haven’t they?

Seagoon: Ah Bloodnok, I can see there are no flies on you.

Bloodnok: I know. Shut that door!

Moriarty: Ying tong idle I poo - Seacroon. I’m going to leave this place and what’s more…ooh ooh ooh!...I’m taking this Shangri-oo-la-la girl with me here.

Bangkok Flowerdew: No. I go with Dennis Bloodnok. He says he live in beautiful cottage in Switzerland and we are to be married in beautiful white chapel.

Moriarty: That’s right. Married in white chapel. Live in Swiss cottage.

Seagoon: (I don’t wish to know that.) Fools! The moment you take that girl into the outside air she’ll crumble into her real age.

Moriarty: Sapristi cringe! Nyukkakukkakoo! Never mind. I tell you I’m taking her and we’re going!

Seagoon: Go then my friends - all of you, but tempt me not. This valley is the paradise on earth for which I have searched all my life, and now at last would you rob me of the peace and happiness which is my due – yea, the due of all mortals? Go I say! Leave me alone, for nothing – I repeat nothing will ever make me leave. I’m staying.

Eccles: I’m staying with you.

Seagoon: (Desperate) No! No! Moriarty wait, I’m coming!

Eccles: Come back! No, come back!

ORCHESTRA: Playout.

Greenslade: (Over) That was The Goon Show - a BBC recorded programme featuring Peter Sellers, Harry Secombe and Spike Milligan with the Ray Ellington Quartet and Max Geldray. The orchestra was conducted by Wally Stott. Script by Spike Milligan. Announcer Wallace Greenslade. The programme produced by Peter Eton.

ORCHESTRA: Up and out.

YUKKA TUKKA INDIANS