Spike Milligan's Q

I've just been watching the new DVD set. Insanely funny. No, funnily insane. Sadly only three episodes of Q5 from 1969 (two b&w and one colour), I guess the rest was wiped/tossed/recycled foolishly.



There was an earlier thread here. The great British Goon Show comedian: Spike Milligan - Q (and other series)*

Yes, there bloody ought to be album reissues/CDs for him, and for Michael Bentine's Square World. Put that in the curry!

The Bed Sitting Room was released a few years ago on Flipside BFI series DVD with some great extra interviews with Spike Milligan, Peter Cook and Richard Lester.

 

Just stumbled on to this 1975 special on Spike titled Face Your Image...

 

This is STILL the funniest thing I've ever seen!!

 

SPIKE MILLIGAN.....The Master of Absurdist Comedy!
This is not very PC, but can I be the first to post PAKISTANI DALEKS.
Love the way everything and everybody has a label.

 

Spike was great at writing some great ideas and comedy concepts but he couldn't really finish a joke or concept to save his life.

It was almost as if all the TV stuff was pure first draft. I could imagine the cast being handed the back of a beer mat as a script.

His work would probably have been refined further if he had adopted the US writing team style and handed his ideas down and let them flesh them out more.

 

Remember watching him on The Muppets. Hilarious. Seen a few episodes of Q that didn't get wiped. It's the way he doesn't get through it without cracking up.

 

Seem to recollect him playing a indian ( India) in a Brit sit com.

 

That was probably Till Death Us Do Part. Difficult to watch Spike in that episode as it's... very much of its time, let's say. I grew up a major Spike Milligan fan - still am - but these days I have less tolerance for his racism and sexism.

 

Thought he had his own shown ( few episodes )?

He was born in India( so was Cliff Richard, Pete Best, Diana Rigg).

 

Fascinating stuff.

 

The guy was such a huge influence on Monty Python

 

There's 'Curry & Chips' from '69. Six episodes. Same writer as 'Till Death...'.

 

Spike was one of the writers, and appeared on, THE MARTY FELDMAN COMEDY MACHINE, produced American-style with the writers working 9-to-5 at the studio, so that would make an interesting comparison. Many sketches on MACHINE had a definite Goon flavor, so Spike could have written those.

 

In a way he was like Jonathan Winters (of the U.S.) in that he had all these characters in him, you weren't necessarily meant to like or agree with them (and more than with Alf Garrett or his American counterpart Archie Bunker). There was almost every stereotype imaginable in a British sitcom called 'It Ain't Half Hot Mom', which was a bit like Hogan's Heroes, generally though the East Indian characters were the smart ones and the fishes-out-of-water Brits were the butt of the jokes.

 

I liked >It Ain't Half Hot Mom <real time. Yes, a nice reversal of stereotypes.

 

Love that show, and Michael Bates was a brilliant actor in it. It helped that he was born in India and spoke the language fluently as well, so He was able to bring a bit of realism into the absurd situations.

Interestingly, Spike, like Bates above, was ALSO born and raised in India!

 

Yeah Q can be hit and miss, but some of those sketches leave me in stitches. The Pakistani Daleks, The First O'rish Rocket To The Moon, The Great Golf Ball Rush. Even if it is only half-baked ideas, it somehow still works.

 

Milligan (with or without Sellers) casts a huge shadow over British comedy (and popular culture...).

 

Wacky stuff most not dated.

 

So many British entertainers born in India.

 

Sir Cliff Richard as well IIRC!

Not to mention Pete Best. 'I told you not to mention Pete Best!' *says in Fred Scuttle voice*

 

Harry Webb

Well he's anglo indian.

 

I love Spike.
Anyone read his WWII memoirs? Hilarious.

 

Yes. The first two are particularly good - as is Puckoon.