#oneaday Day 433: Go On

I've had quite a few chats with my podcasting partner Chris Caskie about British comedy, so this post is primarily for him — but I thought it'd be something a bit different to talk about today.

I've been listening to some episodes of The Goon Show over the last few days, one of which can be heard in the YouTube video above. I haven't heard many of these since my childhood, when my parents would put one of our many, many cassettes containing various episodes on in the car whenever we were taking a long journey.

For the unfamiliar, The Goon Show was a BBC radio programme that ran between 1951 and 1960, and it's widely regarded as one of the pioneers — if not the pioneer — of modern, alternative and surreal comedy. And listening back to it today for the first time in probably more than 20 years… yeah. It's still got that magic.

Most of that magic comes from the incredible cast, which mostly consists of Harry Secombe, Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan. Sadly, none of them are with us any more, but they each left their own lasting legacy on culture in general — and, with The Goon Show, on comedy in particular.

The Goon Show's genius is that it's utterly nonsensical, surreal, chaotic and frequently shambolic — it's not at all uncommon to hear Secombe, Sellers and Milligan all corpsing their way through their scenes — and yet it somehow manages to stir the imagination in incredible ways. This comes about through a combination of Sellers and Milligan's superhuman capacity for producing hilarious and memorable characters using nothing but their voices — Secombe was always a bit of a one-trick pony, but this was embraced rather than hidden by making him the recurring protagonist — and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop's wonderful and creative use of sound effects, which in their own way were revolutionary and trendsetting.

If you've never come across The Goon Show, it's doubtless something that might take a bit of getting used to, as it is a particular brand of glorious, joyful nonsense that we just don't seem to get in quite the same form any more. Every episode comes across as everyone involved simply having an absolutely fabulous time and focusing on that side of things rather than trying to be "perfect".

I think we can probably all learn something from that; love what you do and throw yourself into it with passion and enthusiasm. It doesn't need to be perfect, it doesn't need to be professional — in fact, if it's neither of those things, it often ends up having much more heart and soul than something that has been polished to a fine sheen.