Twenty years after his death, Spike Milligan is forgotten by the young. Nick Newman’s play brings him back to life
Seventy years ago, The Goon Show was divisive.
Parents didn’t understand it at all – unlike their children. John Lennon, who turned 12 in 1952, later described it as ‘Hipper than the hippest and madder than Mad’. Today, the reverse is true. Parents are the ones who know the show – their children are in blissful ignorance about the ground-breaking radio comedy.
While working on my play Spike, co-written with Ian Hislop, I was amazed to discover that my own children had never heard of Spike Milligan. You know, THE Spike Milligan (1918-2002), bestselling author, poet, revolutionary comic and inspiration for countless comedians from Monty Python to Dawn French. Nope – not a clue.
A survey of the offspring of friends revealed that memory fade and ignorance were widespread.
Given a random list of comedy stars of the 1950s, ’60s, ’70s and ’80s – including Peter Sellers, Tony Hancock, Michael Crawford, Ronnies Barker and Corbett, Victoria Wood, Harry Secombe, Penelope Keith, The Goodies and Monty Python – none under the age of 30 had heard of all of them.
‘We don’t have anything planned; so nothing can go wrong.’ Milligan at Beaulieu, 1968
Most had heard of just a few – such as John Cleese. Fellow Python Eric Idle fared worse on the recognition front. One friend’s 25-year-old daughter, a star finalist on University Challenge a few years ago, drew a blank at Crawford, Secombe, Wood and Keith. Her father said, guiltily, ‘I feel bad about Victoria Wood.’
Even the children of friends in the comedy business, whom one might expect to be exposed to comedians of yesteryear, were not wholly familiar with the names on offer. Maurice Gran, who together with Laurence Marks has written many comedy hits of the last 30 years, including The New Statesman and Birds of a Feather, was not unduly surprised, remarking, ‘My offspring don’t even recognise me.’
A recent YouGov poll revealed that 100 per cent of baby boomers (born 1946-64) had heard of Spike – but that dropped to 60 per cent for millennials (born 1981-96). The same pattern is true for all comedians of that era. It seems that Milligan is typical of the old joke about fame: you start with ‘Who’s Spike Milligan?’ before moving to ‘Get me Spike Milligan’, then ‘Get me the new Spike Milligan’ and finally ‘Who’s Spike Milligan?’
Spike with founding Oldie editor Richard Ingrams, 1995
Why is this? Many of the shows featuring these erstwhile stars are available on some platform or other – be it Dave Comedy Gold + 1 or More 4 Extra. So they haven’t vanished completely into the ether.
Is it because we are now just bombarded with so much information that we let go of memories? Perhaps we are all becoming like Homer Simpson, who said, ‘Every time I learn something new, it pushes some old stuff out of my brain.’ Or perhaps it is because as families we no longer sit together – Royle Family-style – to share our entertainment experience.
Simply because the available entertainment options were limited, those aged 50 and above had more in common with their parents, gathering round the wireless to catch hit shows. Like 1950s radio, television back in the 1960s and ’70s was more of an event to be communally enjoyed – so The Morecambe and Wise Christmas Show attracted an audience of more than 21 million, while Penelope Keith’s To the Manor Born sitcom reached an astonishing 23 million-plus viewers.
Now technology has ensured that, even when gathered together, we tend to inhabit our own worlds – whether it’s playing games, texting friends, watching YouTube clips or streaming alternative TV shows. When there was just one television in the household, and only three channels to watch, the stars inevitably made more impact.
Spike with Harry Secombe, 1978
Today, all fame is diluted by the sheer quantity of ‘personalities’ promoting themselves – and then the nature of fame itself has changed, being replaced by ‘celebrity’. Celebrities don’t have to be famous for anything other than being famous, and ‘celebrity’ has become an oxymoron like ‘public school’. Putting the word Celebrity before MasterChef is a guarantee that anyone over the age of 50 won’t know who any of the contestants are.
The upside of this collective comedic unconsciousness is that it allows writers such as us to delve into the past and remind audiences why some of these performers were considered comic geniuses. Morecambe and Wise, The Goon Show, Tony Hancock, Dad’s Army … all have been successfully restaged in recent years.
It’s not just nostalgia that has seen so many shows successfully recreating comedy routines of yesteryear – in the same way as pop tribute bands. They also introduce them to new, younger audiences unfamiliar with the material.
Maurice Gran says that in his touring 1960s jukebox musical, Bringing On Back the Good Times, featuring Kenneth Williams as a character, half the audience love him because they remember the former Carry On star, and the younger half love him because they think he’s a funny fictional character.
My own children, I am relieved to say, loved the Goon Show jokes in Spike. When introduced to our show, younger members of the audience responded enthusiastically.
One father tweeted, ‘Got something right tonight. I took my 15-year-old to see Spike at the Watermill Theatre in Newbury. 15-year-old says he’d never tire of watching it.’
You can check out how your own offspring respond to the comedy legend when our play Spike begins a national 11-week tour in September – hopefully ensuring that Milligan is Goon but not forgotten.
Spike by Nick Newman and Ian Hislop is touring until November
