All of the best people like Peter Cook, and the mere sight or sound of him reduces many of us to helpless mirth.

"Spike Mulligan"??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

This finally clarifies a particular series of sketches on "That Mitchell & Webb Look," a brilliant sketch comedy duo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ga_rCnueID8

Thanks for this. Does anyone know if this is in the public domain, or does United Artists have it?

Hello Roger
It's Spike Milligan, not Mulligan!!!!!! He is one of Britain, Ireland and India's favorite comedians. A leading member of the Goons and all round comic genius.

How does one provide power for an underground train by selling a bicycle?

Because that's what peddling means.

I imagine that you meant pedaling - as in working the pedals of the bicycle.

One other brief point about Spike Milligan:

Shortly before his death, Milligan was awarded an honorary knighthood, pushed through by his number one fan, the Prince of Wales.
He couldn't get the regular kind because some years earlier, the Home Office declared that he was not a British subject (his Army service in WWII and that of his father in India notwithstanding).
Spike Milligan moved to the Republic of Eire (Ireland to the rest of us), which was more than happy to take him in.
That Charles P. was willing to twist arms to get Spike his long-delayed gong simply raised his respect in the eyes of the funny-speaking world.

And if you're asking yourself "Spike who?", hop over to archive.org, which has a great many episodes of the Goon Show available in its Old Time Radio collection. (Better sounding ones are available on CD, but in the meantime a lot of episode transcripts are Out There as well.)

Just a point, Roger. The screenplay for this was actually by the great and often neglected Charles Wood, who either wrote or ghosted on the majority of Lester's movies, and was the real creative force behind the Richard Eyre movie, "Iris" in 2001.

A brief look at many of Wood's many British stageplays from the 60s (many often considered scandalous for the time) shows the very specific wordplay in Lester's filmography that Wood originated.

The 1999 Steven Soderbergh book "Getting Away With It...Or: The Adventures Of The Luckiest Bastard You Ever Saw" touches on Wood and Lester's many collaborations. With Wood's script of "The Knack: And How To Get It", there's a very strong argument to be made that Wood also "invented" the Swinging Sixties.

Credit where credit's due, Roger!

The screenplay is based upon the play "The Bedsitting Room" by Spike Milligan and John Antrobus.

Additionally, this quote is inaccurate: 'If "Monty Python's Flying Circus" had never existed, Richard Lester would still have invented it. In 1970 he directed "The Bed-Sitting Room," a film which so uncannily predicts the style and manner of Python that we think for a moment we're watching television.' MPFC first aired in October, 1969.

The Pythons came out of what has been called the "Oxbridge Mafia"--a generation of writer/performers who were at Cambridge and Oxford around the late 50s through around 1965. These people did various shows in various groupings throughout the 60s--the style and manner of Python finds its antecedents here, as well as The Goon Show.

As others have pointed out, Spike Milligan wrote (or co-wrote on some occasions) the scripts for "The Goon Show," which ran throughout most of the 50s and was massively influential. Python would not have existed without it. (Nor would it have existed without Peter Cook, another hugely influential presence in British comedy.)

In 1960, Richard Lester directed "The Running, Jumping and Standing Still Film" with Peter Sellers, which was quite Goonish. The Beatles--particularly Lennon--were Goon fans, and it certainly must have helped get Lester the stamp of approval to direct their first two films.

Dateline 29 March 2011:

TCM will be running The Bed-Sitting Room in the wee hours either today or tomorrow (can't recall which *dammit*).

While at home I set my DVR to get it.

All others, do what you need to.

Next week: the Palladium Crazy Gang.