Sir Harry Donald Secombe, CBE was a Welsh comedian, actor and singer. Secombe was a member of the British radio comedy programme The Goon Show (1951–60), playing many characters, but most notably, Neddie Seagoon. An accomplished tenor, he also appeared in musicals and films – notably as Mr Bumble in Oliver! (1968) – and, in his later years, was a presenter of television shows incorporating hymns and other devotional songs.
Terence Alan Milligan, known as Spike Milligan, was a British-Irish comedian, writer, poet, playwright and actor. The son of an Irish father and an English mother, Milligan was born in India where he spent his childhood, before returning to live and work the majority of his life in the United Kingdom. Disliking his first name, he began to call himself "Spike" after hearing the band Spike Jones and his City Slickers on Radio Luxembourg.
The Goon Show was a British radio comedy programme, originally produced and broadcast by the BBC Home Service from 1951 to 1960, with occasional repeats on the BBC Light Programme. The first series, broadcast from 28 May to 20 September 1951, was titled Crazy People; subsequent series had the title The Goon Show, a title inspired, according to Spike Milligan, by a Popeye character.
John Bird is an English satirist, actor and comedian, best known for his work with John Fortune.
John Bluthal was a Polish-born radio, stage, television and film character actor, comedian and voice artist, noted for his six-decade career internationally in Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States. He started his career during the Golden Age of British Television, where he was best known for his comedy work in the UK with Spike Milligan, and for his role as Manny Cohen in the television series Never Mind the Quality, Feel the Width. He became best known to television audiences as the bumbling Frank Pickle in The Vicar of Dibley. At 85 he played Professor Marcuse in the Coen Brothers' film Hail, Caesar! (2016)
Q... is a surreal television comedy sketch show written by Spike Milligan and Neil Shand, and starring Spike Milligan with a number of supporting players, usually including Julia Breck, John Bluthal, Bob Todd, and John Wells. The show ran from 1969 to 1982 on BBC2. There were six series in all, the first five numbered from Q5 to Q9, and a final series titled There's a Lot of It About. The first and third series ran for seven episodes, and the others for six episodes, each of which was 30 minutes long.
Joseph McGrath is a Scottish film and television director and screenwriter. He studied at Glasgow School of Art in the late 1940s/early 1950s where his energy and talent was much admired by his contemporaries.
Edward William Welch is an English television composer.
Brian Todd, known professionally as Bob Todd, was an English comedy actor, mostly known for appearing as a straight man in the sketch shows of Benny Hill and Spike Milligan. For many years he lived in Tunbridge Wells, Kent.
Edward Ian Macnaughton was a Scottish actor-turned-television producer and director, best known for his work with the Monty Python team. MacNaughton was director and producer for all but four of the forty five episodes of Monty Python's Flying Circus from 1969 to 1974, director of the group's first feature film And Now for Something Completely Different in 1971 and director of their two German episodes, Monty Python's Fliegender Zirkus in 1971 and 1972. In 1973 the production team shared the BAFTA Award for Best Light Entertainment Programme for Monty Python's Flying Circus.
The Idiot Weekly, Price 2d was the first serious attempt to translate the humour of The Goon Show to television. It was made by Associated-Rediffusion during 1956 and was broadcast only in the London area.
Adolf Hitler: My Part in His Downfall is a 1973 film adaptation of the first volume of Spike Milligan's autobiography. It starred Jim Dale as the young Terence "Spike" Milligan, while Milligan himself played the part of his father, Leo. Dale was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer to Leading Film Roles for his performance.
John Antrobus is an English playwright and script writer. He has written extensively for stage, screen, TV and radio, including the epic World War II play, Crete and Sergeant Pepper at the Royal Court. He authored the children's book series Ronnie, which includes Help! I am a Prisoner in a Toothpaste Factory.
According to Spike Milligan is a series of literary pastiche novels written by Spike Milligan from 1993 to 2000. Each part of the series was a rewriting of an original novel, with surreal comic elements added that fit into certain points of the originals, whilst at the same time poking fun at the situations involved.
Curry and Chips is a short lived British sitcom broadcast in 1969 which was produced by London Weekend Television for the ITV network.
John Thomas and Lady Jane is a novel written by D. H. Lawrence, and published in 1927.
The Ratties is a British animated series about a family of six rats who live in the wall of a country house. The rats try to emulate the human family who own the house.
Associated London Scripts was a writers' agency organised as a co-operative which involved many leading comedy and television writers of the 1950s and 1960s.
The Melting Pot was an ill-fated television situation comedy on BBC2 in 1975.
The Pythons is a BBC documentary film about the Monty Python team which was shot in Tunisia in 1978, during the making of Monty Python's Life of Brian. As well as promoting their upcoming film, the documentary also serves as a tenth anniversary profile of the team, despite the original broadcast date of 20 June 1979 being some months ahead of both the tenth anniversary of their TV debut and the UK release of their new film.
