Elton buys Goon scripts

Press, 1 May 1981, Page 7

Elton buys Goon scripts

NZPA London Elton john, the rock singer, snapped up the Goon Show scripts for $33,600 yesterday and then did an impression of one of the zany programmes best loved characters to explain why. “I boughted dem because I love dem,” said Elton in the voice of Bluebottle, described in the show as a “short, thin, shivering youth, heavily wrapped up in rice paper and dental string.” He paid almost twice the expected price at Christie’s for Spike Milligan’s mimeographed and annotated collection of 232 scripts. A former Goon, Michael Bentine, once called the show nothing but “glorious, gorgeous rubbish,” but a spokes-

man for Christie’s yesterday said the scripts had “a major place in the history of British humour.”

They are full of Milligan’s own notes and sketches and have such sound effects listed as “banging inside elephant,” “quality silence,” and Harry Secombe’s “duet with himself.”

Passages which w.ere scrapped before the radio programmes were broadcast, yield such characters as Togort Muleboot. He utters the line: “I am a displaced Siberian haddock stretcher. I have nothing whatsoever to do with this show, so I’ll leave, goodnight.” Christie’s gave the scripts

an eye-catching entry in the sale catalogue. Lot number 215 was entitled “String and Teeth,” with a sub-heading quoting the Goonish phrase: “Lift me Dongle and lower me Grobblers and who in blazes is this ragged Goon.” Two of Milligan’s daughters were at the sale and telephoned him afterwards to give him the news. “He was very pleased,” said Jane, aged 14. “I guessed they would fetch a lot. I think they are priceless.”

His biographer, Pauline Scudamore, said: ’’Spike is a bit of a sentimentalist and he is bound to feel some loss over the scripts, but we have them all on tape.”