The first official review of my 1990s book, A Classless Society, is published in today's issue of The Times. Sadly, David Aaronovitch isn't impressed. He evidently doesn't share my belief that popular culture not only reflects social change but shapes it. 'If you believe this,' he writes, 'then Jack Dee, say, becomes as significant as the Governor of the Bank of England.' Or indeed, I'd suggest, quite possibly more significant.
To take a longer perspective (because Jack Dee may not prove to be the key figure), I'd certainly argue that Spike Milligan changed Britain more than did Cameron Cobbold. The latter, in case the name's not immediately familiar, was Governor of the Bank of England in the 1950s during the period that The Goon Show was laying the foundations for the cultural revolution that was to come.
Inevitably, as always with reviews, attention is drawn to those things I neglected to mention. There's no reference, as Aaronovitch points out, to Srebrenica. He's probably right and there should have been, but I was trying to keep my focus on Britain, and there's a limit to what you can include. By the same token, one might point out that, so keen is Aaronovitch to attack my criticism of Tony Blair, that he doesn't once mention John Major, whose government occupies more pages than does that of Blair.
Ah well. He does at least say that my writing is 'amusing [and] perceptive', and that goes a long way, as far as I'm concerned. And the review does take up a full-page at the front of the books section.
Above all, I'm grateful to Mr Aaronovitch for taking the book seriously enough to criticise its failings. My thanks to him and to The Times.
Showing posts with label Spike Milligan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Spike Milligan. Show all posts
Saturday, 17 August 2013
Wednesday, 8 June 2011
Terry Nation - Top Ten Comedians (part 2)
Following last week's post, here are the top five comedians for whom Nation wrote:
1. Tony Hancock
Britain's greatest ever comedian was in need of something close to a miracle by 1963. One by one, he'd jettisoned his sidekicks - Kenneth Williams, Bill Kerr, Sid James - and now he'd left behind the BBC and his writers, Ray Galton and Alan Simpson. Nation wrote four episodes of his ITV series, Hancock, and went on tour with him. Some of the material is much better than is generally credited, but it wasn't enough to save the downward spiral of Hancock's career. 'A gentleman never loses his temper. It's a question of good breeding, and you cannot whack good breeding.'
2. Frankie Howerd
'Everybody wrote for Frankie Howerd,' commented Alan Simpson, and one of Nation's earliest jobs - together with his original writing partner, Dick Barry - was contributing material for The Frankie Howerd Show on radio in 1955. With John Junkin he also wrote the 1958 series Fine Goings On. But the best material came with the 1973 movie The House in Nightmare Park, co-written with Clive Exton - 'the film received the first unanimously good press I'd had for a picture in a long, long time,' noted Howerd.
3. Eric Sykes
Sykes was one of the finest comedy scriptwriters in his own right, but sometimes took on more work than he could handle. So it was that Nation and John Junkin were drafted in to script his 1961 radio sitcom It's a Fair Cop. Little has survived of the show, but it was an impressive cast: Hattie Jacques, Deryck Guyler and Dick Emery.
4. Spike Milligan
Milligan gave Nation his first break, welcoming him into the chaotic but star-studded writing agency, Associated London Scripts. Nation, Junkin and Dave Freeman contributed sketches for the groundbreaking 1956 television show, The Idiot Weekly, Price 2d - the first attempt to transfer the humour of the Goons from radio to the screen. Nation was later to acknowledge the debt he owed Milligan by letting him use the Daleks in a sketch for Q6 in 1975 - much against the normal practice of not letting the Daleks be seen in a comedy show.
5. Elsie and Doris Waters
The same team of Nation, Junkin and Freeman also wrote two seasons of the radio show, Floggit's, in 1956-57, starring Elsie and Doris Waters in the regular characters as Gert and Daisy. They're not as well remembered as they should be, but the Waters sisters were among the most innovative acts of the mid-20th century, with a fast-talking but gentle style of observational comedy. In Floggit's they were supported by one of the great casts: Hugh Paddick, Kenneth Connor, Ronnie Barker, Joan Sims, Ron Moody and Anthony Newley (though the latter two were dropped from the second season, allegedly because they were outshining the stars).
1. Tony Hancock
Britain's greatest ever comedian was in need of something close to a miracle by 1963. One by one, he'd jettisoned his sidekicks - Kenneth Williams, Bill Kerr, Sid James - and now he'd left behind the BBC and his writers, Ray Galton and Alan Simpson. Nation wrote four episodes of his ITV series, Hancock, and went on tour with him. Some of the material is much better than is generally credited, but it wasn't enough to save the downward spiral of Hancock's career. 'A gentleman never loses his temper. It's a question of good breeding, and you cannot whack good breeding.'
2. Frankie Howerd
'Everybody wrote for Frankie Howerd,' commented Alan Simpson, and one of Nation's earliest jobs - together with his original writing partner, Dick Barry - was contributing material for The Frankie Howerd Show on radio in 1955. With John Junkin he also wrote the 1958 series Fine Goings On. But the best material came with the 1973 movie The House in Nightmare Park, co-written with Clive Exton - 'the film received the first unanimously good press I'd had for a picture in a long, long time,' noted Howerd.
3. Eric Sykes
Sykes was one of the finest comedy scriptwriters in his own right, but sometimes took on more work than he could handle. So it was that Nation and John Junkin were drafted in to script his 1961 radio sitcom It's a Fair Cop. Little has survived of the show, but it was an impressive cast: Hattie Jacques, Deryck Guyler and Dick Emery.
4. Spike Milligan
Milligan gave Nation his first break, welcoming him into the chaotic but star-studded writing agency, Associated London Scripts. Nation, Junkin and Dave Freeman contributed sketches for the groundbreaking 1956 television show, The Idiot Weekly, Price 2d - the first attempt to transfer the humour of the Goons from radio to the screen. Nation was later to acknowledge the debt he owed Milligan by letting him use the Daleks in a sketch for Q6 in 1975 - much against the normal practice of not letting the Daleks be seen in a comedy show.
5. Elsie and Doris Waters
The same team of Nation, Junkin and Freeman also wrote two seasons of the radio show, Floggit's, in 1956-57, starring Elsie and Doris Waters in the regular characters as Gert and Daisy. They're not as well remembered as they should be, but the Waters sisters were among the most innovative acts of the mid-20th century, with a fast-talking but gentle style of observational comedy. In Floggit's they were supported by one of the great casts: Hugh Paddick, Kenneth Connor, Ronnie Barker, Joan Sims, Ron Moody and Anthony Newley (though the latter two were dropped from the second season, allegedly because they were outshining the stars).
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