Yet another transcript type script - "Six charlies in search of an author", S07E13 this transcription from "Yukka Tukka Indians" Any corrections or meaningful comments appreciated. (please do not quote the whole thing when replying) Notes at end. =================================== SIX CHARLIES IN SEARCH OF AN AUTHOR GOON SHOW: TLO 19238 7TH SERIES: No 13 BROADCAST: 26 Dec 1956 Script by Spike Milligan and Larry Stephens. GREENSLADE: (Offhandedly) The Goon Show. SECOMBE: Hmm. It's hardly worth your while comin' here, is it Wal? GREENSLADE: Ah, my dear Secombe – there's much more you know. CAST: (Variously) Well done! What? Eh? GREENSLADE: Yes, because you see this week it's Jim Sprigg’s immortal book… CAST: Yes? Yes? GREENSLADE: … “Six Charlies in Search of an Author”.(1) FX: Typing under. SPRIGGS: Thank you. (Typing) Chapter One – Neddy meets Grytpype Thynne. SEAGOON: Good heavens! I'm supposed to meet Grytpype Thynne in chapter one. I'd better hurry! FX: Hurried knocking. Door opens. GRYTPYPE: Oh, you must be the charlie I'm supposed to meet in chapter one. SEAGOON: Correct. GRYTPYPE: What a thrilling start! SEAGOON: My name is Neddy Seagoon. GRYTPYPE: There's one in every family. SEAGOON: What what what what what what what what what what bwark bwark bwark bwark… (Does chicken impression.) GRYTPYPE: Do you mind facing west when you do that – it gets all over me. Now, to whom do I owe the pleasure of this nauseating visit? SEAGOON: The author. GRYTPYPE: Of course! Of course! You must excuse me – I'm only new in this book. SEAGOON: I see. What part do you play? GRYTPYPE: I'm a bone specialist. SEAGOON: What do you want? GRYTPYPE: Bones. SEAGOON: (Gulps) I haven't got any bones. GRYTPYPE: Nonsense! You'd fall down without them.(2) You'd fall DOWN without them. SEAGOON: You'd fall down without THEM. GRYTPYPE: YOU'D fall down without them.(3) I know for a fact that you have a large number of them tucked away somewhere. SEAGOON: Have you been prying into my family album of X-rays? GRYTPYPE: Moriarty. Tell him what you found. MORIARTY: Ah – sapristi spon, I will! Mister Seagoon,(4) we have a very compromising X-ray photograph of two sets of bones! Yours – and a lady's! SEAGOON: It's a lie! We're just good friends! Ahem - how much do you want for that X-ray? GRYTPYPE: Ten pounds Neddy, to be paid in money before chapter ten! MORIARTY: Yes! And don't try and slip past us Neddy, because we’ve got an armed man in the index! SEAGOON: Curses! – so they're going to catch me by the index! Oh dear readers, here am I due to marry the beautiful millionairess Gladys Minkwater in chapter eight. Before then I must get that compromising X-ray photograph back! Ten pounds they want eh? (Laughs to himself) Ha ha ha… Taxi! GRAMS: Car pulls up. SEAGOON: The nearest pawn shop. Put your foot down and keep the flag up. WILLIUM: Right, mate. GRAMS: Car drives off at high speed. Explosion. Rubble falling – masonry, glass. WILLIUM: I got it mate. That's three bob on the clock. SEAGOON: Right. Here's a pound for your trouble. WILLIUM: I ain't got no trouble mate. SEAGOON: You have now mate That pound's a forgery! WILLIUM: (Going off) Owwww mate! Oww! FX: Door opens. Shop bell. CRUN: Good morning sir. Welcome to chapter two. SEAGOON: Thank you. Now – I should like to pawn myself. CRUN: I'm sorry – we don't take antiques here sir. SEAGOON: Have a care old prune-faced fossil. I'm not an antique. Look – here's the date of my birth stamped on the bottom! CRUN: Oh! This is a Welsh birthmark. Go up to the fourth floor, room three. SEAGOON: Right! FX: Feet running up flights of stairs. Extended. SEAGOON: (Puffing and groaning.) Ohh! Ahh! Fourth floor. FX: Knocks on door. Door opens. CRUN: What is it sir? SEAGOON: I'd like to pawn myself. CRUN: Who sent you up here? SEAGOON: You did. CRUN: Then you've come to the right man. Get into this lift. GRAMS: Old fashioned lift doors shutting. Lift descending. BANNISTER: (Over grams) Going down. Page eighteen… seventeen… page sixteen… (Sings) Yim bum biddle doh! …fifteen… Chapter one – Crun's pawnshop. Seagoon enters and pawns himself. (Goes off muttering) Oh, it's a very small part for me this week. CRUN: Be satisfied Min you naughty.... SEAGOON: We're back where we started. What'd you send me up to the fourth floor for? CRUN: To get me. SEAGOON: To get you! Wait a minute – how did you get up there before me? CRUN: (Laughing) He he he! I skipped a couple of pages! (Laughs. Asthma attack.) SEAGOON: I've got a good mind to tell the author. CRUN: No, no! Don't do that – he might have me killed off in a later chapter. SEAGOON: Now look Mister Crun, how much money will you give me on me? CRUN: Well, first I must scrutinize you with an intense scrute. Just take your clothes off....(5) SEAGOON: Hoh! He! Hoh! Hoo! There! CRUN: Now lie under this magnifying glass. SEAGOON: Ooh! It's cold isn't it? Oo there. How do I look? CRUN: Even bigger! Just stand on these scales please. GRAMS: Massive springs compressing. Stressed steal groaning. CRUN: Eighteen stone. SEAGOON: Shall I put the other leg on now? CRUN: As dead weight alone I'll offer you ten pounds. You'll come in useful for filling in holes. SEAGOON: Done! CRUN: You certainly have been! (Laughs uproariously) Ha ha ha ha! Did you hear that joke, did you? SEAGOON: Ten years ago. Now where's the money? CRUN: There. Ten pounds in crisp green farthings. SEAGOON: Ta. Goodbye! CRUN: No, wait, wait! You can't go 'til someone comes to redeem you. SEAGOON: (Gulps) What? CRUN: Kindly step into this safe and Geldray – play me the key. Hehe! GELDRAY: Ploogee! MAX GELDRAY: “When the Red Red Robin Comes Bob-bob-bobbing Along” (6) FX: Typing under. SPRIGGS: (Typing) “Six Charlies in Search of an Author” folks. Chapter three – in which I see fit to have the character Neddy Seagoon still inside Crun's fiendish pawnshop safe. SEAGOON: (With echo) Yes dear readers. Inside the safe all was dark. I took out a book of matches and began to read it. Page one: “To ignite match, detach one and strike it against bottom.” FX: Cloth ripping. SEAGOON: WHOOOP! By the light of my burning trousers I could see that… ECCLES: Put that light out! Put that light out my good man! Put that… Ooh! Who put that light out? Who put that light out? Shut up Eccles! (Extended)(7) SEAGOON: The idiot stranger was a complete idiot-stranger to me. He was tall and clad in a cement sack with an outlet at the base. His legs were neat and carefully pressed, and on his head he wore a rubber dinghy with a hand-made cardboard peak. ECCLES: Hallo Neddy. Have you pawned yourself? SEAGOON: Yes. I'm pledge number thirty-two. Have you got a pledge number? ECCLES: No, no. I only pawned my socks. SEAGOON: Oh. Then why don't you go home? ECCLES: I can't get my boots off. FX: Typing under. SPRIGGS: (Typing) Chapter four – in which Seagoon has a brilliant idea. FX: Frantic banging on door. SEAGOON: Mister Crun! Let me out – I have a brilliant idea! CRUN: What is it? SEAGOON: I want to redeem myself. CRUN: Certainly. FX: Door opens. CRUN: Ten pounds please. FX: Till. Money in drawer. SEAGOON: Now, to buy back that compromising X-ray photograph. Where did I put that..? Ten pounds… That ten pounds… It's gone… I've been robbed! What happens now Mister Greenslade – I must know! GREENSLADE: Well you see, I hate peeking at the end of the book, but in Chapter Seven Grytpype Thynne and Moriarty ship the compromising X-ray photograph in the plain wrapper to an art connoisseur in Paris. ORCHESTRA: Bloodnok theme. Slow the last phrase down to half speed. BLOODNOK: Thank you boys. That just gave me time to smuggle her out of the room. FX: Door opening. SEAGOON: Major Bloodnok! BLOODNOK: (Fear) It's a lie! Oohh! Naughty postcards? I've never heard of them I tell you! How dare you come in here and offer me money for these postcards over there which are not here! SEAGOON: Major enough of this needle nardle noo! BLOODNOK: Ooohhh! SEAGOON: Major, please! For the compromising X-ray photo of myself and a lady – how much do you want? BLOODNOK: Ten thousand francs. SEAGOON: (Swallows hard – then faints.) AhhooooooOOOOooo! BLOODNOK: He's fainted in the direction of ‘down’! Doris darling… THROAT:(8) Yes darling? BLOODNOK: Help me lift him in the direction of ‘up’. SEAGOON: Ooohup! I - I haven't got ten thousand francs. BLOODNOK: WHAT? Throw him in the direction of ‘out’. SEAGOON: Wait! I have got ten pounds… BLOODNOK: Put him in the direction of ‘down’ again. Wait – don't turn the page over yet. I recognize that wallet. It's young Private Needle Seagoon, retired, my ex-batman and spon runner. Ohh! GREENSLADE: Dear listeners, for the benefit of those of you who do not know what a 'spon runner' is – neither do I. I just want you to know that you are not alone – Wallace is one of you. And now chapter seven, page seventy-two. Seagoon does not recognize Major Bloodnok. SEAGOON: Major Bloodnok! I didn't recognize you in that false room. BLOODNOK: Well I was only wearing it to keep the rain off. I wouldn't wear it out of doors of course. SEAGOON: Let me help you off with it. FX: Door opens and closes. BLOODNOK: Thank you. Good heavens, we're outside and it's raining in the direction of ‘down’. SEAGOON: You'd better put your room on in the direction of ‘on’. FX: Door opens and closes. BLOODNOK: Oh, that's better. It's much warmer with this direction on. Now Neddy pull up a chair and sit down. SEAGOON: I'd rather stand if you don't mind. BLOODNOK: Oh well, pull up a floor then. SEAGOON: Major please don't joke!(9) I must have that compromising X-ray photo. BLOODNOK: Kuchni doing Edward – kuchni.(10) I can’t help you I'm afraid. It's in that safe and Grytpype has the key and there's nothing on this page we can open it with. SEAGOON: Well, I'll write something in. Let's see… FX: Typing under. SEAGOON: (typing) “Looking around the room that Bloodnok was wearing, Neddy's eye lit upon the following: one eighteen-foot crowbar and one sledgehammer.” BLOODNOK: What a splendid piece of descriptive writing! Now, who's going to do all the work? FX: Typing under. SEAGOON: (typing) “Without hesitation brave Bloodnok picked up the crowbar and began to force open the safe.” FX: Hammer on chisel. BLOODNOK: (Exerting himself) Oh you cad Edward! Making me do all that… Give me that typewriter would you. FX: Typing under. BLOODNOK: (typing) “Neddy – horrified at the sight of a retired Indian Army major labouring, snatched the crowbar and set to work himself.” FX: Hammer on chisel. SEAGOON: (Exerting himself) It's starting to give! SPRIGGS: (Slightly off.) Oww! You two characters – stop! Stop I say! BLOODNOK: It's a copper. SPRIGGS: I'm not a policeman! BLOODNOK: I beg your pardon madam. SPRIGGS: I'm not a policewoman either! BLOODNOK: I say – you're cutting it rather fine aren't you? SEAGOON: The newcomer was a small pair of pince-nez(11) spectacles, clad in a writing desk with the drawers open. SPRIGGS: Put a curb on your tongue fellow! I am Jim Spriggs, author of this book. I put you in it. SEAGOON: Right in it! SPRIGGS: Silence! BLOODNOK: Look here – if you're the author, couldn't you have made me a little younger? SPRIGGS: What? BLOODNOK: I mean, in Chapter Three I met a delightful young lady, but alas – me fires had gone out. SPRIGGS: Do not worry. I've made sure you don't get any older. On the next page you're run over by a steamroller lad! SEAGOON: Mister author, I implore you! I've got to get the safe open. SPRIGGS: Fear not little Jim! Fear not little Jimmmmm! I’ll write in a new character who will assist you. FX: Typing under. SPRIGGS: (typing) “The door opened and a virile figure leapt into the centre of the room.” BLUEBOTTLE: Hello Captain! Springes into centre of room. SPRINGE! SPRIGGS: Stay a moment, steaming lad. Did I write you in? BLUEBOTTLE: Yes! SPRIGGS: It's no good. I shall have to go to the country for a long rest. FX: Door closes. SEAGOON: Then who are you, little blotchy lad? BLUEBOTTLE: I will show you. Moves right keeping hole in seat of trousers away from vulgar gaze of audience. Now then – whip! whip! whip! Takes off false boots revealing… false feet! ORCHESTRA: Thin chord. Cymbal snap. SEAGOON: So that's who you are. Footo! BLUEBOTTLE: Yes!(12) Secret agent Bluebottle – the mastermind behind the second Finchley wolf cubs! SEAGOON: Yes – but can you blow open the safe? BLUEBOTTLE: Just you watch me. (Puffs) No, I cannot blow it open. Wait a moment! I know what I shall do. I shall insert my liquorice in the keyhole. SEAGOON: But we need an explosive. BLUEBOTTLE: Liquorice IS an explosive.(13) SEAGOON: No! We daren't risk any loud explosions – the author might hear us. BLUEBOTTLE: I have got an idea. (Electric light bulb lights up above head. Flash! Flash! Flash it goes.) I have got a packet of silent TNT which I readed about in ‘Black Claw, Emperor of the Universe’, in the boy's mag-costs-tuppence-with-free-elastic-and- cardboard-jet-fighter. SEAGOON: Silent TNT! Quick – light it little pimply lad, and put it under the safe. ELLINGTON: No! No! No! Wait. First let me sing my bit then I can clear off mate. RAY ELLINGTON QUARTET: ‘From the Bottom of my Heart’(14) SEAGOON: Right! Now light the fuse on the silent TNT! GRAMS: Match being struck; hissing of fuse. SEAGOON: Quick! Everyone out! GRAMS: Massed boots running away. SEAGOON: (Out of breath) Wait! ECCLES: What? SEAGOON: We're still in the room! BLOODNOK: Of course we are. I'm still wearing it. SEAGOON: Quick! Get this room off… (Struggling sounds)(15) FX: Door opening then closing. SEAGOON: That’s got it off. Now, come on chaps… CAST: (Mumble, mumble. Rhubarb, rhubarb. &c Fade) GREENSLADE: Dear listeners, I don't know about you but I find this all rather far-fetched, and as soon as it's all over I'm going to tell John Snagge. FLOWERDEW: (Scandalised) Oh, you BBC devil you! SEAGOON: Bluebottle - how do I know when the silent TNT has exploded? BLUEBOTTLE: Eh? I never thought of that. I suppose that when you hear nothing – that's it. SEAGOON: Can't anybody hear it explode? BLUEBOTTLE: Only idiots. GRAMS: Huge explosion. Aftershocks, falling debris. BLUEBOTTLE: Did you hear anything Captain? SEAGOON: No. BLUEBOTTLE: Good, 'cause only idiots can hear explosions like that. FX: Running boots. ECCLES: Here – what was that big explosion? It blew me backwards out of my underpants! I'm back to front now – (for Christmas of course.)(16) SEAGOON: So you heard it too? ECCLES: Yer. BLOODNOK: No comment. Help me on with this room and we'll see if the safe's blown open. FX: Door opens. MORIARTY: Hands up you steaming fools! GRYTPYPE: Yes Neddy, that was only a recording of a silent explosion, specially written in without the author's knowledge. SEAGOON: Oh? Well, two can play at that game! MORIARTY: What do you mean? FX: Rapid typing under. SEAGOON: (typing) “Moriarty’s finger squeezed the trigger, but there was only a hollow… “ FX: Metallic thud. MORIARTY: Sapristi! He's written in an empty gun for me! GRYTPYPE: Never mind… FX: Typing under. GRYTPYPE: (typing) “Before Seagoon could alter the next line, Grytpype Thynne and Moriarty were already on the motorboat… GRAMS: Fade in sound of motorboat engines. GRYTPYPE: … speeding up the Amazon River with the compromising X-ray photo safely in the hold.” SPRIGGS: What's going on here, Jim? (Sings) What’s going on heeeere? What are those men doing sailing up the Amazon river in my book? (Sings) Don't you dare change another woooord. BLOODNOK: Hands up Mister author! SPRIGGS: What? Oh you great big leaping crab you – don't be a fool! Drop that typewriter. FX: Typing under. BLOODNOK: (Typing) “The author turned and left the room.” FX: Door slams. BLOODNOK: There! That's got rid of him. SEAGOON: Now what? BLUEBOTTLE: Can I have a go at that typewriter, Captain? FX: Slow typing under. BLUEBOTTLE: (Types very slowly) “In a matter of secatons, Blunebottons was at the helm of a powerful elastic-driven speedboat chasing the naughty Grytpype Thynnes up the Amadon. But suddenly they was attacked by Black Claw and his Chinese pirates from the boy’s mag!” GRAMS: Battle noises. Distant bugles. Gunshots. SEAGOON: You blithering idiot! Look what you've written us into. Quick, swim for the bank! BLOODNOK: Not there – I'm overdrawn. GRAMS: Splashes. ECCLES: ‘Ere! Let me help you out. SEAGOON: Eccles! How did you get ashore? ECCLES: I walked across on that log. SEAGOON: That's not a log – that's a crocodile! ECCLES: Ooooo. I wondered why my legs kept getting’ shorter. GREENSLADE: Listeners will note that that was a repeat of the joke first heard in the Goon Show, second series, nineteen-fifty-two, repeated by special request of the authors. I should like to remind listeners that there are now only three-hundred and sixty-four shopping days to Christmas. SEAGOON: Good heavens! We must hurry! CRUN: Water! Water! SEAGOON: Mister Crun! How did you get out here? CRUN: Somebody gave Min a typewriter and here I am! SEAGOON: Well – we're completely lost. BLOODNOK: I suspect the listeners are too. SEAGOON: We must find our way to Chapter Ten. That's where Grytpype's heading for. Come on, and keep your eyes open for a two eleven-A bus. ECCLES: What for? SEAGOON: It goes right past Brixton gaol.(17) CRUN: Why do you want to go right past there? SEAGOON: Well, I don't want to go IN. SPRIGGS: (Approaching) Seagoon! Oh Seagoon! SEAGOON: It's the author! BLOODNOK: Thank heavens. I say look here, could you write us in a good dinner – we're starving you know. SPRIGGS: Don't worry steaming lads. I've written a happy ending for you all on the next page. So go on – (sings) turn it oveeerrrr. FX: Page turning. GRAMS: Westminster bells. Pipe organ playing wedding march. ARCHBISHOP CYRIL: I now pronounce you Neddy Seagoon and you Gladys Minkwater man and wife, and leave you to discover which is which. SEAGOON: Oh – and we live happily ever after! FX: Slow typing under. BLUEBOTTLE: (Typing) “But even as Seagoon and his mullionairess bride stepped outside she noticed in the crowd a certain handsome virile youth – wolf cub Bluebottle. So she ran over to his car and... “ GRAMS: Car speeding up and driving away. SEAGOON: Who gave him that typewriter? (Shouts out) Come back! You're too young for that sort of thing! BLUEBOTTLE: (off) That's what you think! Yeeheehee! ORCHESTRA: Closing theme. GREENSLADE: That was the Goon Show, a BBC recorded programme featuring Peter Sellers, Harry Secombe, and Spike Milligan, with the Ray Ellington Quartet, Max Geldray, and the orchestra conducted by Wally Stott. Script by Spike Milligan, and Larry Stephens, announcer Wallace Greenslade. The program produced by Pat Dixon. YTI Notes: 1) ‘Sei personaggi in cerca d’autore’, (1921) – ‘Six Characters in Search of an Author,’ was a play (not as Spike says a book) written by Luigi Pirandello (1867-1936) and the origin of this episode. The first performance in Rome was a clamorous failure – the author escaping by a side door to avoid the audience. But a resurgence of interest in the play occurred during the 50’s after Tyrone Guthrie directed a Tony Award winning production of the work in New York. The play deals with questions that dogged Milligan’s comedy writing career – the nature of writing and story telling, the nature of reality and a writer’s creative responsibility to an audience. It highlighted Milligan’s increasing frustration with the show itself. He believed that the characters had taken over the show, forcing him into writing repetitively and formulaically, unable to try new forms of comedy or new and revolutionary ideas (as he was to attempt later in the ‘Q’ Series,) and more perniciously it led him to blame the BBC for exploiting him, and the audience for being thick and far too easily satisfied. Nonetheless, this amalgamation of Pirandelli and the Goons comes off remarkably well – despite Spike (as Spriggs) being bailed up by typewriter. 2) It becomes increasingly difficult to tell when Milligan is writing script or ad libitums. The script actually continues 4 lines later. 3) Sellers interjects “Take your choice!” 4) In a major aside, Spike says to the audience: “Quiet please! We’re getting nowhere fast tonight, so a merry Christmas to you all!” to which Peter replies: “They’re in good spirits there.” 5) At which point Minnie says: “I’ll leave the room first.” 6) By Harry M. Woods (1896-1970). A hugely successful American writer of popular songs. Al Jolson had recorded this song as far back as 1926. 7) The laughter here is at best uncomfortable. Londoners were still very conscious of these words thirteen years after the war, and even Eccles could not extract a full throated laugh from them. 8) Milligan. Miss Throat was one of the most alarming laryngeal vocalizes ever attempted on radio. 9) Bloodnok does a strangled laugh and says “Sorry. I can’t help it you know.” 10) Kuchni, (Hindi/Urdu). Compression of kuch nahi – literally ‘nothing’. What Bloodnok actually says is ‘Nothing doing Edward, nothing!’ Milligan remembered only snatches of Urdu from his childhood. Obviously this was one of the few words that stuck. 11) A type of spectacles which grip the bridge of the nose for support. From the French ‘pinch nose’. 12) Sellers jumps in too quick here and Secombe’s final word is covered. 13) Bluebottle’s two great nemeses – dynamite and diarrhea. During the laughter you can hear the cast making farting noises at which point Bloodnok says “OHH!” from a distance. 14) A rhythm and blues number from the pen of Chuck Willis (1928-1958). 15) Seagoon says; “Gad! You’ve got this door buttoned up tight!” 16) “I’m Walking Backwards for Christmas” had been recorded by DECCA in early May 1956 and released in June, reaching number 4 on the UK charts. Re-released in 1973. 17) H.M. Prison Brixton (1920 – present) has housed many of Britain’s finest convicts. Bertrand Russell - (six months in 1918 for libeling an ally), Ford Madox Ford - (eight days in 1910 for refusing to pay support) and Mick Jagger - (three months in 1967 for possessing an illegal substance.)