In this last of Spike's hilarious reinterpretations of the classic works of litarature, all the familiar faces of Robert Louis Stevenson's original version appear: Squire Trelawney, Jim Hawkins and Long John Silver. But they are joined by Groucho Marx - and Long John's parrot plays a starring role. This rip-roaring adventure of the hunt for buried treasure unravels faster than Ben Gunn's pants, with plenty of laughs along the way. Rude and irreverent as ever, Spike's rendering of this classic tale is as chock-full of gems as Cap'n Flint's treasure chest.
Sherlock Holmes and his trusty companion, Dr Watson, are working together once more to solve the mystery at Baskerville Hall. This time, however, there's something fishy about the hound, a woman cries in the night, Guiness and Newcastle Brown are taken intravenously and the Berlin Philharmonic keep running out of things to play...
The biography of Spike Milligan, one of the most gifted, creative individuals of our time, and remembered as a true comic genius. However, many people are unaware that he battled throughout his adult life against anxiety and depression, neither of which he was able to conquer.
Spike Milligan's legendary war memoirs are a hilarious and subversive first-hand account of the Second World War, as well as a fascinating portrait of the formative years of this towering comic genius, most famous as writer and star of The Goon Show. They have sold over 4.5 million copies. With his lightning-quick wit, unbridled creativity and his ear for the absurd, Milligan revolutionised British comedy, leaving a legacy of influence that stretches from Monty Python's Flying Circus to the work of self-confessed acolytes such as Eddie Izzard and Stephen Fry today. Throughout his life, Milligan wrote prolifically - scripts, poetry, fiction, as well as several volumes of memoir, in which he took an entirely idiosyncratic approach to the truth. In this ground-breaking work, Norma Farnes, his long-time manager, companion, counsellor and confidante, gathers together the loose threads, reads between the lines and draws on the full breadth of his writing to present his life in his own words: an autobiography - of sorts. From his childhood in India, through his early career as a jazz musician and sketch-show entertainer, his spells in North Africa and Italy with the Royal Artillery, to that fateful first broadcast of The Goon Show and beyond into the annals of comedy history, this is the autobiography Milligan never wrote.
The study investigates the cultural production of the visual iconography of popular pleasure grounds from the eighteenth century pleasure garden to the contemporary theme park. Deborah Philips identifies the literary genres, including fairy tale, gothic horror, Egyptiana and the Western which are common to carnival sites and traces their historical transition across a range of media to become familiar icons of popular culture.Though the bricolage of narratives and imagery found in the contemporary leisure zone has been read by many as emblematic of postmodern culture, the author argues that the clash of genres and stories is less a consequence of postmodern pastiche than it is the result of a history and popular tradition of conventionalized iconography.
First published in 2001.The standard work on its subject, this resource includes every traceable British entertainment film from the inception of the "silent cinema" to the present day. Now, this new edition includes a wholly original second volume devoted to non-fiction and documentary film--an area in which the British film industry has particularly excelled. All entries throughout this third edition have been revised, and coverage has been extended through 1994.Together, these two volumes provide a unique, authoritative source of information for historians, archivists, librarians, and film scholars.
“It’s all rather confusing, really” was one of the catchphrases used by Spike Milligan in his ground-breaking radio comedy program The Goon Show. In a series of mock-epics broadcast over the course of a decade, Milligan treated listeners to a cosmology governed by confusion, contradictions, fluidity and uncertainty. In The Goon Show’s universe, time and space expand and contract seemingly at will and without notice. The worldview featured in The Goon Show looked both backward and forward: backward, in the sense that it paralleled strategies used by schoolchildren to understand time and space; forward, in the ways it anticipated and prefigured a number of key features of postmodern thought. Winner of the Ann Saddlemyer Award 2017 of the Canadian Association for Theatre Research.
First published in 2001. The standard work on its subject, this resource includes every traceable British entertainment film from the inception of the "silent cinema" to 1994. Now, this new edition includes a wholly original second volume devoted to non-fiction and documentary film--an area in which the British film industry has particularly excelled. All entries throughout this third edition have been revised, and coverage has been extended through 1994.Together, these two volumes provide a unique, authoritative source of information for historians, archivists, librarians, and film scholars.
This entertaining collection of pieces from the acclaimed director of Breaker Morant, Driving Miss Daisy and Mao’s Last Dancer features memoirs, brief lives and revealing accounts of the film world. Alongside unsung heroes from behind the camera and producers of dubious repute are Madeleine St John and Clive James, Margaret Olley and Jeffrey Smart, as well as a particularly seductive 1963 EH Holden—and Bruce Beresford’s father, whose strange and startling decline in old age is charted in a brilliant, poignant essay. Opinionated, wry and engaging, The Best Film I Never Made will provoke and delight in equal measure. It is the ideal gift not only for cinema buffs but for anyone interested in music, art or literature. Bruce Beresford has directed more than two dozen films, including Breaker Morant, Tender Mercies, Driving Miss Daisy, Black Robe, Double Jeopardy and Mao’s Last Dancer. He has directed Rigoletto for the Los Angeles Opera and A Streetcar Named Desire for Opera Australia, and is the author of Josh Hartnett Definitely Wants to Do This. He lives in Sydney. ‘Beresford’s style resembles the action of a veteran wrist-spinner. His technique looks loose, even effortless. His sentences drift along genially for a while, then suddenly bite the pitch and turn...He isn’t merely smart by Hollywood standards. He is smart by any standard...In a world rife with philistines, he demonstrates that the best revenge is laughter, and living and working well.’ Australian ‘Beresford writes with skill and insight, humour.’ Otago Daily Times ‘This quirky collection of occasional writings from 2007 to 2017 paints a picture of a modest man with a curious mind...Beresford retains a wry sense of humour and an enjoyable willingness to share candid and unflattering details.’ Big Issue ‘A collection of warm, droll and often frank personal essays...An honest and reflective book.’ AU Review
Welcome to the world of classic adventure stories, hilariously retold by the much loved, legendary comic Spike Milligan. On his death in 2002, he was widely regarded as the greatest and most influential comedian to have emerged from post-war Britain.
