“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.
This two-volume set surveys the profound impact of political humor and satire on American culture and politics over the years, paying special attention to the explosion of political humor in today's wide-ranging and turbulent media environment. Historically, there has been a tendency to regard political satire and humor as a sideshow to the wider world of American politics—entertaining and sometimes insightful, but ultimately only of modest interest to students and others surveying the trajectory of American politics and culture. This set documents just how mistaken that assumption is. By examining political humor and satire throughout US history, these volumes not only illustrate how expressions of political satire and humor reflect changes in American attitudes about presidents, parties, and issues but also how satirists, comedians, cartoonists, and filmmakers have helped to shape popular attitudes about landmark historical events, major American institutions and movements, and the nation's political leaders and cultural giants. Finally, this work examines how today's brand of political humor may be more influential than ever before in shaping American attitudes about the nation in which we live.
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.
Spike Milligan's letters contain some of the best material he ever wrote . . . Collected here for the first time are the funniest, rudest and most revealing of them - most of which have never been seen before - from one of the greatest comics of the twentieth century to some of its most famous politicians, actors, celebrities and rock stars (as well as a host of unlikely individuals on some surprising subjects): - rounded teabags ('what did you do with the corners?') - backless hospital gowns ('beyond my comprehension') - heartfelt apologies ('pardon me for being alive') and the imbalance of male and female ducks in London's parks. Here, then, is the real Spike Miligan: obsessive, rude, generous and relentlessly witty. 'Milligan's zaniness shines through' Telegraph 'The godfather of alternative comedy' Eddie Izzard Spike Milligan was one of the greatest and most influential comedians of the twentieth century. Born in India in 1918, he served in the Royal Artillery during WWII in North Africa and Italy. At the end of the war, he forged a career as a jazz musician, sketch-show writer and performer, before joining forces with Peter Sellers and Harry Secombe to form the legendary Goon Show. Until his death in 2002, he had success as on stage and screen and as the author of over eighty books of fiction, memoir, poetry, plays, cartoons and children's stories.
DIVA revealing and insightful look at one of the modern world’s most acclaimed historical novelists/div DIVPatrick O’Brian was well into his seventies when the world fell in love with his greatest creation: the maritime adventures of Royal Navy Captain Jack Aubrey and ship’s surgeon Stephen Maturin. But despite his fame, little detail was available about the life of the reclusive author, whose mysterious past King uncovers in this groundbreaking biography./divDIV /divDIVKing traces O’Brian’s personal history, beginning as a London-born Protestant named Richard Patrick Russ, to his tortured relationship with his first wife and child, to his emergence from World War II with the entirely new identity under which he would publish twenty volumes in the Aubrey–Maturin series. What King unearths is a life no less thrilling than the seafaring world of O’Brian’s imagination./div
Four volumes of history and biography for fans of the Aubrey-Maturin novels, with lore on the Royal Navy and much more. What is a sandgrouse, and where does it live? What are the medical properties of lignum vitae, and how did Stephen Maturin use it to repair his viola? Who is Adm. Lord Keith, and why is his wife so friendly with Capt. Jack Aubrey? More than any other contemporary author, Patrick O’Brian knew the past. His twenty Aubrey–Maturin novels, beginning with Master and Commander (1969), are distinguished by deep characterization, heart-stopping naval combat, and an attention to detail that enriches and enlivens his stories. In the revised edition of A Sea of Words, Dean King and his collaborators dive into Jack Aubrey’s world. In the revised edition of Harbors and High Seas, King details not just where Aubrey and Maturin went, but how they got there. Packed with maps and illustrations from the greatest age of sail, it is an incomparable reference for devotees of O’Brian’s novels and anyone who has dreamed of climbing aboard a warship, as well as a captivating portrait of life on the sea during a time when nothing stood between man and ocean but grit, daring, and a few creaking planks of wood. At the dawn of the nineteenth century, the British navy was the mightiest instrument of war the world had ever known. The Royal Navy patrolled the seas from India to the Caribbean, connecting an empire with footholds in every corner of the earth. Such a massive navy required the service of more than 100,000 men—from officers to deckhands to surgeons. Their stories are collected in Every Man Will Do His Duty. The inspiration for the bestselling novels of Patrick O’Brian and C. S. Forester, these twenty-two memoirs and diaries, edited by Dean King, provide a true portrait of life aboard British warships during one of the most significant eras of world history. Patrick O’Brian was well into his seventies when the world fell in love with his greatest creation: the maritime adventures of Royal Navy Capt. Jack Aubrey and ship’s surgeon Stephen Maturin. But despite his fame, little detail was available about the life of the reclusive author, whose mysterious past King uncovers in this groundbreaking biography. King traces O’Brian’s personal history from his beginnings as a London-born Protestant named Richard Patrick Russ to his tortured relationship with his first wife and child to his emergence from World War II with the entirely new identity under which he would publish twenty volumes in the Aubrey–Maturin series. What King unearths is a life no less thrilling than the seafaring world of O’Brian’s imagination. Patrick O’Brian: A Life Revealed is a penetrating and insightful examination of one of the modern world’s most acclaimed historical novelists.
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 since they first appeared. 'The most irreverent, hilarious book about the war that I have ever read' Sunday Express 'Brilliant verbal pyrotechnics, throwaway lines and marvelous anecdotes' Daily Mail 'Desperately funny, vivid, vulgar' Sunday Times 'My namer is Maria Antonoinetta Fontana, but everyone call me Toni.' 'I'm Spike, sometimes known as stop thief or hey you.' 'Yeser, I know.' The sixth volume of Spike Milligan's off-the-wall account of his part in World War Two sees our hero doing very little soldiering. Because it's 1946. Rather, he is now part of the Bill Hall Trio - a 'Combined Services Entertainment' inflicted on unsuspecting soldiers across Italy and Austria - and is largely preoccupied with the unbearably beautiful ballerina, Ms Toni Fontana ('Arghhhhhhhhh!). But he must enjoy it while he can before he is demobbed and sent home to Catford - so he does ... 'That absolutely glorious way of looking at things differently. A great man' Stephen Fry 'Milligan is the Great God to all of us' John Cleese 'The Godfather of Alternative Comedy' Eddie Izzard 'Manifestly a genius, a comic surrealist genius and had no equal' Terry Wogan 'A totally original comedy writer' Michael Palin 'Close in stature to Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear in his command of the profound art of nonsense' Guardian Spike Milligan was one of the greatest and most influential comedians of the twentieth century. Born in India in 1918, he served in the Royal Artillery during WWII in North Africa and Italy. At the end of the war, he forged a career as a jazz musician, sketch-show writer and performer, before joining forces with Peter Sellers and Harry Secombe to form the legendary Goon Show. Until his death in 2002, he had success as on stage and screen and as the author of over eighty books of fiction, memoir, poetry, plays, cartoons and children's stories.
VOLUME FOUR OF SPIKE MILLIGAN'S LEGENDARY MEMOIRS IS A HILARIOUS, SUBVERSIVE FIRST-HAND ACCOUNT OF WW2 'Brilliant verbal pyrotechnics, throwaway lines and marvelous anecdotes' Daily Mail 'Desperately funny, vivid, vulgar' Sunday Times ______________ A voice is calling across the land, 'Bombardier Milligan.' 'Bombadier Milligan is dead,' I replied in a disguised voice. The voice replied, 'Then he's going to miss his breakfast.' The fourth volume of Spike Milligan's legendary account of his time in the army during World War Two begins as he and his regiment land in sunny Italy in 1943 ('The ship touched the beach very gently, so gently I suspect it's not insured'). After a bout of Sandfly Fever, from which he soon recovers ('I'm ready to be killed again'), our plucky hero is piddled on by a farm dog ('Mussolini's revenge?') before forging his way inland towards the enemy and the sound of guns ('We're getting near civilisation'), where matters suddenly take a dark turn ('I was not really me any more') . . . ______________ 'The most irreverent, hilarious book about the war that I have ever read' Sunday Express 'Milligan is the Great God to all of us' John Cleese 'The Godfather of Alternative Comedy' Eddie Izzard 'A totally original comedy writer' Michael Palin 'Close in stature to Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear in his command of the profound art of nonsense' Guardian
