October 2023 marks the 60th anniversary of the first broadcast of The Telegoons, a television spin-off of The Goon Show which ran for two series and 26 episodes between 1963 and 1964.
Each fifteen-minute show was adapted by Maurice Wiltshire from an earlier Goon Show episode, many of which were firm fan favourites such as Napoleon's Piano, The Canal and Lurgi Strikes Britain, with new soundtracks specially recorded by Spike Milligan, Harry Secombe and, straight off Dr Strangelove, Peter Sellers.
This week's special guest is Alastair Roxburgh, and few know more about The Telegoons than him - having first viewed them via a grainy 1964 New Zealand television screen they became a lifelong passion and he has done a huge amount to keep the memory alive (see his website: http://roxburgh.org/telegoons/index2.htm)
Alastair talks about the origins of the series, the technical challenges, the people behind the puppets and much more.
The Telegoons have come in for a bit of stick due to many Goon Show fans complaining that trying to realise the characters and situations from a series which fully exploited the limitations - and possibilities - of radio was doomed to failure, sentiments reinforced by the pretty poor copies of the show which did the rounds for years.
However, as Alastair argues, The Telegoons should not be compared to the show whence loins it sprang but judged as a television programme in its own right - and if somehow it could emerge blinking into the sunlight from the bowels of Copyright Hell and warrant a decent HD restoration and DVD/blu ray release it would surely be time for a reappraisal and who knows? A Telegoons Renaissance perhaps!

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