Product Description

This is the story of how four people, grouped together inside a set of offices five floors above a greengrocer’s shop on Shepherd’s Bush Green in West London, launched a
golden age of British comedy.

On any weekday morning, if you dared to clamber over the crates of fruit and veg outside on the pavement, and climb the five flights of stairs to Associated London Scripts, you would find Milligan, Sykes, Galton & Simpson, shaping the latest shows, swapping the odd story and searching for a funnier line.  Together, this eclectic bunch, and their bizarre office block, were responsible for a golden age in British comedy, which included The Goons, Hancock’s Half Hour, Sykes, Steptoe and Son, Comedy Playhouse, The Frankie Howerd Show, Beyond Our Ken, Round the Horn, The Arthur Haynes Show, The Army Game, Bootsie and Snudge, That Was The Week That Was, and Till Death Us Do Part. SPIKE & CO is their incredible story.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #75133 in Books
• Published on: 2007-08-09
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 448 pages

The Times, 4 November 2006
'A tragicomedy of creative tension, personality conflict,
endearing characters and enduring catchphrases'

Review

'A tragi-comedy of creative tension, personality conflict, endearing characters and enduring catch phrases'

(The Times )

‘You will laugh, you will learn, and you will, undoubtedly, start speaking in a silly voice.’

(Word )

'McCann summons up ALS's unique atmosphere ... The joy of the book lies in the incisive contributions from comedy legends on everything from the second world war to class war.. It's exhilarating to read top-rank craftesmen discussing what they love doing’

(The Guardian )

'A story of collaboration, of ideas generously supported, and criticised without mercy'

(The Sunday Herald )

About the Author
Graham McCann is the most admired entertainment writer at work in the UK today. He is the critically acclaimed and best-selling author of books on Dad's Army, Frankie Howerd, Morecambe & Wise and Cary Grant. He recently edited THE ESSENTIAL DAVE ALLEN for Hodder & Stoughton (2005).

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Customer Reviews

The Writers Have Their Day
One day in the middle of the 1950s, the funniest writers in Great Britain dreamed up the idea of a single place where humour could be created without any interference from bureaucrats or bosses. Associated London Scripts ('ALS') was the actual realisation of this dream. Eric Sykes had an office there. So did Spike Milligan. So did Galton and Simpson, and Johnny Speight, and John Antrobus, and Barry Took, and John Junkin, and Terry Nation, and many others. Such characters as Bluebottle, Eccles, Anthony Hancock, Eric and Hattie, Harold and Albert Steptoe, Alf Garnett, Julian and Sandy, and countless others were committed to paper and shaped in scripts inside this block of offices. So much of what came after in terms of comedy - Python, The League of Gentlemen, Fawlty Towers, The Office, Little Britain, etc etc - was inspired by the gentlemen of ALS. Graham McCann tells this story extremely well: organising the material in terms of each office, and then each output, he adds the layers until we are left with an unforgettable image of collective comic enterprise. In addition to all of this, the thoroughness of the source notes and the helpful episode lists make the book a really useful, as well as entertaining, volume to have close at hand. The best present I've received this year.

Invaluable contribution to comedy history
I bought this as soon as it came out, and I've been spreading the word ever since. It is amazingly thorough in its research (to cover the lives of Eric Sykes, Ray Galton, Alan Simpson, Spike Milligan and Johnny Speight, as well as the histories of Hancock's Half Hour, The Goons, Steptoe & Son, Sykes amd Till Death Do Us Part is a massive achievement), and thoroughly entertaining in the way it tells its story: the first wave of 'proper' professional comedy writers, ganging together to further the cause of their craft, creating all of the great shows of the 50s and 60s within the same cramped little set of London offices. McCann is a master of this sort of subject (his studies of Morecambe and Wise and Dad's Army were quite brilliant), and this latest, really splendid, book brings together so many fascinating strands it is absolutely gripping. I envisage re-reading and consulting this for many years to come.

magnum opus
Some books, when you get them, seem like books your library has been keeping a space for without you quite knowing it. This is that kind of book. As other reviewers have noted very well, McCann has provided an illuminating history of a great era in British comedy. What I also admire is the way he has turned the story over, in a way, and shown us the underside of the tapestry: not the familiar sights of stars and scenes, but rather the unfamiliar but very interesting sights of the writers and their craft. The likes of Sykes, Galton, Simpson, Milligan and Speight are true comedy heroes, and this beauty of a book does them proud.