Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #94779 in Books
• Published on: 2003-06-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

Ben Arnold, Jockey Slut magazine
'A testament to one of our most absurdly talented comedians. Poignant, nonsensical and hilarious... a more than appropriate epitaph.'

Chris Power, The Times
Wonderful anthology. A superbly sustained piece of comedy.

Synopsis
A Spike Milligan opus, containing everything from classics to hidden gems, with a foreword by Eddie Izzard. When Spike Milligan died in 2002, he left behind one of the most diverse legacies in British entertainment history - as well as a legion of devoted fans and admirers. Milligan's themes ranged from environmental issues to the war, from nostalgia to depression, and his prolific output covers some of the most evocative events of the 20th century, in a style both twistedly comic and harrowingly honest. From the pioneering lunacy of "The Goon Show" through his first novel "Puckoon" to the war memoirs that began with "Adolf Hitler: My Part in his Downfall", Milligan wrote with a passionate honesty that combined lyricism with all-out lunacy. This posthumous anthology, compiled with the co-operation of his closest circle, provides a comprehensive guide to Milligan's work, as well as shedding light on some less familiar areas, from pre-"Goon Show" days and "Telegoons" to his "Q" series for television.

Customer Reviews

brilliantly childish, genius and silly! I luv ya Spike
Only Spike Milliagan could be so brilliantly childish and observational.... so many try yet cant carry off the innocent yet deep poems and humour in this book.
Although I found reading the Goon show scripts sections a bit hard - and skipped most of them... (they wern't really of my generation, more my dads era....im sure i'll go back and read them later ).... but i really take my time reading the poems and re-reading them as they as genius yet silly and one can get.
A fabulous piece of escapism.... and his biography bits are great too..... a must read! A true eccentric!

The Essential Spike Milligan
This book is a stroll through the work of one of the most productive comic writters of modern times.This book contains extracts from his many books and scripts of some the most memorable Goon Shows.Also interleaved between these gems are poems ,silly verse for kids and letters he sent and recieved when championing his many causes.