A lost Goon Show sketch written by revered comedy duo Ray Galton and Alan Simpson will be performed later for the first time in 70 years after being unearthed in a university archive.
The skit was found among a trove of work by the pair, who created hit shows including Steptoe and Son and Hancock’s Half Hour and are often credited with inventing the British sitcom.
Running on the BBC from 1951 to 1960, the Goon Show featured Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers and Harry Secombe.
Richard Usher, chair of the Goon Show Preservation Society, said the discovery of the sketch – found amongst a portion of the Galton and Simpson collection owned by the University of York – was “insanely exciting”.
Gary Brannan, keeper of archives and research collections at the University’s Borthwick Institute for Archives, said: “Galton and Simpson invented modern British comedy as we know it, with their wit and humour leaving a profound and lasting imprint on the shows we watch today.
“Real-world or situation comedy simply didn’t exist before them.”
He described The Case of the Missing Two Fingers sketch, which will be performed later at the York Festival of Ideas, as a Shakespearean parody, believed to have been first written by Galton and Simpson just before Hancock’s Half Hour started and the pair became household names.
“They’re just on the edge of their big career moment when here they are writing these Goon Shows, which to me I think are brilliant and are really very funny,” Mr Brannan said. [ . . . ]
Continue at source: Lost Goon Show sketch to be performed for first time in 70 years