Here's the text of the article:

1 August 2006

EXCLUSIVE: OLDIES BUT GOODIES

Seventies comedy icons makes Fronge comeback

By Rick Fulton

THE Goodies are back and ready to reclaim their crown as one of the most influential comedy acts in the UK.

Despite attracting 15 million viewers in their heyday, the hugely popular television show, starring Bill Oddie, Graeme Garden and Tim Brooke-Taylor, has never been repeated by the BBC since the Eighties, apart from one "best of" programme last Christmas.

Yet they are huge inspirations to some of today's top comedy acts from Little Britain and The League Of Gentlemen to Harry Hill and The Mighty Boosh.

On Friday, two of The Goodies, Aberdeen-born Graeme and Tim, will appear in The Goodies Still Rule OK! at the Assembly Rooms as part of the Edinburgh Fringe.

If it's successful, they will do a UK tour with the show, which has already been a huge hit in Australia.

Graeme said: "The Goodies have become iconic in their absence. You can argue the show has become more influential than Monty Python.

"Watching television comedy now, there aren't many shows like Python but plenty like The Goodies.

"The Mighty Boosh and The League Of Gentlemen were keen to say we were one of their icons.

"And Matt Lucas and David Walliams from Little Britain are fans. Matt came up to me once and said I was his favourite because I was 'a bit mad'. Further back, we always said The Young Ones were the young Goodies and The Last Of The Summer Wine were the old Goodies."

Which makes the BBC's reluctance to broadcast repeats even stranger.

The Goodies did 77 shows, starting in November 1970, but jumped ship to ITV in 1981 where they only lasted until 1982.

Since 1986, The Goodies hasn't been repeated on the BBC and there are many conspiracy theories about the reason.

Although they were undoubtedly the Little Britain of their day with hit singles, books such as The Goodies Files and clothing and toy merchandising, their cartoonish slapstick was seen by some at the Beeb as a children's programme and a Monty Python lite.

While their Cambridge Footlights contemporary John Cleese went on to form Monty Python and find worldwide acclaim, The Goodies have always been regarded as their poor relations.

The lack of repeats and establishment acceptance - and the loss of repeat fees -still rankles.

Graeme said: "We went to ITV, which prob ably didn't help. Never really got to the bottom of why the BBC so steadfastly refused to repeat the show.

"People say it's very much of its time and it's dated. Looking at stuff now, it's surprising at how undated a lot of it is and the bits that are dated are rather quaint, period humour.

"Very non-PC of course, but then that's quite funny in this day and age.

"We also were told it was too expensive to clear all the soundtrack and music and other people in the show. But someone has gone into that and costed it. They said it's perfectly feasible to repeat them. So we are still at a loss."

The Australians were the first to get back on board with the trio being invited to play Sydney's Big Laugh Comedy Festival 2004. They did a further three shows, and last year, minus Bill, did another Australian tour.

Last December, the BBC finally succumbed and the trio hosted a "best of" show which went down well and encouraged Graeme and Tim to do the Fringe run.

Graeme said: "It's probably more nerve-wracking in the UK. In Australia, there's a huge following and a great affection for the show because they had it repeated over there."

The Goodies will be a duo rather than a trio at the Fringe, but there's been no falling out or bad blood between them.

Instead Bill, who has become the UK's face of bird watching, is in Canada filming. Graeme laughed: "He's at the whim of nature. When the time comes for him to migrate, he has got to go.

"He's in Canada and then has to dive into a burrow or a nest when he gets back. But he will be part of the show.

"We have recorded his part on DVD so Tim and I will interact with him that way. And he'll also be there in physical form in an interesting way."

I ASK if it's a ventriloquist dummy as has been rumoured, and the Scot, who is a qualified doctor, splutters: "Oh you swine, you've been reading my mail.

"Of course, him not being there allows us to say the most rude things about him we can come up with."

And while Bill has returned to nature, Graeme and Tim continue to enjoy each other's company on Channel 4's Beat The Nation and are panellists on the long-running Radio 4 show I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue, which Graeme invented.

The Fringe show won't be all old material. But it will include Kitten Kong, the famous giant white kitten climbing London's Post Office Tower and the infamous sketch which caused a man to actually die laughing.

In March 1975, Alex Mitchell, a Scot living in King's Lynn, Norfolk, couldn't stop laughing while watching a sketch in the episode Kung Fu Kapers.

In it, Tim, dressed as a kilted Scotsman, used a set of bagpipes to defend himself from a psychopathic black pudding and the Lancastrian martial art Ecky-Thump in a demonstration of the Scottish martial art Hoots-Toot-Ochaye.

After 25 minutes of continuous laughter, Mitchell collapsed on his sofa and died of heart failure.

His widow later sent The Goodies a letter thanking them for making his final moments so pleasant.

Graeme said: "We're going to show that clip, so beware."

The Goodies are also remembered for the three-seater bike they rode, dummies falling from buildings and turning back into live people, the Funky Gibbon hit single and Tim's Union Jack waistcoat.

"It was with great relief we saw Geri of the Spice Girls pinching the idea and not the National Front," said Graeme.

And they had different characters on the show. Tim was the patriot, Graeme the boffin and Bill the anarchist who had set up an agency with the motto "We do anything, anywhere, any time''.

While Graeme is interested in doing something on television with Tim and Bill, he can't see them re-creating The Goodies. "For a start, we are physically past it," he said. "And we wouldn't be insured for most of what we used to do.

"We all hated that bike.

"It was hard to ride, uncomfortable and frankly dangerous.

"So when the BBC wheeled it out for the clips show at Christmas, our hearts fell. But they told us we wouldn't be riding it because they couldn't insure us."

It isn't the first time Graeme and Tim have been at the Fringe.

Tim's first visit was 44 years ago with John Cleese, Graham Chapman and director Trevor Nunn performing Henrik Ibsen's play Brand, and a Footlights review.

Tim, who met Bill at Cambridge in 1960, became president of Footlights and auditioned Graeme Garden who arrived a year later. That audition will be recreated for the Edinburgh Fringe show.

Graeme, whose son John, 30, is the keyboard player for the Scissor Sisters, is more than ready to put The Goodies back on the map.

And he defends the trio against the success of Monty Python, particularly the fact that they did movies.

He said: "Steven Spielberg's office called us saying he was interested in doing a project, but it was while he was making 1941 with John Belushi.

"It was his one and only comedy and it bombed. I think he decided to steer clear of comedy since then."

Luckily for comedy fans young and old and despite the best efforts of the BBC, The Goodies still rule OK.

'You can argue the show has become more influential than Monty Python'

The Goodies Still Rule OK! is at the Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh, from August 4 to 27. For tickets, ring 0131 226 2428.