Index
» Graeme - Radio Time...
» Goodies - Televisio...
» Tim - Radio Lancash...
» Bill - Goodies 30th...
» Tim - Interview wit...
» Goodies - Deadpan -...
» Bill & Graeme - Rec...
» Goodies - Time Out ...
» Goodies - Cult Time...
» Goodies - The Heral...
» Goodies - Various (...
» Goodies - Various (...
» Goodies - Daily Tel...
» Graeme - Radio Time...
» Goodies - 1994 Inte...
» Goodies - Guardian ...
» Tim & Graeme - Esse...
» Tim - Maidenhead Ad...
» Tim & Graeme - Linc...
» Graeme - Nottingham...
» Tim - Worcester New...
» Tim - The Express M...
» Graeme - Essex Chro...
» Graeme - Guardian M...
» Tim - Hull Daily Ma...
» Graeme - Scotsman A...
» Graeme - Mature Tim...
» Graeme - Independen...
» Bill - Sunday Star ...
» Graeme - Time Out S...
» Goodies - Daily Mai...
» Bill - Bristol Even...
» Graeme - Best Briti...
» Tim - Telegraph Int...
» Graeme - Cotswold L...
» Bill - Daily Mail 2...
» Bill - Varsity 2012
» Graeme - The Age (T...
» Graeme - TV Tonight...
» Tim - Daily Mail (A...
NOTTINGHAM EVENING POST – 16th March 2007
(Lisa Manekofsky – 17th Mar)
PREVIEW: THE GOODIES, ROYAL CONCERT HALL
11:46 - 16 March 2007
It has been 25 years since The Goodies ended their ten-year run as staples of British television.
And since there have been few repeat showings of their Seventies TV comedy classic.
So how come they're back now with a new theatre tour?
"It's all down to a request from Australia," says Graeme Garden.
"The Goodies has been extensively repeated out there, so the next generation also grew up with it.
When they came to be organising the Big Laugh Festival, they wanted some TV comedians and we were, to them, an obvious choice."
This led to Garden, Bill Oddie and Tim Brooke-Taylor reuniting for the trip to Oz and it was so well-received that it was thought that the UK may appreciate the show.
After a successful stint at the Edinburgh Fringe last summer, the trio decided to take the show on the road.
"It's a sort of introduction to The Goodies for some and for others a reminder," says Garden.
"We have clips of the show and we perform some stuff going back to our student days and some of our radio scripts".
Bill Oddie, however, will not be appearing in person (due to other "commitments") only on the big screen, billed as a "digital Bill".
Says Garden with a laugh: "The good thing is we can turn it off!"
The relationships between the three men have changed but never soured, he says.
"I used to spend more time with Bill. We'd be writing and Tim would be off doing a sit-com of something, but these days Tim and I spend more time together as we do a lot of radio work while Bill is never in the same place for more than a few days at a time."
He adds: "When two of us are together, we always bad-mouth the other."
The Goodies have been referenced by the likes of The League of Gentlemen, The Mighty Boosh and Mike Myers as a big influence.
Odd then that there have been few repeats of the show over the years.
"It's disappointing that it's never been shown again, but the fans still seem very affectionate towards us despite that. Many of the fans show the DVDs to their children, so we are reaching another generation now."
The nature of the show with pratfalls and slapstick and the absence of any crudeness made The Goodies quite child-friendly, often airing in the early evening. Hidden beneath the silliness though were often serious and satirical messages.
"The plots we had were often satirical. We would try to send up whatever was in the news at the time, whether that was a big film like Close Encounters or some political news involving Margaret Thatcher.
"We even did one about apartheid once that the BBC were scared to show for a long time.
"So we often hid behind the pratfalls in delivering bigger messages."
The trio met at Cambridge University and were contemporaries of another British institution, the Monty Python team.
Garden even shared a flat with Eric Idle, who thanked the Goodies individually at the opening of Spamalot for getting him involved with comedy.
"We think he was trying to share the blame!" laughs Garden.
The Python team and The Goodies mingled freely in their student days and did various projects together before eventually forming two collectives. So why the split?
"It just worked out that way. We were all keen to break down the normal sketch format, but they decided to do it by abandoning traditional punch-lines while we made a single flowing 30-minute sketch per show and the group just gravitated one way or the other."
Not everyone has been impressed by the success of The Goodies, says Garden, namely his youngest son when he was a boy.
It's a good job he followed The Goodies with voice-over work on a children's favourite.
"When he was at school, he was embarrassed that his dad was one of The Goodies but he loved Bananaman, so it helped me out there." The show is on Sunday March 25.
|
