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(from C&G 167 - October 2009)
(Contributed by Ben Tumney)
Graeme's interview is with Time Out Sydney:
Here is the text from Graeme's interview:
Graeme Garden has done many, many things in his five-decades-and-counting career: directed, written hundreds of television shows, created (and starred in) long running radio programmes and performed on stages all over the world. But for most people he is best known as the mad professor with the enormous sideburns in The Goodies. From 1970 to 1982 he and fellow Goodies Tim Brooke-Taylor and Bill Oddie fought genetically modified clowns, saved London from giant kittens, started a pirate radio station/post office, studied Northern English martial arts and, of course, rode a three-seater bicycle (which was, the story goes, a deathtrap) from situation to surreal situation. Surely he's sick to death of talking about something that wound up over 25 years ago?
"No, not really," he amiably replies. "It's a kind of signature dish really, isn't it? It's what we're all known for and it's a thing we did for ten years and I guess more people were aware of us doing that than most other things that any three of us did - although Bill has very much been reinvented as a wildlife presenter. But yes, we've done tons of stuff over the years but what we've done hasn't been interfered with by The Goodies' reputation, and it's probably opened up a lot of doors for us too so we've got a lot to be thankful for."
Much has been made of the connection between the Goodies and the Monty Python team: Garden, Brooke-Taylor and Oddie met as members of Cambridge University's Footlights Theatre group, along with Python's John Cleese and Graham Chapman. In fact, Cleese, Chapman and Brooke-Taylor worked together on the 1967 sketch programme At Last the 1948 Show (which also featured appearances by Oddie and future Python Eric Idle) while Garden and Oddie were working on Twice a Fortnight with Michael Palin and Terry Jones. But while Python's Flying Circus series has been anthologised on DVD and even the surviving episodes of At Last the 1948 Show are available now, a comprehensive Goodies DVD set is yet to emerge.
"Well, there are three DVDs: two are the ones we picked from the BBC series which we liked to put out, like 80 shows altogether, and there is also the Complete London Weekend series that has just been released on DVD – but I suppose we didn't really want to release it series by series which a lot of programmes do, because a lot of the older ones we don't really want to go out all that much," he laughs. "I think it got into its stride around the third or possibly fourth series, when is when some of the best known ones were happening.
"We eventually latched onto the idea of one of us becoming the villain in most episodes: one week Tim would go mad and do something silly and then the next week I'd go mad and threaten to take over the world or whatever it was, and so the good thing about the threesome was that you end up with the conflict from two against one. So we felt that it was probably best to come out hitting strong with the best episodes rather than just doing series one, then series two."
Well, with 80-odd episodes, there'd come a time when the commentary tracks would get a bit exhausting...
"Absolutely!" he laughs. "We did do a few commentary tracks, but it was quite funny because in the first one we did was an episode where we're all set in a lighthouse – it was one where the filming budget had run out so it was all done in the studio – and clearly none of us can remember anything about the show at all. We're like three old pensioners watching it saying 'what's he doing that for? Is that him from before? Oh, that was funny.'"
For their Australian visit Garden and Brooke-Taylor will be carrying the Goodies flame, with Oddie represented on video. "Yes, he's not been too well again," Garden explains. "It's the depression thing that he's prey to. I spoke to him a week or two ago and he was doing better than he had been, but still not really up to taking on a trip, so he'll be there on video in clips doing his stuff. And we're all wishing him well and hoping he gets back on an even keel soon. It's something that seems to come now and again, and after it's gone he's okay, but it's tough."
Brightening, he adds, "Actually, what you were saying before, in the shows that we're doing for the festival we're hoping to not just do Goodies stuff but introduce people to some of the stuff we did before and after. So we've got stuff from At Last the 1948 Show that we're hoping to show – like the Four Yorkshireman sketch, which Tim wrote originally."
It's one of the all-time classic comedy sketches – but of course, everyone thinks it's a Monty Python sketch thanks to Live at the Hollywood Bowl.
"That's right."
Hopefully Tim gets royalties for it.
"Oh, eventually he did. It's a story," Garden replies, with an evil chuckle. "You need to talk to Tim about that. When we're out there you can pin him down. He'll certainly be happy to tell you."
Andrew P Street
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