another Sydney Morning Herald article about World's Funniest Island Festival
10/07/2009 00:00 GMT

Posted by lisa

Another small article from today's Sydney Morning Herald related to the World's Funniest Island Festival is at http://www.smh.com.au/news/entertainment/arts/theyre-oldies-but-goodies/2009/07/09/1246732417055.html (cut & paste below).  Does anyone have the print version of the newspaper? I'd love to hear if there are any interesting photos accompanying the article.


They're oldies but Goodies
Sydney Morning Herald
July 10, 2009

The last time British comedy trio the Goodies played in Australia, in 2005, they played to 15,000 people in Sydney alone. The tour of their first live stage show was only supposed to run to a handful of gigs but no one anticipated the nostalgic pull of the sitcom-sketch show. "When we got talked into doing the live show by [promoter] John Pinder, we figured one week! We ended up doing 60 shows. We will never forgive him for making us work so hard," Tim Brooke-Taylor remembers. This time around, Bill Oddie will join Brooke-Taylor and Graeme Garden (via satellite) for four performances in the Big Top, an hour of "reminiscences and funny bits" hosted by the Chaser's Andrew Hansen, a "total Goodies nut".

The three British comedians met at Cambridge University where they performed in the Footlights Club. They went on to perform in a number of radio and TV comedy shows before creating The Goodies in 1970, a mix of slapstick, surreal gags, situation comedy and camera tricks. The series ran to 78 episodes and has been aired continuously in Australia for almost 40 years. "They're all great raconteurs. Goodies nuts will just want to be in the same room as them - they're like gurus," John Pinder says.