Spike Milligan

Lost Spike Milligan songs unearthed

Previously unheard Spike Milligan songs are to be heard at a comedy festival - with the possibility of an album to follow.

Spike Milligan: Love, Light And Peace review

This is a tender, rounded, and sympathetic portrait that leaves the viewer feeling as if they knew this extraordinary figure and his chaotic mind just a little bit better.

Drawing extensively on his own words, home movies and the recollections of family and friends, this is a doc that beautifully tells the story of Spike Milligan's life, including much on his battles with depression. And does far more, too, because 90 minutes in the company of The Goon Show's chief creator acts not just as a reminder of how influential he was, but makes you keenly miss his anarchic spirit.

Spike Milligan: Love, Light and Peace review: 'tender'

Inevitably, it was Milligan's mind that we kept coming back to: breakdowns, suicide attempts, the moment when his children saw him being led into the bathroom for electroconvulsive therapy.

Radio Times review

As part of its 50th birthday celebrations, BBC2 has tiptoed downstairs to the vaults, cleared the dust from the shelves and picked some little-seen and little-remembered comedy treasures from the past half-century.

It has an enviably rich archive to trawl, one full of familiar faces. There are surprises, too, including the unbroadcast pilot of QI. Early BBC2 stalwarts aren't forgotten: there are sketches from Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, and Spike Milligan, whose thoroughly surreal and bizarre Q series ran for well over ten years.

We also get to see an early Borat work-in-progress from Sacha Baron Cohen, as an Albanian called Christo.

"Every time I see it I'm re-astonished by it," says comedian Steve Punt of the Rons' renowned Mastermind spoof. But as its writer David Renwick reveals, he came close to tearing it up: "I thought the premise was too contrived." It's these insights that have lifted this retrospectacle from papery clipathon to something more substantial. An influential 1937 photo of Ronnie Barker's dad provides another little frisson.

The final part focuses on the duo's song-and-dance finales and serials such as "The Worm That Turned" (set in a dystopian future of 2012!) and "The Phantom Raspberry Blower of Old London Town" (written by Spike Milligan with a pseudonymous Barker). It rather glosses over the eye-watering sexism of some of the Ronnies' sub-Benny Hill fare. But the mini-scoops make this a must-see for comedy completists.

Eric Sykes blue plaque unveiled at west London office

A blue plaque has been unveiled to mark the office comedian Eric Sykes shared with Spike Milligan for more than 50 years in west London.

After works about Spike Milligan, Tony Hancock and Dad's Army, writer Roy Smiles once again plunders Britain's comedy heritage for this play about Ronnie Corbett (Aidan McArdle) and Ronnie Barker (Robert Daws).

Smiles uses the device of one of Corbett's monologues and parodies of their sketches to explore the differences in the two men and how they first met. The re-creation of the sketches has a novelty value for those who remember them, but often only serve to remind us how good the original Ronnies were. And having to explain gags that worked on screen ("you've thrown your drink over me") is plain uncomfortable.

An interesting curiosity, but the uneven structure and wayward impersonations ultimately make it rather disappointing.

The Unforgettable Spike Milligan review

Does The Unforgettable Spike Milligan, define who Spike really was? No. Not really. But then again, how could it?

Following previous docs delving into the hidden worlds of comedy greats Eric Morecambe and Spike Milligan, this profile of the Up Pompeii star promises a number of undiscovered gems. Taking in previously unseen footage, from home movies to live stand-up material, this profile celebrates the life of the comic actor whose career stretched all the way from Variety Bandbox to 1990's The Craig Ferguson Story (playing The God Of Comedy, no less). Also, a peek at Howerd's extensive correspondence, including exchanges with the likes of Laurence Olivier and Paul McCartney.