Spike Milligan: A Celebration

by Spike Milligan

This tribute to one of the world's greatest ever entertainers is a must for all Milligan fans. For the first time, this diverse and thrilling selection of scripts, sketches, poems, prose and nonsense is available in paperback.

The combination of quickfire wit and downright silliness is supported by contributions from some of showbusiness' greatest entertainers, including Barry Humphreys and Ronnie Scott.

Genres: Humor

224 pages, Paperback

First published December 31, 1995

About the author

Terence Alan Patrick Seán Milligan, known as Spike, was a comedian, writer and musician. He was of Irish descent, but spent most of his childhood in India and lived most of his later life in England, moving to Australia after retirement. He is famous for his work in The Goon Show, children's poetry and a series of comical autobiographical novels about his experiences serving in the British Army in WWII. Spike Milligan suffered from bipolar disorder, which led to depression and frequent breakdowns, but he will be remembered as a comic genius. His tombstone reads 'I told you I was ill' in Gaelic.

Reviews

[Baba · Rating 1 out of 5]

This tribute to one of the world's greatest ever entertainers is allegedly must for all Milligan fans. Sadly, Spike's work has began to seem and feel dated to me. 3 out of 12.

[Dane Cobain · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was pretty cool because it covered quite a wide variety of Spike Milligan’s career, including little snippets of TV and radio shows, doodles and drawings and bits and bobs of poetry. Milligan was also a huge influence on a whole range of different people, from John Lennon to Monty Python, who admittedly isn’t actually a person.

It’s essentially almost a best of book, with highlights from a bunch of Milligan’s different works, as well as reminiscences from people like Dennis Norden and Jim Dale. That in itself makes it an interesting read, but the humour itself is spot on as well. It’s even missing most of the casual racism that eked its way into Milligan’s stuff, which is a bonus for me with my hella woke modern sensibilities.

Would I recommend it? Yes, if you like silly humour and stuff.