Varieties of Humour

New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 950, 25 October 1957, Page 20

Varieties of Humour

HERE could sutely be no more retmarkable contrast in English humour than to hear on the same evening the two BBC progtammes, Life With the Lyons and The Goon Show. The Lyons saga is made up of the old, well-tried ingredients of family farce. The jokes are often pure corn, though no mote so than we are accustomed to in family circles, and they make their points because their base is traditional and archaic, Father is ageing and vain, at the mercy of his family and in particular of his wife, to whom he is transparent; Mother is also vain, but keeps beside her a steady sense of humour which pilots her through the ost disastrous situations, and Junior Miss expetiences the comic agonies of puppy love. A somewhat bizarre note is struck by this family being vintage American, somehow embedded in the heart of the English comic landscape, though that may be considered a sign of the times, and their humour is typical of the prosperous middle class in any Englishspeaking country. But The Goon Show is unique: wild, surrealist, virtuoso in its scripts, its fearsome range of soun effects, and in the remarkable voca dexterity of its performers. I have listened to several sessions in the present series, and am always entertained by its wit, its ferocious pace, and its zany, but oddly illuminating view of ° (continued on next page)

the world. Are they socially critical? ' It’s sometimes hard to tell, except in relation to the official, governmental side of things, when their caricatures of Home Secretaries, First Lords of this and that are deadpan and merciless. The English love virtuosity and acro-batics-esteem them for their own sake ~~-and The Goon Show is the finest allstar circus English radio has given us,

B.E.G.

M.