Spike & Co (digital download)

· Hodder & Stoughton · Narrated by Jeff Rawle
Audiobook
2 hr 17 min
Abridged
Eligible
Want a free 13 min sample? Listen anytime, even offline. 
Add

About this audiobook

This is the story of how four people, grouped together inside a set of offices five floors above a greengrocer's shop on Shepherd's Bush Green in West London, scaled the heights of British comedy.

On any weekday morning, if you dared to clamber over the crates of fruit and veg that the greengrocer had allowed to pile up outside on the pavement, climbed the five flights up the dangerously rickety staircase, and crept inside the entrance to Associated London Scripts, you would have found Milligan, Sykes, Galton, and Simpson shaping the latest shows, swapping the odd story, and searching for a funnier line.

Spike Milligan would have been in one office, often slumped over his typewriter, tapping away at the next script for The Goons. Eric Sykes would be seated at his desk in the next office, perhaps writing out in longhand another routine for Frankie Howerd or the cast of Educating Archie. And Galton and Simpson would have been in their own office, plotting, perchance, the next half hour for Tony Hancock.

Together, this eclectic bunch, and their bizarre office block, were responsible for a golden age in British comedy, which included The Goons, Hancock's Half Hour, Sykes, Steptoe and Son, Comedy Playhouse, The Frankie Howerd Show, Beyond Our Ken, Round the Horn, The Arthur Haynes Show, The Army Game, Bootsie and Snudge, That Was The Week That Was, and Till Death Us Do Part, to name but a few.

(P)2006 Hodder & Stoughton Audiobooks
This is the story of how four people, grouped together inside a set of offices five floors above a greengrocer's shop on Shepherd's Bush Green in West London, scaled the heights of British comedy. On any weekday morning, if you dared to clamber over the crates of fruit and veg that the greengroc...

Discover more

About the author

Graham McCann is the most admired entertainment writer at work in the UK today. He is the critically acclaimed and best-selling author of books on Dad`s Army; Frankie Howerd, Morecambe & Wise and Cary Grant. His most recent books, THE ESSENTIAL DAVE ALLEN and SPIKE & CO, are published by Hodder.

Graham McCann is the most admired entertainment writer at work in the UK today. He is the critically acclaimed and best-selling author of books on Dad`s Army; Frankie Howerd, Morecambe & Wise and Cary Grant. His most recent books, THE ESSENTIAL DAVE ALLEN and SPIKE & CO, are published by Hodder.

Rate this audiobook

Tell us what you think.

Listening information

Smartphones and tablets
Install the Google Play Books app for Android and iPad/iPhone. It syncs automatically with your account and allows you to read online or offline wherever you are.
Laptops and computers
You can read books purchased on Google Play using your computer's web browser.