Fifteen years ago Spike Milligan passed away and he is still missed. One of the founding fathers of the Goon show, a popular radio show in the 1950's, playing together with Peter Sellars and Harry Secombe, lifelong friends, Spike was troubled by depression throughout his adult life. He married twice and had four children to whom he dedicated several works of children's poetry and stories.
He was slightly manic in his comedy, but utterly brilliant and the Goonshow was the precursor to such marvellous comedy as 'Monty Python'. His Goonish characters "Eccles" and Minnie" were much loved and he also had some successful TV shows "Q5" and played in a series with Peter Sellars called "Life of Fred" and other Goon style comedy.
I was lucky enough in the early 1960's to catch him in a successful theatre production of "The Bed-Sitting Room" in which he ad-libbed throughout and made the show a resounding success. Hilarious. I also saw him in a play adapted from Ivan Goncharov: "Oblomov"on the London stage, in which he again ad-libbed nightly. He took on the role as he had read the play and was fascinated by it and although a serious role, his clownish side took over when the audience expected him not to play it straight. He obliged.
His first outing on stage was at the Mermaid theatre when Bernard Miles asked him to play 'Ben Gunn' in their production of "Treasure Ialand" he relished the role ans took hours to make up and was heartily adored by his audience.
It's hard to describe genius, you have to have seen him to appreciate what he was capable of, but his Goon humour stayed with me and I am eternally grateful for it.
NB: Photo from Wikipedia, look him up, he has appeared in a couple of films and if you are lucky enough to see those, then your life will have been enhanced.