Comedy writer, author, podcaster and musician Joel Morris is our special guest this week and what could be more Christmassy than a chat about The Phantom Raspberry Blower Of Old London Town? (Plenty - Ed.)

Originally conceived by Spike Milligan as a vehicle for him, Peter Sellers and Harry Secombe, this proposed Goons special was stymied early on by Sellers' filming commitments elsewhere. A couple of years later Milligan dusted off the script and repurposed it for an episode of Six Dates With Barker, Ronnie Barker's 1971 series of one-off plays (similar to the Comedy Playhouse format which spawned a number of sitcoms) and if it had been left at that then it's highly likely that few people would remember it today. 

However, in 1976 Ronnie Barker collaborated with Milligan to expand the length of the play and serialise it in weekly episodes for the fifth series of The Two Ronnies. It is this version that is most fondly remembered by the public and is generally considered to be the strongest of the Ronnies' serials.

Joel joins Tyler to laud the lost art of the comic play and talks about Milligan's genius, with a few caveats (Joel presents a strong argument that when writing without the grounding influence of collaborators Spike’s ideas were often in danger of becoming loosed from their moorings) and there's also plenty of time to talk about other comedy too, including Peter Cook, The Office and Python. 

Joel is currently writing a book about comedy and is the host of the podcast Comfort Blanket: https://pod.link/1614879928