“For a shortened version of this programme, please read A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, and you won’t find much resemblance.”

On 24th December 1959 the tenth and final series of The Goon Show got off to a thoroughly festive start with a show VERY loosely based on the classic Dickens story, in which Scrooge (played by Henry Crun) entrusts Eccles with a Christmas pudding full of gold threepenny bits. This attracts the attention of Grytpype-Thynne and Moriarty and all manner of chaos ensues.

This really was the last hurrah for the Goon Show as Series 10 only ran for six editions – Sellers was already a film star, Secombe was in huge demand as a singer and performer and Milligan (beset with personal dramas) had grown tired of doing it. It was an excuse for Sunday larks but as 1960 arrived they were all ready to move on.

Leading up to the start of the series the BBC publicity department announced: “Christmas is expected to get off to a disastrous start in the Home Service on Christmas Eve. For at exactly 7:30pm announcer Wallace Greenslade will announce over the ether “This is the Goon Show” and for the next thirty minutes Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers and Harry Secombe will start a hilarious riot throughout millions of listeners’ homes.”

The show lacked any structure or discipline and yet contains some of the funniest material the Goons ever broadcast, chiefly centred around Scrooge, Eccles and Ned Scratchit. Willium is appearing as Sewerman Sam and Max Geldray defiles the acting craft with a brief role as a Welsh spouse. It wraps up on a musical note for want of a neater ending.

Joining Tyler is Andy Bell whose Welsh-language podcast is Rhaglen Cymru - Andy can be contacted at rhaglencymru@hotmail.com.

Who were the key figures in getting the Goon Show to radio? Which people were pivotal to the Goons' success? Join Tyler and Roger Stevenson as they rank those within the Goon Show's orbit in order of importance and show their working.

Roger took the brief seriously and put a lot of thought and care into his choices; Tyler slightly misunderstood the brief and went more down that 'Who was the Fifth Goon?' route. What resulted was an interesting mix of names, and increasingly desperate attempts by Tyler to justify his ranking system.

Among the names bandied about are such worthies as Dennis Main Wilson, Valentine Dyall, Jimmy Grafton, Larry Stephens, Dick Emery and John Snagge.

This month I’ve had the pleasure of speaking to two of the finest comedy writers of the last fifty years – Andrew Marshall and David Renwick – specifically about their 1986 film Whoops Apocalypse, which borrowed the title, a few plot elements and a handful of cast members from their 1982 one-series sitcom of the same name.

The film was inspired by the events surrounding the Falklands War and the ongoing tensions between East and West and starred Peter Cook as increasingly deranged British premier Sir Mortimer Chris, Loretta Swit as US President Adams (no relation), Michael Richards (pre-Seinfeld) as international terrorist Lacrobat and a whole host of familiar faces such as Richard Wilson, Rik Mayall, Alexei Sayle, Ian Richardson, Herbert Lom and John Sessions.

On 4th December 1994 Jonathan Ross hosted the British Comedy Awards in front of an invited audience of the great and the good and Noel Edmonds.

It was a good year for the likes of Steve Coogan, Michael Barrymore and the Drop the Dead Donkey team but almost from the off Ross was beset by problems, including announcing the winner of the wrong award, having to deal with an out-of-control Meatloaf whose sole intention, it seemed, was to reduce Wossy to a quivering mess, and, most notably, attempting to wrest back control of the room in the wake of Spike Milligan calling the future King of England a 'little grovelling bastard'. The reaction and fallout was to dominate the redtops for days and raised Spike's profile so sufficiently that his chatshow bookings and requests for interviews quadrupled overnight.

Joining Tyler to talk about all that and examine the winners (and losers) of the evening are co-host of The Sitcom Club podcast Gary Rodger and the man behind Behind The Stunts, Jon Auty. There's clips aplenty and personal reminiscences from Clive Anderson and Jane Milligan.

It's a fun stroll down memory lane and a useful reminder that there was a time when Michael Barrymore was the biggest name in showbiz and the likes of Armando Iannucci and Chris Morris were still considered 'the new boys'.

A rare straight acting role for Peter Sellers in 1960, Never Let Go starred Richard Todd as a man for whom life outside of uniform has never been easy, as he struggles to put food on the table and his problems multiply when his new car is stolen.

The vehicle has been stolen to order by teen tearaway Adam Faith, who supplies local garage owner and all-round nasty piece of work Lionel Meadows (Sellers) with hot wheels which are subsequently re-plated and sold on.

John Cummings (Todd) is determined to get his car back and in doing so risks his own life and that of his family.

Sellers was rightly lauded for his portrayal of the sociopathic Meadows, although life off-screen was hardly harmonious for his wife and kids as he took the character home with him every evening after filming.

Joining Tyler to discuss this important film is Scott Phipps, co-host of the Reel Britannia, Stinking Pause & Talking Pictures TV podcasts.

In 1979 Peter Sellers released Sellers Market, an LP of all new material which was recorded mostly in Paris and included contributions from the likes of Alan Clare, June Whitfield and Irene Handl.

While it failed to reach the heights of his previous hit records The Best of Sellers and Songs For Swinging Sellers, Sellers Market does contain some good stuff – notably The Whispering Giant (featuring Irene Handl on top form) and The Eaton Square Blues.

Perhaps most intriguingly is what wasn’t included on the album – a couple of tracks Sellers recorded as Fred Kite up against June Whitfield’s Margaret Thatcher. Fearing her displeasure, Sellers nixed these tracks as he hoped the real Mrs T might confer upon him a knighthood. As it was, he was dead less than a year later.

Joining Tyler to talk about the making of the LP and what works and doesn’t work is returning guest and Sellers expert Mark Cousins, who thinks it could have been a much better album had more time and effort been devoted by all involved; as it was it was a bit of a rush job and comes across a bit baggy and unfocused.

Released 69 years ago this week, The Cockleshell Heroes was a heavily fictionalised account of the real-life WW2 Operation Frankton, in which a group of marines, headed by Herbert ‘Blondie’ Hasler, covertly entered Bordeaux Harbour in kayaks (or ‘Cockles’) to sabotage German cargo vessels. The film starred actor/director Jose Ferrer and Trevor Howard, with Anthony Newley and… drum roll… DAVID LODGE providing solid support as Marines Clarke & Ruddock respectively.

Although The Cockleshell Heroes was a hit with audiences and looks gorgeous in Technicolour it doesn’t tend to get talked about as much as other similar WW2 films of the period and perhaps this was partly down to the almost anti-climactic third act. However, thanks to shameless plugging by David Lodge on a frequent basis some two decades later as part of Spike Milligan’s Q series the film is still regarded affectionately by some people, particularly listeners to this podcast, and it seemed a nice idea to put it under the scrutinising gaze of your host and his special guest this week.

Joining Tyler is Warren Cummings, host of The Cinematic Sausage podcast and someone with a very direct link to the true events which this film depicts – his grandfather served alongside the ‘Cockleshell Heroes’ in WW2.

It’s a great chat with tons of fascinating factual information about Operation Frankton and how the film reflected the true events, plus there’s a long-deserved tribute to David Lodge, without whom this podcast would be poorer.

"In the little Essex hamlet of Great Bardfield, a tiger with influenza is mounting guard over a mysterious white box. What is the secret of the box of Bardfield—does it contain the dreaded International Christmas Pudding or is it really full of priceless Essex snow?"

So ran the Radio Times listing that week for the show we are discussing, which has nothing whatsoever to do with the International Christmas Pudding but has everything to do with selling snow to Sudan.

It's Tyler's favourite Goon Show of all, the third he ever heard and one which had been 'trailed' to him in a way by his father as he was growing up. His dad would occasionally mention the plotline of The White Box of Great Bardfield without naming it specifically; he merely considered it a quite genius idea for a comedy plot.

Joining Tyler to try and unpick it all is returning guest Molly McDade who thinks it's a show you should never expose to a newbie and was looking forward to seeing Coogan in Strangelove - which, by the time this goes out she will have done!