Customer Reviews:
 Workmanlike but not his best August 7, 2007
1 out of 4 found this review helpful
Any Graham McCann book is work reading if you're a fan of classic British/English comedy, but this isn't his best and regular readers may find it disappointing. Graham McCann has carved a small but valuable niche as a reliable and positive historian of the golden post-war age of mainly BBC radio and TV comedy. You won't find sensation or expose in any of his books, just a positive and partisan but still objective record of a period falling further away from us and group of people who are increasingly "absent friends".
A detailed and insightful record of the "Associated London Scripts" group of writers would be fascinating to read and a treasure-trove to anyone who loves the comedy of this period, but sadly this book isn't it. Only the first chapter really deals with the history of ALS, and the bulk of the book is made up of short biographies of individual writers and then essays about their best known series. The book also doesn't really stick to its brief, as the period it covers extends far outside the lifetime of ALS and the individual biographies barely refer to their presence, memories or contribution to the collective.
Graham McCann's book on Frankie Howerd and Eric Sykes's autobiography cover a lot of the same ground in as much if not more detail, and are a more interesting and rewarding read. The Howerd book in particular is an excellent biography which doesn't fall into the trap of pillorying the man at the expense of celebrating his work, and covers the full sweep of BBC and English comedy from the post-war period to the 1990s.
Spike and Co is really a bound edition of eight or nine "pocket essentails", trustworthy and well-written capsules on separate subjects, and it works best as a primer for the uninitiated into the history of BBC radio and TV comedy of the late 1950s and early 1960s.
 The Writers Have Their Day November 22, 2006
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
One day in the middle of the 1950s, the funniest writers in Great Britain dreamed up the idea of a single place where humour could be created without any interference from bureaucrats or bosses. Associated London Scripts ('ALS') was the actual realisation of this dream. Eric Sykes had an office there. So did Spike Milligan. So did Galton and Simpson, and Johnny Speight, and John Antrobus, and Barry Took, and John Junkin, and Terry Nation, and many others. Such characters as Bluebottle, Eccles, Anthony Hancock, Eric and Hattie, Harold and Albert Steptoe, Alf Garnett, Julian and Sandy, and countless others were committed to paper and shaped in scripts inside this block of offices. So much of what came after in terms of comedy - Python, The League of Gentlemen, Fawlty Towers, The Office, Little Britain, etc etc - was inspired by the gentlemen of ALS. Graham McCann tells this story extremely well: organising the material in terms of each office, and then each output, he adds the layers until we are left with an unforgettable image of collective comic enterprise. In addition to all of this, the thoroughness of the source notes and the helpful episode lists make the book a really useful, as well as entertaining, volume to have close at hand. The best present I've received this year.
magnum opus November 17, 2006
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
Some books, when you get them, seem like books your library has been keeping a space for without you quite knowing it. This is that kind of book. As other reviewers have noted very well, McCann has provided an illuminating history of a great era in British comedy. What I also admire is the way he has turned the story over, in a way, and shown us the underside of the tapestry: not the familiar sights of stars and scenes, but rather the unfamiliar but very interesting sights of the writers and their craft. The likes of Sykes, Galton, Simpson, Milligan and Speight are true comedy heroes, and this beauty of a book does them proud.
Invaluable contribution to comedy history November 14, 2006
10 out of 11 found this review helpful
I bought this as soon as it came out, and I've been spreading the word ever since. It is amazingly thorough in its research (to cover the lives of Eric Sykes, Ray Galton, Alan Simpson, Spike Milligan and Johnny Speight, as well as the histories of Hancock's Half Hour, The Goons, Steptoe & Son, Sykes amd Till Death Do Us Part is a massive achievement), and thoroughly entertaining in the way it tells its story: the first wave of 'proper' professional comedy writers, ganging together to further the cause of their craft, creating all of the great shows of the 50s and 60s within the same cramped little set of London offices. McCann is a master of this sort of subject (his studies of Morecambe and Wise and Dad's Army were quite brilliant), and this latest, really splendid, book brings together so many fascinating strands it is absolutely gripping. I envisage re-reading and consulting this for many years to come.
An Essential Piece of Comedy History October 19, 2006
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
First: There is an extraordinary story here - the best comedy scriptwriters in the country (the first great wave of 'celebrity' comedy scriptwriters) all working side by side in the same set of offices for more than a decade. Second: there are the individual studies of each writer, and each programme. So: what you get are several invaluable books in one - a brilliant compendium of a special era in British comedy. Quite simply irresistable.
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