Spike Milligan Spike Milligan KBE ( born Terence Alan Milligan ; 16 April 1918 – 27 February 2002 ) was a comedian , writer , musician , poet , playwright , soldier and actor of English and Irish parentage . His early life was spent in British India , where he was born , but the majority of his working life was spent in the United Kingdom . He claimed his right to Irish citizenship ( as a child of an Irish citizen ) after the British government declared him stateless following changes resulting from the British Nationality Act 1981 . He was the co - creator , main writer and a principal cast member of " The Goon Show " , performing a range of roles including the popular Eccles , and Minnie Bannister characters . Milligan wrote and edited many books , including " Puckoon " and his seven - volume autobiographical account of his time serving during the Second World War , beginning with " Adolf Hitler : My Part in His Downfall " . He is also noted as a popular writer of comical verse ; much of his poetry was written for children , including " Silly Verse for Kids " ( 1959 ) . After success with the ground - breaking British radio programme , " The Goon Show " , Milligan translated this success to television with " Q5 " , a surreal sketch show which is credited as a major influence on the members of " Monty Python ' s Flying Circus " . Early life . Milligan was born in Ahmednagar , British India , on 16 April 1918 , the son of an Irish father , Captain Leo Alphonso Milligan , MSM , RA ( 1890 – 1969 ) , who was serving in the British Indian Army . His mother , Florence Mary Winifred Kettleband ( 1893 – 1990 ) , was English . He spent his childhood in Poona ( India ) and later in Rangoon , capital of the then British Burma . He was educated at the Convent of Jesus and Mary , Poona , and St Paul ' s Christian Brothers , de la Salle , Rangoon . He lived most of his life in the United Kingdom , and served in the British Army in the Royal Artillery during World War II . Second World War . During most of the late 1930s and early 1940s Milligan performed as an amateur jazz vocalist and trumpeter before , during and after being called up for military service in the fight against Nazi Germany , but even then he wrote and performed comedy sketches as part of concerts to entertain troops . After his call - up , but before being sent abroad , he and fellow musician Harry Edgington ( nicknamed Edge - ying - Tong which gave birth to one of Milligan ' s most memorable musical creations , the Ying Tong Song ) would compose surreal stories , filled with puns and skewed logic , as a way of staving off the boredom of life in barracks . One biographer describes his early dance band infiltration : " He managed to croon like Bing Crosby and win a competition : he also played drums , guitar and trumpet , in which he was entirely self taught " . He also acquired a double bass , which he took lessons on and would strum in jazz sessions . Milligan had perfect pitch . During World War 2 , he served as a signaller in the 56th Heavy Regiment Royal Artillery , D Battery , as Gunner Milligan , 954024 . The unit was equipped with the obsolete , World - War - 1 era BL 9 . 2 - inch howitzer and based at Bexhill on the South Coast of England . Milligan describes training with these guns in part two of " Adolf Hitler : My Part in His Downfall " , claiming that , during training , gun crews resorted to shouting ' bang ' in unison as they had no shells to practise with . The unit was later re - equipped with the BL 7 . 2 - inch howitzer and saw action as part of the First Army in the North African campaign , and then in the succeeding Italian campaign . Milligan was appointed lance bombardier and was about to be promoted to bombardier when he was wounded in action in the Italian theatre at the Battle of Monte Cassino . Subsequently hospitalised for a mortar wound to the right leg and shell shock , he was demoted by an unsympathetic commanding officer ( identified in his war diaries as Major Evan ' Jumbo ' Jenkins ) back to Gunner . It was Milligan ' s opinion that Major Jenkins did not like him because Milligan constantly kept the morale of his fellow soldiers up , whereas Major Jenkins ' s approach was to take an attitude towards the troops similar to that of Lord Kitchener . An incident also mentioned was when Major Jenkins had invited Gunners Milligan and Edgington to his bivouac to play some jazz with him , only to discover that the musicianship of the aforementioned gunners was far superior to his own ability to play the military tune ' Whistling Rufus ' . After his hospitalisation , Milligan drifted through a number of rear - echelon military jobs in Italy , eventually becoming a full - time entertainer . He played the guitar with a jazz and comedy group called " The Bill Hall Trio " in concert parties for the troops . After being demobilised , Milligan remained in Italy playing with the Trio but returned to England soon after . While he was with the Central Pool of Artists ( a group he described as composed " of bomb - happy squaddie s " ) he began to write parodies of their mainstream plays , which displayed many of the key elements of what would later become " The Goon Show " ( originally called " Crazy People " ) with Peter Sellers , Harry Secombe and Michael Bentine . Career . " The Goon Show " . Milligan returned to jazz in the late 1940s , and made a precarious living with the Hall trio and other musical comedy acts . He was also trying to break into the world of radio , as either a performer or as a script writer . His first success in radio was as writer for comedian Derek Roy ' s show . After a delayed start , Milligan , Peter Sellers , Harry Secombe and Michael Bentine joined forces in a relatively radical comedy project , " The Goon Show " . During its first season the BBC titled the show as " Crazy People " , or in full , " The Junior Crazy Gang featuring those Crazy People , the Goons ! " , an attempt to make the programme palatable to BBC officials by connecting it with the popular group of theatre comedians known as The Crazy Gang . The first episode was broadcast on 28 May 1951 on the BBC Home Service . Although he did not perform as much in the early shows Milligan eventually became a lead performer in almost all of the Goon Show episodes , portraying a wide range of characters including Eccles , Minnie Bannister , Jim Spriggs and the nefarious Count Moriarty . He was also the primary author of most of the scripts , although he co - wrote many scripts with various collaborators , most notably Larry Stephens and Eric Sykes . Most of the early shows were co - written with Stephens ( and edited by Jimmy Grafton ) but this partnership faltered after Series 3 . Milligan wrote most of Series 4 himself , but from Series 5 ( coinciding with the birth of the Milligans ' second child , Seán ) and through most of Series 6 , he collaborated with Eric Sykes , a development that grew out of his contemporary business collaboration with Sykes in Associated London Scripts . Milligan and Stephens reunited during Series 6 , but towards the end of Series 8 Stephens was sidelined by health problems , and Milligan worked briefly with John Antrobus . The Milligan - Stephens partnership was finally ended by Stephens ' death from a brain haemorrhage in January 1959 and Milligan later downplayed and disparaged Stephens ' contributions . The Goon Show was recorded before a studio audience , and during the audience warm - up session , Milligan would play the trumpet , while Peter Sellers played on the orchestra ' s drums . For the first few years the shows were recorded live , direct to 16 - inch transcription disc , which required the cast to adhere closely to the script , but by Series 4 the BBC had adopted the use of magnetic tape . Milligan eagerly exploited the possibilities the new technology offered — the tapes could be edited , so the cast could now ad - lib freely , and tape also enabled the creation of groundbreaking sound effects . Over the first three series Milligan ' s demands for increasingly complex sound effects ( or ' grams ' , as they were then known ) pushed the available technology and the skills of the BBC engineers to their limits — effects had to be created mechanically ( foley ) or played back from discs , sometimes requiring the use of four or five turntables running simultaneously . With magnetic tape , these effects could be produced in advance and the BBC engineers were able to create highly complex , tightly edited effects ' stings ' that would have been very difficult ( if not impossible ) to perform using foley or disc . In the later years of the series many Goon Show ' grams ' were produced for the series by members of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop , a notable example being the famous " Major Bloodnok ' s Stomach " effect , realised by Dick Mills . Although The Goons elevated Milligan to international stardom , the demands of writing and performing the series took a heavy toll . During Series 3 he suffered the first of several serious mental breakdown s , which also marked the onset of a decades - long cycle of manic - depressive illness . In late 1952 , possibly exacerbated by suppressed tensions between the Goons ' stars , Milligan apparently became irrationally convinced that he had to kill Sellers , but when he attempted to gain entry to Sellers ' s neighbouring flat , armed with a potato knife , he accidentally walked straight through the plate - glass front door . He was hospitalised , heavily sedated for two weeks , and spent almost two months recuperating ; fortunately for the show , a backlog of scripts meant that his illness had little effect on production . Milligan later blamed the pressure of writing and performing " The Goon Show " for both his breakdown and the failure of his first marriage . A lesser - known aspect of Milligan ' s life in the 1950s and 1960s was his involvement in the writers ' agency Associated London Scripts . Milligan married for the first time and began a family . This reportedly distracted him from writing so much that he accepted an invitation from Eric Sykes to share his small office leading to the creation of the co - operative agency . Television . Milligan made several forays into television as a writer - performer , in addition to his many guest appearances on interview , variety and sketch comedy series from the 1950s to the 2000s . " The Idiot Weekly , Price 2d " ( 1956 ) starring Peter Sellers was the first attempt to translate Goons humour to TV ; it was followed by " A Show Called Fred " and " Son of Fred " , both made during 1956 and directed by Richard Lester , who went on to work with The Beatles . During a visit to Australia in 1958 , a similar special was made for the Australian Broadcasting Commission , " The Gladys Half - Hour " , which also featured local actors Ray Barrett , and John Bluthal , who would appear in several later Milligan projects . In 1961 , Milligan co - wrote two episodes of the popular sitcom " Sykes and A . . . " , co - starring Sykes and Hattie Jacques , and the one - off " Spike Milligan Offers A Series Of Unrelated Incidents At Market Value " . The 15 - minute series " The Telegoons " ( 1963 ) was the next attempt to transplant The Goons to television , this time using puppet versions of the familiar characters . The initial intention was to ' visualise ' original recordings of 1950s Goon Show episodes , but this proved difficult to achieve in practice because of the rapid - fire dialogue and was ultimately frustrated by the BBC ' s refusal to allow the original audio to be used . 15 - minute adaptations of the original scripts by Maurice Wiltshire were used instead , with Milligan , Sellers and Secombe reuniting to provide the voices ; according to a contemporary press report , they received the highest fees the BBC had ever paid for 15 - minute shows . Two series were made in 1963 and 1964 and ( presumably because it was shot on 35mm film rather than video ) the entire series has reportedly been preserved in the BBC archives . Milligan ' s next major TV venture was the sketch comedy series " The World of Beachcomber " ( 1968 ) , made in colour for BBC 2 ; however , it is believed all 19 episodes are now lost . That same year , the three Goons reunited for a televised re - staging of a vintage Goon Show for Thames Television , with John Cleese substituting for the late Wallace Greenslade , but the pilot was not successful and no further programmes were made . In early 1969 Milligan starred in the ill - fated situation comedy " Curry & Chips " , created and written by Johnny Speight and featuring Milligan ' s old friend and colleague Eric Sykes . " Curry & Chips " set out to satirize racist attitudes in Britain in a similar vein to Speight ' s earlier creation , the hugely successful " Till Death Us Do Part " , with Milligan ' blacking up ' to play Kevin O ' Grady , a half - Pakistani / half - Irish factory worker . The series generated numerous complaints because of its frequent use of racist epithets and ' bad language ' - one viewer reportedly complained of counting 59 uses of the word " bloody " in one episode - and it was cancelled on the orders of the Independent Broadcasting Authority after only six episodes . Director John Goldschmidt ' s film " The Other Spike " dramatised Milligan ' s nervous breakdown in a film for Granada Television , for which Milligan wrote the screenplay and in which he played himself . Later that year , he was commissioned by the BBC to write and star in " Q5 " , the first in the innovative " Q " TV series , acknowledged as an important precursor to " Monty Python ' s Flying Circus " , which premiered several months later . However there was a hiatus of several years before the BBC commissioned " Q6 " in 1975 . " Q7 " appeared in 1977 , " Q8 " in 1978 , " Q9 " in 1980 and " There ' s a Lot of It About " in 1982 . Milligan later complained of the BBC ' s cold attitude towards the series and stated that he would have made more programs had he been given the opportunity . A number of episodes of the earlier " Q " series are now missing , presumed wiped . In 1979 he was a special guest star on The Muppet Show . From 1995 - 98 he voiced the highly successful children ' s animated series " Wolves , Witches and Giants " for ITV . The series was written by Ed Welch , who had featured in the " Q " series and had collaborated with Spike on several audio productions and produced and directed by Simon & Sara Bor . The series was show in over 100 territories including the UK and USA . Poetry and other writings . Milligan also wrote verse , considered to be within the genre of literary nonsense . His poetry has been described by comedian Stephen Fry as " absolutely immortal — greatly in the tradition of Lear . " His most famous poem , " On the Ning Nang Nong " , was voted the UK ' s favourite comic poem in 1998 in a nationwide poll , ahead of other nonsense poets including Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear . This nonsense verse , set to music , became a favourite Australia - wide , performed week after week by the ABC children ' s programme " Playschool " . Milligan included it on his album " No One ' s Gonna Change Our World " in 1969 to aid the World Wildlife Fund . In December 2007 it was reported that , according to OFSTED , it is amongst the ten most commonly taught poems in primary schools in the UK . While depressed , he wrote serious poetry . He also wrote a novel " Puckoon " , and a series of war memoirs , including " Adolf Hitler : My Part in His Downfall " ( 1971 ) , " " Rommel ? " " Gunner Who ? " : A Confrontation in the Desert " ( 1974 ) , " " ( 1976 ) and " " ( 1978 ) . Milligan ' s seven volumes of memoirs cover the years from 1939 to 1950 ( his call - up , war service , first breakdown , time spent entertaining in Italy , and return to the UK ) . He also wrote comedy songs , including " Purple Aeroplane " , which was a parody of The Beatles ' song " Yellow Submarine " . Glimpses of his bouts with depression , which led to the nervous breakdowns , can be found in his serious poetry , which is compiled in " Open Heart University " . " Treasure Island " . Bernard Miles gave Milligan his first straight acting role , as Ben Gunn , in the Mermaid Theatre production of " Treasure Island " . Miles described Milligan as : " a man of quite extraordinary talents . . . a visionary who is out there alone , denied the usual contacts simply because he is so different he can ' t always communicate with his own species . . . " . " Treasure Island " played twice daily through the winter of 1961 - 62 , and was an annual production at the Mermaid Theatre for some years . In the 1968 production , Barry Humphries played the role of Long John Silver , alongside William Rushton as Squire Trelawney , and Milligan as Ben Gunn . To Humphries , Milligan ' s " best performance must surely have been as Ben Gunn . . . Milligan stole the show every night in a makeup which took at least an hour to apply . His appearance on stage always brought a roar of delight from the kids in the audience and Spike had soon left the text far behind as he went off into a riff of sublime absurdity . " " The Bed - Sitting Room " . In 1961 - 62 , during the long pauses between the matinee and the evening show of " Treasure Island " , Milligan began talking to Miles about the idea he and John Antrobus were exploring of a dramatized post - nuclear world . This became the one - act play " The Bed - Sitting Room " , which Milligan co - wrote with John Antrobus , and which premiered at the Marlowe Theatre , Canterbury on 12 February 1962 . It was adapted to a longer play , and staged by Miles at London ' s Mermaid Theatre , making its debut on 31 January 1963 . It was a critical and commercial success , and was revived in 1967 with a provincial tour before opening at London ' s Saville Theatre on 3 May 1967 . Richard Lester later directed a film version , released in 1969 . " Oblomov " . On 6 October 1964 , Milligan appeared in Frank Dunlop ' s production of the play " Oblomov " at the Lyric Theatre in London , based on the novel by Russian writer Ivan Goncharov . Per Scudamore ' s biography , " Milligan ' s fans and the theatrical world in general found it hard to believe that he was to appear in a straight play . . . He refused to be serious when questioned about his motives . In the story , Oblomov decides to spend his life in bed . Spike decided to identify with his character , and told disbelieving reporters that he thought it would be a nice comfortable rest for him . This was of course , prevarication . Spike was actually intrigued with Oblomov and had read a translation of Ivan Goncharov ' s novel . " Milligan ' s involvement transformed the play . The first night started poorly . Joan Greenwood played Olga and later recalled that her husband Andre Morell thought the show was so appalling , they should get her out of the play . Per Scudamore : Nobody seemed at all comfortable in their roles and the audience began to hoot with laughter when Milligan ' s slipper inadvertently went spinning across the stage into the stalls . That was the end of Spike ' s playing straight . The audience demanded a clown , he became a clown . When he forgot his words , or disapproved of them , he simply made up what he felt to be more appropriate ones . That night there were no riotous first night celebrations and most of the cast seemed to go home stunned . The following night Milligan began to ad lib in earnest . The text of the show began to change drastically . The cast were bedevilled and shaken but they went along with him . . . Incredibly , the show began to resolve itself . The context changed completely . It was turned upside down and inside out . Cues and lines became irrelevant as Milligan verbally rewrote the play each night . By the end of the week , " Oblomov " had changed beyond recognition . Andre Morell came again . . . and afterwards said ' the man is a genius . He must be a genius — it ' s the only word for him . He ' s impossible — but he ' s a genius ! ' . After Oblomov had run for a record - breaking five weeks at the Lyric Theatre , Hammersmith , it was retitled " Son of Oblomov " and moved to the Comedy Theatre in the West End . In an interview with Bernard Braden , Milligan described theatre as important to him : " First it was a means of livelihood . And I had sort of lagged behind my confederates , that I … remained in the writing seat . And I realise that basically I was quite a good clown … and the one and only chance I ever had to prove that was in " Oblomov " when I clowned my way out of what was a very bad script … I clowned it into a West End success and uh , we kept changing it all the time . It was a tour de force of improvisation … all that ended it was I got fed up with it , that ' s all . " Ad - libbing . As illustrated in the description of his involvement in theatre , Milligan often ad - libbed . He also did this on radio and television . One of his last screen appearances was in the BBC dramatisation of Mervyn Peake ' s " Gormenghast " , and he was ( almost inevitably ) noted as an ad - libber . One of Milligan ' s most famous ad - lib incidents occurred during a visit to Australia in the late 1960s . He was interviewed live on air and remained in the studio for the news broadcast that followed ( read by Rod McNeil ) , during which Milligan constantly interjected , adding his own name to news items . As a result , he was banned from making any further live appearances on the ABC . The ABC also changed its national policy so that guests had to leave the studio after interviews were complete . A tape of the bulletin survives and has been included in an ABC Radio audio compilation , also on the BBC tribute CD , " Vivat Milligna " . Film and television director Richard Lester recalls that the television series " A Show Called Fred " was broadcast live . " I ' ve seen very few moments of genius in my life but I witnessed one with Spike after the first show . He had brought around a silent cartoon " and asked Lester if his P . A . took shorthand . " She said she did . ' Good , this needs a commentary . ' It was a ten - minute cartoon and Spike could only have seen it once , if that . He ad - libbed the commentary for it and it was perfect . I was open - mouthed at the raw comedy creation in front of me . " Cartoons and art . Milligan contributed occasional cartoons to the satirical magazine " Private Eye " . Most were visualizations of one - line joke s . For example , a young boy sees the Concorde and asks his father " What ' s that ? " . The reply is " That ' s a flying groundnut scheme , son . " Milligan was a keen painter . Advertising . In 1967 , applying a satirical angle to a fashion for the inclusion of Superman - inspired characters in UK television commercials , Milligan dressed up in a " Bat - Goons " outfit to head up a series of television commercials for British Petroleum . A contemporary reporter found the TV commercials " funny and effective " . From 1980 - 82 , he advertised for the English Tourist Board , playing a Scotsman on a visit around the different regions of England . Personal life . Family . Milligan married his first wife , June ( Marchinie ) Marlow , in 1952 . They had three children - Laura , Seán and Síle - but divorced in 1960 . He had one daughter with his second wife , Patricia Ridgeway ( known as Paddy ) : the actress Jane Milligan ( b . 1966 ) . Milligan and Patricia were married in June 1962 with George Martin as best man . The marriage ended with her death from breast cancer in 1978 . In 1975 Milligan fathered a son , James ( born June 1976 ) , in an affair with Margaret Maughan . Another child , a daughter Romany , is suspected to have been born at the same time to a Canadian journalist named Roberta Watt . His last wife was Shelagh Sinclair , to whom he was married from 1983 to his death on 27 February 2002 . Four of his children collaborated with documentary makers on a new multi - platform programme called " I Told You I Was Ill : The Life and Legacy of Spike Milligan " ( 2005 ) , which includes an accompanying website . In October 2008 an array of Milligan ' s personal effects was sold at auction by his third wife , Shelagh , who was moving into a smaller home . These included a grand piano salvaged from a demolition and apparently played every morning by Paul McCartney , a neighbour in Rye in East Sussex . Shelagh Milligan died in June 2011 . Health . He suffered from severe bipolar disorder for most of his life , having at least ten major mental breakdown s , several lasting over a year . He spoke candidly about his condition and its effect on his life : I have got so low that I have asked to be hospitalised and for deep narcosis ( sleep ) . I cannot stand being awake . The pain is too much . . . Something has happened to me , this vital spark has stopped burning - I go to a dinner table now and I don ' t say a word , just sit there like a dodo . Normally I am the centre of attention , keep the conversation going - so that is depressing in itself . It ' s like another person taking over , very strange . The most important thing I say is ' good evening ' and then I go quiet . Nationality . As Milligan was not born in the United Kingdom , his claim to British nationality was never clear . Milligan himself felt that he was entitled to a British passport after having served in the army for six years . His passport application , however , was refused , primarily because he would not swear an Oath of Allegiance and his Irish ancestry gave him an escape route from his stateless condition . He became an Irish citizen and remained so until his death . Humour with the Prince of Wales . The Prince of Wales was a fan , and when Milligan received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the British Comedy Awards in 1994 , the Prince sent a congratulatory message to be read out on live TV . The comedian interrupted the message to call the Prince a " little grovelling bastard " , causing a predictable stir . He later faxed the prince , saying " I suppose a knighthood is out of the question ? " It was not ; in reality he and the Prince were very close friends , and Milligan had already been made an Commander of the Order of the British Empire ( CBE ) in 1992 ( honorary because of his Irish citizenship ) . He was made an ( honorary ) Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire ( KBE ) in 2000 . Campaigning . He was a strident campaigner on environmental matters , particularly arguing against unnecessary noise , such as the use of " muzak " . In 1971 , Milligan caused controversy by attacking an art exhibition , consisting of catfish , oysters and shrimp which were to be electrocuted , at the Hayward Gallery with a hammer . He was a staunch and outspoken scourge of domestic violence , dedicating one of his books to Erin Pizzey . Death . Even late in life , Milligan ' s black humour had not deserted him . After the death of Harry Secombe from cancer , he said , " I ' m glad he died before me , because I didn ' t want him to sing at my funeral . " A recording of Secombe singing was played at Milligan ' s memorial service . He also wrote his own obituary , in which he stated repeatedly that he " wrote the Goon show and died " . Milligan died from kidney failure , at the age of 83 , on 27 February 2002 , at his home in Rye , East Sussex . On the day of his funeral , 8 March 2002 , his coffin was carried to St Thomas ' s Church in Winchelsea , East Sussex and was draped in the Irish tricolour . He had once quipped that he wanted his headstone to bear the words " I told you I was ill . " He was buried at St Thomas ' s cemetery but the Chichester diocese refused to allow this epitaph . A compromise was reached with the Irish translation , " Dúirt mé leat go raibh mé breoite " , and , additionally in English , " Love , light , peace " . Legacy . From the 1960s onwards Milligan was a regular correspondent with Robert Graves . Milligan ' s letters to Graves usually addressed a question to do with classical studies . The letters form part of Graves ' s bequest to St . John ' s College , Oxford . The film of " Puckoon " , starring Sean Hughes and including Milligan ' s daughter , the actress Jane Milligan , was released after his death . Milligan lived for several years in Holden Road , Woodside Park , Finchley , and at The Crescent , Barnet , and was a contributing founder and strong supporter of the Finchley Society . His old house in Woodside Park is now demolished , but there is a blue plaque in his memory on the block of flats on the site . The Finchley Society has raised funds to commission a statue of him cast in bronze and erected in Finchley in the grounds of Avenue House in East End Road . The statue of Spike sitting on a bench is expected to be in place by 16 April 2014 , Spike ' s 96th birthday . There is also a campaign to erect a statue in the London Borough of Lewisham where he grew up . After coming to the UK from India in the 1930s he lived at 50 Riseldine Road , Brockley and attended Brownhill Boys ' school ( later Catford Boys ' School , which was demolished in 1994 ) . Lynsey De Paul is a patron of the Spike Milligan Statue Memorial Fund . There is a plaque and bench located at the Wadestown Library , Wellington , New Zealand in an area called " Spike Milligan Corner " . In a 2005 poll to find " The Comedians ' Comedian " , he was voted among the top 50 comedy acts ever by fellow comedians and comedy insiders . In a BBC poll in August 1999 , Milligan was voted the " funniest person of the last 1000 years " . Milligan has been portrayed twice in films . In the adaptation of his novel " Adolf Hitler : My Part in His Downfall " , he was played by Jim Dale , while Milligan himself played his own father . He was portrayed by Edward Tudor - Pole in " The Life and Death of Peter Sellers " ( 2004 ) . In a 2008 stage play , " Surviving Spike " , Milligan was played by the entertainer Michael Barrymore . On 9 June 2006 it was reported that Richard Wiseman had identified Milligan as the writer of the world ' s funniest joke as decided by the Laughlab project . Wiseman said the joke contained all three elements of what makes a good gag : anxiety , a feeling of superiority and an element of surprise . Eddie Izzard described Milligan as " The Godfather of Alternative Comedy " . " From his unchained mind came forth ideas that just had no boundaries . And he influenced a new generation of comedians who came to be known as ' alternative ' . " Members of Monty Python greatly admired him . In one interview , which was widely quoted at the time , John Cleese stated " Milligan is the Great God to all of us " . The Pythons gave Milligan a cameo role in their 1979 film , " Monty Python ' s Life of Brian " , when Milligan happened to be holidaying in Tunisia , near where the film was being shot ; he was re - visiting where he had been stationed during wartime . Graham Chapman gave him a minor part in " Yellowbeard " . After their retirement , Milligan ' s parents and his younger brother Desmond moved to Australia . His mother lived the rest of her long life in the coastal village of Woy Woy on the New South Wales Central Coast , just north of Sydney . As a result , Milligan became a regular visitor to Australia and made a number of radio and TV programmes there , including " The Idiot Weekly " with Bobby Limb . He also wrote several books including " Puckoon " during a visit to his mother ' s house in Woy Woy . Milligan famously named Woy Woy " the largest above ground cemetery in the world " when visiting in the 1960s . Mrs Milligan became an Australian Citizen in 1985 , partly in protest at her son ' s no longer being eligible for British Citizenship , and Spike was reported at the time to be considering applying for Australian Citizenship . In July 2007 , it was proposed that the suspension bridge on the cyclepath from Woy Woy to Gosford be named after him . A meeting room in the Woy Woy Public Library is also named after him . Other radio shows . Milligan contributed his recollections of his childhood in India for the acclaimed 1970s BBC audio history series " Plain Tales From The Raj " . The series was published in book form in 1975 by André Deutsch , edited by Charles Allen . Books . Memoirs . The War ( and Peace ) Memoirs ( The seven memoirs were also recorded as talking books with Spike reciting them in his own inimitable style ) Recordings . Does not include Goon Show - related recordings