In Sickness and In Health

Goon Pod

Johnny Speight, creator of Alf Garnett, had a long friendship with Spike Milligan, stretching back to the mid-fifties and the Associated London Scripts days. Speight wrote Till Death Us Do Part which delighted and shocked television audiences in equal measure, with Garnett given to frequent outbursts against what he perceived as society's ills: immigration & foreigners in general, socialism, young people, increasing secularism, homosexuals, lack of due deference to the Royal Family and the ruling elite, feminism and anything else that he didn't really understand and felt threatened by.

In the mid-1980s Speight wrote a follow-up series to Till Death Us Do Part called In Sickness and in Health, which reintroduced audiences to Alf, now older but hardly any wiser. From the second series Alf was a widower (after the death of his co-star Dandy Nicholls) and there gradually grew a new set of characters to antagonise and exasperate him.

In the third series Spike had a guest appearance as Fancy Fred, squaring up to Alf at a tea dance and later bickering over where he parked his van. It's not a huge part and Spike wasn't aiming for any Bafta awards, but it's an intriguing cameo and one which we thought was worth talking about this week on Goon Pod - as well as talking about the Alf Garnett universe in general.

Joining Tyler is comedian John Dredge, currently riding high with a new series of his sketch show The John Dredge Nothing To Do With Anything Show - which can be found HERE: https://www.comedy.co.uk/podcasts/john_dredge_show/