What is The Goodies?

The Goodies

The Goodies are a trio of British comedians: 

Tim Brooke-Taylor

Graeme Garden

Bill Oddie

They wrote and performed in their eponymous surreal comedy show during the 1970s and early 1980s combining sketches and situation comedy.

Brooke-Taylor, Garden and Oddie were cast members of the 1960s BBC radio comedy show I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again, which also featured John Cleese, David Hatch and Jo Kendall, and lasted until 1973. I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again resulted from the 1963 Cambridge University Footlights Club revue A Clump of Plinths. After having its title changed to Cambridge Circus, the revue went on to play at West End in London, England, followed by a tour of New Zealand and Broadway in New York, US (including an appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show).
They also took part in various TV shows with other people, including Brooke-Taylor in At Last the 1948 Show (with Cleese, Chapman and Marty Feldman). Brooke-Taylor also took part in Marty (with Marty Feldman, John Junkin and Roland MacLeod). In 1968 Brooke-Taylor appeared with Cleese, Michael Palin and Graham Chapman in How to Irritate People. Garden and Oddie took part in Twice a Fortnight (with Michael Palin, Terry Jones and Jonathan Lynn), before Brooke-Taylor, Garden, and Oddie worked on the late 1960s TV show Broaden Your Mind (of which only about ten minutes survives).

The Goodies television series was created by Tim Brooke-Taylor, Graeme Garden and Bill Oddie.
The episodes for the series were originally co-written by all three Goodies (Tim, Graeme and Bill). Later, the episodes were co-written by Graeme Garden and Bill Oddie.
The music for the show was written by Bill Oddie, and The Goodies' theme music was co-written by Bill Oddie and Michael Gibbs. The show also benefited greatly from the input of director Jim Franklin.

The original BBC television series ran from November 1970 to February 1980 on BBC 2, with 69 episodes, mostly thirty minutes in length except for two forty-five minute Christmas specials (The Goodies and the Beanstalk and The Goodies Rule – O.K.?).
It was one of the first shows in the UK to use chroma key and one of the first to use stop-motion techniques in a live action format. Other effects include hand editing for repeated movement, mainly used to make animals "talk" or "sing", and play speed effects as used in the episode "Kitten Kong".
In September 1978, the trio appeared in an episode of the BBC One television game show Star Turn Challenge, presented by Bernard Cribbins, in which teams of celebrities competed in acting games. Their opponents were three members of the cast of The Liver Birds, Nerys Hughes, Elizabeth Estensen and Michael Angelis.
The threesome travelled around on, and frequently fell off, a three-seater bicycle called the trandem.
Tim Brooke-Taylor performed most of the comedic stunts on the show.
They also presented the Christmas 1976 edition of Disney Time from the toy department of Selfridges store in London, broadcast on BBC1 on Boxing Day at 5.50 pm.

The Goodies never had a formal contract with the BBC, and when the BBC Light Entertainment budget for 1980 was exhausted by the production of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy TV series, they signed a contract with London Weekend Television for ITV. However, after one half-hour Christmas special ("Snow White 2") in 1981, and a six-part series in early 1982, the series was cancelled. In recent interviews the cast suggest the reasons were mainly economic – a typical Goodies sketch was more expensive than it appeared.
They had a string of successful chart singles penned by Bill Oddie. In 1974-75, they chalked up five hit singles in twelve months: The Inbetweenies, Black Pudding Bertha, Nappy Love and Funky Gibbon (all performed during the episode "The Goodies – Almost Live"), and Make a Daft Noise for Christmas.

On 24 March 1975 Alex Mitchell, a 50-year-old bricklayer from King's Lynn, literally died laughing while watching an episode of The Goodies. According to his wife, who was a witness, Mitchell was unable to stop laughing whilst watching a sketch in the episode "Kung Fu Kapers" in which Tim Brooke-Taylor, dressed as a kilted Scotsman, used a set of bagpipes to defend himself from a black pudding-wielding Bill Oddie (master of the ancient Lancastrian martial art "Ecky-Thump") in a demonstration of the Scottish martial art of "Hoots-Toot-ochaye." After twenty-five minutes of continuous laughter Mitchell finally slumped on the settee and died from heart failure. His widow later sent the Goodies a letter thanking them for making Mitchell's final moments so pleasant.

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Who is Diana Dors?

Diana Dors

 

Diana Dors was an English actress. She first came to public notice as a blonde bombshell in the style of Marilyn Monroe, as promoted by her first husband Dennis Hamilton, mostly via sex film-comedies and risqué modelling. When it turned out that Hamilton had been defrauding her for his own benefit, she had little choice but to play up to her established image, and she made tabloid headlines with the adult parties reportedly held at her house. Later she showed a genuine talent for TV and cabaret, and gained new popularity as a regular chat-show guest.

At the age of 16 she was signed under contract to the Rank Organisation, and joined J. Arthur Rank's "Charm School" for young actors, subsequently appearing in many of their films.
With her then boyfriend in jail, and having just undergone her first abortion, Dors met Dennis Hamilton Gittins in May 1951 while filming Lady Godiva Rides Again for Rank, a film which has uncredited appearances by Joan Collins, and a then four months pregnant Ruth Ellis. (Dors described herself as "the only sex symbol Britain has produced since Lady Godiva)." The couple married five weeks later at Caxton Hall on Monday 3 July 1951.
Dors often played characters suffering from unrequited love, and by the mid-1950s she was known as "the English Marilyn Monroe."

In 1954 Hamilton had the idea to exploit the newly printed technology of 3D. He engaged photographer Horace Roye to take a number of nude and semi-nude photographs of Dors which Hamilton subsequently had published in two forms.
During her relationship with Hamilton and until a few months before her death, Dors regularly held adult parties at her home. There, a number of celebrities, amply supplied with alcohol and drugs, mixed with young starlets, against a background of both soft and hard core porn films. Dors gave all her guests full access to the entire house which her son Jason Lake later alleged in various media interviews and publications, she had had equipped with 8mm movie cameras. The young starlets were made aware of the arrangements and were allowed to attend for free in return for making sure that their celebrity partners performed in bed at the right camera angles. Dors would then enjoy watching the films the following morning, keeping an archive of the best performances.
Dors became an early subject of the "celebrity exposé" tabloids, appearing regularly in the News of the World. In large part, she brought this notoriety upon herself. In desperate need of cash after her separation from Hamilton in 1958, she gave an interview in which she described their lives and the adult group parties in full, frank detail.

Television news and film companies with more general interests, partly because of her popularity and partly because of who was attending the parties, were unwilling to repeat the stories until well after Dors' death. Her former lover and party guest Bob Monkhouse later commented in an interview after Dors' death, "The awkward part about an orgy, is that afterwards you're not too sure who to thank."
Dors died on 4 May 1984 aged 52 from a recurrence of ovarian cancer, first diagnosed two years before. Having converted to Catholicism in early 1973 a funeral service was held at the Sacred Heart Church in Sunningdale on 11 May 1984, conducted by Father Theodore Fontanari. She was buried in Sunningdale Catholic Cemetery.
After her death Alan Lake burned all of Dors's remaining clothes and fell into a depression. On 10 October 1984 Lake did a telephone interview with Daily Express journalist Jean Rook. He then walked into their son's bedroom, and committed suicide by firing a shotgun into his mouth. He was 43. This was five months after her death from cancer, and sixteen years to the day since they had first met.

Her home for the previous 20 years, Orchard Manor, was sold by the solicitors. The house's contents were bulk-sold by Sotheby's, who sold her jewellery collection in an auction. After solicitors' bills, outstanding tax payments, death duties, and other distributions, the combined estate of Dors and Lake left little for the upkeep of their son (age 14), who was subsequently made a ward of court to his half-brother Gary Dawson in Los Angeles.
Dors was portrayed by Keeley Hawes (younger) and Amanda Redman (older) in the TV biographical film The Blonde Bombshell (1999).
Dors apparently hid away what she claimed to be more than £2 million in banks across Europe. In 1982, she gave her son Mark Dawson a sheet of paper, on which she told him was a code that would reveal the whereabouts of the money. Alan Lake supposedly had the key that would crack the code, but as he had committed suicide, Dawson was left with an apparently unsolvable code.

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Who is Barbara Windsor?

Barbara Windsor

Barbara Ann Deeks, MBE, known professionally as Barbara Windsor, is an English actress, best known for her appearances in the Carry On films and for playing Peggy Mitchell in the BBC One soap opera EastEnders. She joined the cast of EastEnders in 1994 and won the 1999 British Soap Award for Best Actress. She left the show in 2010, before returning for one episode a year between 2013 and 2015.

Windsor began her career on stage at the age of 13 and made her West End debut in 1952. Her first film was The Belles of St Trinian's in 1954. She received a BAFTA Award nomination as Best British Actress for the 1963 film Sparrers Can't Sing, and a Tony Award nomination as Best Featured Actress in a Musical for the 1964 Broadway production of Oh, What A Lovely War!. Other stage roles include starring opposite Vanessa Redgrave in the 1972 West End production of The Threepenny Opera. Between 1964 and 1974, she appeared in nine Carry On films, including Carry On Spying (1964), Carry On Doctor (1967), Carry On Camping (1969), Carry On Henry (1971) and Carry On Abroad (1972). She also co-presented the 1977 Carry On compilation That's Carry On!, along with Kenneth Williams. Other film roles include A Study in Terror (1965), Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968) and as the voice of Dormouse in Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland (2010) and the upcoming Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016).

Windsor came to real prominence with her portrayals of a 'sexy good time girl' in nine Carry On films. Her first was Carry On Spying in 1964 and her final Carry On... film acting role was in Carry On Dick in 1974. She also appeared in several Carry On... television and compilation specials between 1964 and 1977.
One of her most iconic sexy scenes was in Carry On Camping in 1969, where her bikini top flew off during outdoor aerobic exercises. In classic Carry On style, exposure is implied but little is in fact seen.

From 1973 to 1975 she appeared with several of the Carry On team in the West End revue Carry On London! During this time she had a well-publicised affair with her co-star, Sid James.
She was strongly identified with the Carry On films for many years, which restricted the variety of roles she was chosen to play later.
She took over the role of Peggy Mitchell, for which she received the "Best Actress" award at The British Soap Awards in 1999 and a "Lifetime Achievement Award" from the same source in 2009.
A debilitating case of the Epstein-Barr virus forced a two-year absence from the role between 2003 to 2005, although Windsor was able to make a two episode appearance in 2004. She rejoined the cast in mid-2005, initially on a one-year contract, though this was later extended.

The Doctor Who episode "Army of Ghosts" broadcast on 1 July 2006 included a specially recorded clip featuring her appearing in character. She was seen telling the ghost of Den Watts to "get outta my pub!" In November 2005, as part of the BBC's Children In Need charity night, a Catherine Tate Show/EastEnders mini episode was broadcast. It featured Windsor as Peggy in the Queen Victoria Public House, being tormented by Catherine Tate's schoolgirl character Lauren Cooper.
In October 2009 Windsor announced she was to quit her role as Peggy Mitchell, saying she wanted to spend more time with her husband. On 10 September 2010 her character left Albert Square after a fire at the Queen Victoria pub, of which she was the owner.

In July 2013, it was announced that Windsor was to return for one episode, which aired on 20 September 2013. She again returned for a single episode on 25 September 2014, and made a further appearance for EastEnders 30th anniversary on 17 February 2015. In February 2015, Windsor, alongside Pam St. Clement (Pat Butcher), took part in EastEnders: Back to Ours to celebrate 30 years of EastEnders. Windsor and Clement looked back on some of their characters' most infamous moments.
In 2017, a drama about the life and career of actress Barbara Windsor was made by the BBC entitled Babs.

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