Spike fan Chris James created an animated tribute to Spike back in 1976. He's just posted it on YouTube. Watch it below.
Ying Tong comes to Canberra
Posted 3/8/2006
The
Rude Mechanicals, a Canberra theatre company, is producing
the Australian première of Roy Smiles' play "Ying
Tong - a walk with the Goons". It opens at The Street
Theatre in Canberra on 17 August and runs until 2 September
2006.
Ying Tong opened at the West Yorkshire Playhouse and then
transferred to The West End and has been touring in Britain
and South Africa for the past year. The Street Theatre season
is its Australian première. The Rude Mechanicals
production is directed by Ian Hart and features four talented
Canberra actors: Robert de Fries (Spike Milligan), Steven
Kennedy (Peter Sellers), Robbie Matthews (Harry Secombe)
and John Honey (Wallace Greenslade). The choral performance
of The Ying Tong Song is by OOTS Choir, Tuggeranong, directed
by Jenny Sawer. The Rude Mechanicals have high hopes of
taking it to the Hong Kong Fringe Festival in January 2007.
Download the press kit.
Spike nominated for FCCA Award
Posted 28/10/05
I TOLD YOU I WAS ILL: THE LIFE AND LEGACY OF SPIKE MILLIGAN
has been nominated for the Film Critics Circle Australia
(FCCA) award for Best Feature Documentary. The award ceremony
will be held in Melbourne on Saturday 12th November at The
Harbour Room, Royal Melbourne Yacht Club. The full list
of films nominated is on the FCCA website (www.fcca.com.au)
and includes Cate Blanchett and Sam Neill for LITTLE FISH
and Guy Piece for THE PROPOSITION.
Some of you may already know that the ratings for the ABC
broadcast this month were extremely high - it was in the
top 25 of all ABC documentary programs for the year to date.
The feature length version of the film has subsequently
been purchased by ABC 2 and will screen prior to Christmas.
The BBC 4 broadcast in August also rated extremely well
– it was in the top ten highest rating programs since
BBC 4 began. Negotiations are now underway for a sale to
BBC 2. The DVD rights have been sold in the UK and USA and
the DVD is being widely promoted by the ABC here in Australia.
Spike on ABC draws a huge audience
Posted 18/10/05
I TOLD YOU I WAS ILL was broadcast on ABC on Monday 10
October and drew a huge crowd. The film attracted 25% of
the viewing audience that evening (estimated to be just
under one million people), and won its slot in some capital
cities. It was in the top 25 best rating shows for ABC this
year and one of the highest rating Australian documentaries
in a long time. The audience feedback was wonderful with
many emails and phone calls and there were approximately
900 visitors a day to the website in the week following
the broadcast. The site has now attracted an audience of
approximately 10,000 people. The
ABC are now actively promoting the DVD which is available
from ABC shops and leading DVD retailers.
I TOLD YOU I WAS ILL plays at
Melbourne, Brisbane and renegade Sydney film festivals,
and Byron Writers' Festival
Posted 8/06/05
I TOLD YOU I WAS ILL: THE LIFE AND LEGACY OF SPIKE MILLIGAN
will screen in Sydney as part of a wonderful fringe event
during the Sydney Film Festival along with three other 'must-see'
Australian documentaries. There will be three screenings
of Spike: Saturday 18 June at 6.30pm along with Sunday 19
June at 11.30am & 2.30pm.
The Inaugural Salon Des Refuses Film Festival 2005 will
host a selection of exceptionally outstanding, life affirming
Australian documentary films not screening for one reason
or another, at this year’s Sydney Film Festival.
The Salon des Refuses will be held on Saturday 18 June
and Sunday 19 June at a function room on the 8th floor of
the Swissotel, 68 Market Street, Sydney, which is conveniently
located just across the road from the Sydney Film Festival’s
main venue. Entry is by donation.
A prize will be awarded on the last night by popular vote,
the Silver Yabby - a yabby being a hardy creature used to
surviving in murky waters and in drought. The organisers
felt this to be an apt metaphor relating to independent
Australian film makers.
Cathy Henkel and Spike Milligan Legacy web site director
Kerry Sunderland will also be presenting a session at this
year’s Byron
Bay Writers' Festival, called 'Writing for Multi-platform
Delivery – the Spike Model', on Friday 5 August. The
premiere screening of the new Director’s Cut is on
the following Monday, 8 August, at the Byron Bay Community
Centre.
Director Cathy Henkel changes the
ending
'After feedback from the three screenings in the Northern
Rivers region, I decided to change the ending to focus more
on Spike’s activism and less on the story about the
battle over his estate,' said the film’s director,
Cathy Henkel. 'That
story is now on the web site where it can be updated as
new developments emerge. The new ending makes the film
both timeless and more uplifting.'
Film premieres in UK
Posted 15/05/05
The new director’s cut was screened this month at
Australia House in London at a gala celebrity function organised
by South Australian premiere Hon. Mike Rann.
Celebrity guests included Rolf Harris, Lynsey de Paul and
some Australian cricketers. Spike's daughters Jane and Sile
also attended. The film has just completed a hugely successful
theatrical test season playing to packed audiences in Byron
Bay, Ballina and Lismore.
Spike
Milligan Spike Statue Fund secretary David Smith says,
'I think that because it was made from an Australian point
of view the content was more candid and so the people taking
part came over more as "real" people. If it had
been made in the UK there would have been more reserve,
and more judicious editing, just in case some one might
be upset. So the idea of "Spike, warts and all"
came over loud and clear and as such it provided an authentic
illustrated appraisal of one of our most creative writers
and comedians of the century. It is inspiring for ordinary
folk like me to think that Spike walked the same dull streets
of North London and yet somehow found a constant source
of inspiration for new books, scripts and poems. As the
commentary told us: he produced 83 books: Wow! And over
250 'Goon Show' scripts: Double wow!
'As regards the evening at Australia House, the word that
sums it up for me was "conviviality". It was a
very unstuffy, informal evening and great to meet people
like John Emburey, the Test cricketer, and Rolf Harris,
arguably the most famous Aussie living in the U.K. (apologies
to globe-trotting Dame Edna). And how good it is to have
such an approachable Premier as Hon. Mike Rann, M.P. who
did find the time to stop and talk!'
Plans are underway now for a theatrical tour down the east
coast of Australia in Aug/Sept. Called the SPIKE IS BACK
TOUR, the event will feature a live performance by Spike's
eldest daughter Laura and musician Glenn Cardier, who toured
with Spike, along with the 55 minute version of the film.
The new director's cut will be screening at the Byron Film
Club, Byron Bay Community Centre on 8 August.
East Coast Australian Premiere in
Byron Bay on 8 April
Posted 01/04/05
The East Coast Premiere of I TOLD YOU I WAS ILL: THE LIFE
AND LEGACY OF SPIKE MILLIGAN takes place at the Byron Bay
Community Centre on Friday 8 April as part of the 2005 OZeCulture
Conference.
The East Coast Premiere is followed by two further screenings
in the Northern Rivers, titled 'Spike Milligan is back!!'.
Prior to the screenings of the feature length documentary,
Spike's eldest daughter Laura will read some of his eccentric
letters and hilarious poems and there will be a musical
performance by Glenn Cardier, who toured with Spike.
EAST COAST PREMIERE - Friday 8 April at 8pm
BYRON BAY COMMUNITY CENTRE
Jonson Street, Byron Bay
Bookings through Byron Bay Community Centre
or telephone 02 6629 1449
Also screening at:
Ballina RSL Club
Sunday 10 April at 2pm
Tickets from Caddies, Ballina
or telephone 02 6629 1449
and
Star Court Theatre, Lismore
Wednesday 13 April at 8pm
Tickets from Caddies, Lismore
or telephone 02 6629 1449
TICKETS: $20 and $15 concession. All three screenings are
fundraising events for Northern Rivers Screenworks.
House of Mirrors, the new CD by Glenn Cardier (Fantastique
Productions), was recently reviewed by Bernie Howitt. Here
are Howitt's comments about the two tracks that feature
in I TOLD YOU I WAS ILL: THE LIFE AND LEGACY OF SPIKE MILLIGAN
(Cardier toured with Spike during one of his Australian
tours.)
'Free to Fly' is arguably the greatest song on a great
album. This is life at its rawest, sung with an incredible
tenderness. Cardier sings of dreams and hopes, the slippery
slope of life, but caches it in the undying optimism of
hope. He concludes that we are "free to fly, free to
be whatever we want to be, we’re free to fly in our
wildest dreams." There is incredible sensitivity and
beauty in a song that should be an Australian classic.
And of Mr happy (both songs are in the film!)
"Mr Happy" and his exploding cigars lift the
mood again. Capturing the essential dilemma of the centre
of attention comic who strives to entertain anyone while
battling his own demons, it is truly profound.
World Premiere of I TOLD YOU I WAS
ILL in Adelaide
Posted 23 February 2005
The World Premiere of I TOLD YOU I WAS ILL took place at
the Adelaide Film Festival on 22 February 2005. The film
is the first feature length documentary to be commissioned
by the AFF.
The premiere was preceded by a media launch at the Greater
Union Cinemas on Monday 21 February. Spike's brother Desmond,
eldest daughter Laura and granddaughter Georga arrived at
the cinemas in style - courtesy of the Modified Mini Car
Club of South Australia, as a tribute to Spike's signature
vehicle (daughter Jane still drives his yellow mini in London).
Before the film, the Honorable Mike Rann, Premier of South
Australia and Minister for the Arts, paid his respects to
Spike Milligan. Introducing the film, he said:
"This is the story of a great man -
- the Picasso of clowning
- the Schoenberg of logical sequentiality
- the Aristophanes of the British Empire
- the Gogol of Whitehall
- the Laurence Sterne of autobiography
- the inspiration of Peter Cook and the Monty Pythons -
and Tom Stoppard and Bill Leak and Billy Connolly
- the zany uncle we all wish had visited us in childhood
- a man who battled depression and suicidal longings - and
the mounting lunacies of war and politics and intellectual
fashion and medical ignorance in the 20th century
- a man who opened the door - with courage and frankness
- to the unsleeping demon of clinical depression in our
time
- a man who gave us his pure music of the heart
- his visions and revisions
- his endless mud-wrestle with the English language -
- his hilarious deconstructions of the absurd world we live
in
- and his laughter - which has no end."
Filmmaker Cathy
Henkel, the director of I TOLD YOU I WAS ILL: THE LIFE AND
LEGACY OF SPIKE MILLIGAN,
has kept a 'blog'
(web log) throughout production.
Visit the blog now.
A Spike fan promotes the Australian broadcast
on
10 October 2005
The
Rude Mechanicals, a Canberra theatre company, is producing
the Australian première of Roy Smiles' play "Ying
Tong - a walk with the Goons". It opens at The Street
Theatre in Canberra on 17 August and runs until 2 September
2006. 
