High Goon

It's still Britain's favourite radio comedy

The Goon Show remains the most popular radio comedy ever, more than half a century after it first aired.

The antics of Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers, Harry Secombe and, initially, Michael Bentine has topped a poll of almost 1,000 Chortle readers to find their favourite radio comedy.

And oldies are still the best, with only one of the top six– Chris Morris, Armando Iannucci and Steve Coogan’s On The Hour – less than 30 year old.

As expected, BBC programmes dominated the chart, although Ricky Gervais’s XFM show just missed the top ten, coming in at joint 11th with Chris Morris’s Blue Jam.

The survey was taken as part of the voting for the Chortle awards, whose winners will be announced next Monday.

The top ten was:

  1. Goon Show (1951)
  2. I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue (1972)
  3. Round The Horne (1965)
  4. Just A Minute (1967)
  5. On The Hour (1991)
  6. Hancock’s Half Hour (1954)
  7. Knowing Me, Knowing You With Alan Partridge (1992)
  8. On The Town with the League Of Gentlemen (1997)
  9. The Mighty Boosh (2001)
  10. Little Britain (2000)

 

Published: 13 Mar 2006

Live comedy picks

We see you are using AdBlocker software. Chortle relies on advertisers to fund this website so it’s free for you, so we would ask that you disable it for this site. Our ads are non-intrusive and relevant. Help keep Chortle viable.