The Goon Show 75th anniversary

The Goon Show is coming to The Scenic Stage Theatre on Saturday 17 October, from 2pm to 4pm, to mark the 75th anniversary of the radio comedy. It's part of the York 50-Plus Festival, so it sits alongside other events running across the city that autumn.

For those who aren't familiar, The Goon Show first aired on the BBC Home Service on 28 May 1951. Its surreal humour eventually moved to the screen in the mid-1950s through four Associated-Rediffusion television adaptations, initially overseen by director Richard Lester and starring Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan, though those were broadcast only in the London region. The show's legacy has been kept alive by the Goon Show Preservation Society, which has been around since 1951, looks after the series' archive, and runs the Encyclopaedia Goonicus project.

There's a particular reason this anniversary is being celebrated here in York. The Society's collection of original scripts, recordings, photographs, correspondence and memorabilia has been handed over to the Borthwick Institute for Archives at the University of York. The Borthwick already houses comedy archives linked to Barry Took, Frankie Howerd, Sir Alan Ayckbourn and Marks and Gran, as well as the music restorer JRT Davies' original off-air transcription discs of the Goon broadcasts. The anniversary event is held at the University's East Campus, the same site where that archive now lives.

Tickets are £10, with all profits going to AgeUK York. It runs from 2pm to 4pm on Saturday 17 October at The Scenic Stage Theatre, University of York East Campus.