Spike Milligan Biography

Born as Terence Alan Patrick Sean Milligan but popularly known as Spike Milligan, Spike was a comedian, actor, poet and writer all rolled into one. He was a multi-faceted personality who created several comedy shows for radio and television, authored many books, and also acted in various films. In spite of having many great works to his credit, his ticket to immortality was the radio comedy program, ‘The Goon Show’ for which he is remembered even today. The show was a British program broadcast by BBC, and had listeners in several countries across the world: India, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. The show was a tremendous success that catapulted Milligan to international fame. The popularity of the show prompted him to create many other comedy shows for radio and television like ‘The Idiot Weekly’ and ‘A Show Called Fred’. His celebrity status as a radio star led to film offers and he made quite a few movie appearances in comic roles. He was also a prolific poet and writer; he specialized in writing silly poems for children. He wrote a series of pastiche novels—funny rewritings of original works—on topics ranging from the Bible to Robin Hood. Though most of his works were related to comedy and humour, he also wrote about serious issues in his war memoirs.