Why did Spike Milligan call King Charles a “grovelling bastard”?
Widely hailed as the godfather of alternative comedy, few have had a greater influence on British culture than the great Spike Milligan. The Beatles, Monty Python and countless other cultural institutions owe a huge debt to the Irish writer and comedian, whose work with the absurdist comedy troupe The Goons defined the comedic tastes of a generation. For Milligan, everything was worthy of ridicule. Nothing was safe from his razor-sharp wit, not even Royalty, not even the now King of England.
Spike Milligan led a long, creatively exhaustive and frequently painful life. A child of empire, Spike was born in Burma (Myanmar), where his father was serving with the British army. During the Second World War, he was wounded in combat and, after developing a serious case of shell shock, was repeatedly admitted to hospital, where he was subjected to electroconvulsive therapy. That’s to say nothing of the bitterness he felt as he struggled to live up to the success of the 1950s BBC Radio hit The Goon Show.
Milligan’s relationship with the British nation was complex. By the 1990s, nobody doubted that Milligan had been instrumental in developing Britain’s post-war identity. And yet, because his father was Irish and Milligan was born in Burma, the British government did not consider him a citizen. As a result, he took Irish citizenship rather than an oath of allegiance. Milligan’s brand of humour was nonetheless embedded in the British psyche. Even King Charles had grown up listening to his wacky radio antics.
In 1994, two years after he was made an honorary commander of the British Empire, Spike Milligan was handed Lifetime Achievement Award at the British Comedy Awards, where the then-Prince of Wales had a fan letter read out live on air, in which he congratulated Milligan on the much-deserved win. The comedian listened carefully, occasionally poking fun at host Jonathon Ross, whose job it was to read the letter to the star-studded crowd.
“As someone who grew up on the sound of The Goon Show on the steam-driven wireless, I must confess I have been a lifelong fan of the participants in the show, especially Spike Milligan.” Ross was just about to start reciting another praise-laden passage when Milligan, handkerchief in hand, interrupted him, muttering: “Grovelling little bastard.” The crowd loved it, but Milligan’s comments caused a PR storm of seismic proportions. The comedian later wrote an apology to the then-Prince, which he sent in a fax that read: “‘I suppose a knighthood is out of the question?'”
Given his response, Charles can’t be accused of lacking a sense of humour. “‘I’m sorry, all the New Year’s knighthoods are full up, he wrote, “But try a little light grovelling and one might come your way”.
A few years later, in 2000, Spike recieved his knighthood.
