Through the Sound Barrier in an Airing Cupboard

From The Goon Show Depository


"Through the Sound Barrier in an Airing Cupboard"
The Goon Show episode
Episode: no.Series: 4
Episode: 6
Written by
AnnouncerWallace Greenslade
Produced byPeter Eton
Music
Recording
Number
TLO 37511
First broadcast6 November 1953 (1953-11-06)
Episode Order
← Previous
"The Gibraltar Story"
Next →
"The First Albert Memorial to the Moon"
The Goon Show series 4
List of episodes

Through the Sound Barrier in an Airing Cupboard is an episode from The Goon Show. It is the sixth show in the fourth series and was recorded at 9pm on Sunday 1 November 1953 at Aeolian I, 135–137 New Bond Street, London.

The first British public broadcast was on the Home Service on Friday 6 November 1953 at 9.30pm (except Northern Ireland). It reached a peak listenership of 1.9m. The show's first repeat was on Saturday 7 November 1953 on the Light Programme garnering 1.5m listeners.

There are no publically available recordings of this show as of 28 June 2024.

Story

The British Air Ministry decided that it is high time that Britain broke the sound barrier and regained the air-speed record.[NB 1] Astronautical engineer Henry Crun and his assistant, Eccles are summoned to the Ministry, bringing with them Crun's airing cupboard — a device which suffers none of the problems associated with a supersonic jet plane.

Music

Technical

Originally recorded on TLO 37511 (Agfa FR tape stock at 15 ips ¼" tape recorded at Broadcasting House).

Notes

  1. ^ in October 1953 this was 755.1 miles per hour (1,215.2 km/h), set by Frank K. Everest, USAF