Spike & Co

A sparkling history of the golden age of British comedy told through its most famous names—Spike Milligan, Eric Sykes, Ray Galton and Alan Simpson—and the bizarre office they shared in Shepherds Bush.

This is the story of how four people, grouped together inside a set of offices five floors above a greengrocer’s shop on Shepherd’s Bush Green in West London, launched a golden age of British comedy. On any weekday morning, if you dared to clamber over the crates of fruit and veg outside on the pavement, and climb the five flights of stairs to Associated London Scripts, you would find Milligan, Sykes, Galton and Simpson, shaping the latest shows, swapping the odd story and searching for a funnier line. Together, this eclectic bunch, and their bizarre office block, were responsible for a golden age in British comedy, which included The Goons, Hancock’s Half Hour, Sykes, Steptoe and Son, Comedy Playhouse, The Frankie Howerd Show, Beyond Our Ken, Round the Horn, The Arthur Haynes Show, The Army Game, Bootsie and Snudge, That Was The Week That Was, and Till Death Us Do Part. 'Spike & Co' is their incredible story.