Roy Smiles' Comedy Ying Tong Ends Run at New Ambassadors

In Ying Tong, Spike Milligan is planning his escape from a mental institution dressed in only his pajamas so he can write “The Goon Show to end all Goon Shows.” After applying to the British Museum to get his marbles back, he starts to lose his grip on reality and threatens to kill Eccles, the most famous Goon character. Will his partners in Goon, Harry Secombe and Peter Sellers, be able to stop him?

The production at the New Ambassadors ran at the West Yorkshire Playhouse to much acclaim last fall. Directed by Michael Kingsbury, it features James Clyde as Milligan, Christian Patterson as Secombe and Peter Temple as Sellers.

Ying Tong began performance at New Ambassadors on February 10. Michael Billington of The Guardian wrote of the show: “In the end, the play is about every writer's nightmare: that he will be consumed by his own fictions. Smiles's play is also extremely funny. It evokes the Goon Show's mix of hurtling narrative, surreal sounds and eccentric voices while reminding you it was the revenge of stroppy privates on the officer class. And the four actors, in Michael Kingsbury's production, are well cast.”