Bill Oddie

(yes, all I seem to do these days is backblip)

So this evening it was off to foreign territory, crossing the Sydney Harbour Bridge to get over to the Chatswood theatre to go and see Bill Oddie.

Unfortunately, Sydney audiences are often Too Cool For School, so there was a shameful lack of costuming among the audience, despite the fact that Australian audiences have long been diehard Goodies fans. Aside from a woman wearing sideburns and a corduroy jacket, the only Goodies-related homage came from a trio who'd dressed up in the Funky Gibbon jumpsuits. Bless your hearts, lads.

The show was simple - Bill just stood and talked about the Goodies, about birds, and about Goodies and birds. All supplemented with snippets of Goodies footage of the dodo, the South Africa Apart-Height episode ("the jockeys are restless tonight!") and the ads for String. He refused to sing the Funky Gibbon, but the audience was happy enough to do it for him.

One thing he said stuck in my mind though... about the passing of generations and how in a few years' time he believed the memory of the Goodies will have been lost. Perhaps this might happen in Britain, as the show was broadcast relatively late at night and was rarely repeated.

But for many Australians, it was broadcast during prime childrens' viewing time (!) and endlessly repeated, from the 1970s through to at least the 1990s. For us '70s kids, The Goodies were therefore one of the earliest influences on our understanding of British life - and I think Bill underestimated that. We knew about Cricklewood, about Crufts,the Welsh, haggis, pirate radio stations - so many things - all from them.

When I was lecturing in a university a few years ago, I was using Goodies footage to illustrate my point about various aspects of 20C history. Friends who are parents regularly play Goodies dvds to their children.

In short, the Goodies will never die. :-)