John Lennon’s pal Annie Nightingale says he ‘wanted to be a comedian rather than a Beatle’
express.co.ukAnnie Nightingale, 82, has opened up about her late pal John Lennon’s love of comedy.She described the Beatles star as an “entertaining” joke teller as she reflected on their friendship.
The presenter’s new BBC Radio 4 programme, Annie Nightingale's Age of Irreverence, explores the relationship between comedy and pop music.
The show examines these feelings of irreverence in the Goons, the Beatles, Monty Python and other pop culture phenomena. Annie revealed how she believed the satire boom leads back to 1950s series The Goon Show, from the minds of Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers, Harry Secombe and Michael Bentine.“As a child I loved its anarchy and weirdness,” she remembered. “It wasn’t mother-in-law jokes and conventional British humour of the time. “They were very uncompromising: if you get it, you get it; if you don’t, you don’t. “What I didn’t realise as a little kid was that there was a whole generation of us listening who were going to be affected by it.
For example, four lads in Liverpool…” As it turns out, the Beatles were huge Goons fans - particularly John, whom Annie was once friends with.“John said he would rather have been a comedian than a Beatle,” Annie said in her interview with Radio Times. “He would take the p*** out of you, put on silly voices. “I think it entertained him.
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