"We're the Goodies, Yes the Goodies, oh the Goodies are coming for you - ha ha ha ha!"
Bill Oddie
Childhood
William Edgar Oddie was born in Rochdale in July 1941, and moved to Birmingham when he was about seven. He was raised by his father Harry, an accountant, and his paternal grandmother. From a young age he developed a love of wildlife, particularly birds, and used long birdwatching trips to escape his restrictive home life.
In Birmingham, young Bill attended King Edward’s School. It was here Bill got his first taste of show business, performing in two school revues and - as The Goodies 1974 Annual later described it - “singing dirty songs in the back of rugger coaches.” A bright student and promising athlete, Bill was also developing a cynical streak of black humour which would weave its way through his later career in comedy.
University
Bill Oddie attended Pembroke College at Cambridge University, where he studied English Literature with the aim of becoming a teacher. In his book Gripping Yarns Bill described his extracurricular activities as “playing rugby, jazz, and the fool,” but more importantly, it was also where he met fellow Goodies Tim and Graeme. Tim and Bill met through an amateur comedy show put on as a Poppy Day fundraiser at Cambridge.
Tim went on to become President of the illustrious Cambridge comedy society Footlights, and in this role auditioned both Bill and Graeme - auditions you might just see re-enacted at The Goodies live shows. In Robert Ross’ The Goodies Rule OK, Bill recalls being quite intimidated by some of the older Cambridge students, and says his inclusion in the society was entirely down to Tim and fellow Footlighter John Cleese.
Bill’s first Footlights contribution was a song for the 1962 revue, Double Take. This number was inspired by a meeting between Adam Faith (then best known as a pop star) and the Archbishop of Cantebury. In 1963 he contributed material to and performed in the next revue, called A Clump of Plinths alledgedly thanks to some vote-rigging in the ballot to choose a title. Re-named Cambridge Circus, this show zoomed straight into the professional theatre circuit before embarking for tours of America and New Zealand.
Pre-Goodies
The BBC recorded a half-hour program based in highlights of Cambridge Circus, which eventually evolved into the radio series I’m Sorry I’ll Read That Again. Bill performed in all but one episode of ISIRTA, plus writing comedy material and composing original songs for the show. As a BBC staff writer, he also contributed material and occasionally performed in shows including That Was The Week That Was and Twice A Fortnight, as well as writing for Tommy Cooper and Ronnie Barker. His work with the BBC led to Bill’s involvement in Broaden Your Mind, which led to...
The Goodies
While comedy had become his career, wildlife was still Bill’s passion. In the lulls between filming and writing The Goodies, Bill was likely to be found hanging off the edge of a remote cliff attaching rings to the legs of seabird chicks. In fact, sometimes business and pleasure overlapped - during Goodies filming expeditions to places like Cornwall and Portland Bill, Bill managed the occasional birding detour. He tells the story of one memorable day in his book Gripping Yarns: “I even managed a day trip to the Scillies during a lull in the filming schedule. This was of course a very irresponsible thing to do, as I could easily have got stranded and cost the BBC thousands of pounds. In fact, it nearly happened...” On his way back to the heliport for the afternoon flight back to where he should have been, Bill heard tell of a bird he’d never seen - a Pallas’s Warbler. He decided to go and look for the bird, and catch a boat home later that evening... but the search took longer than expected. “I may well have set two athletics records that day - one for the two-mile race to the harbour, and the other for the long jump, leaping from the quayside five seconds after they’d pulled up the gangplank.” To add insult to indignity, Bill didn’t see the bird.
When he wasn’t leaping into moving ferries, Bill the Goody was keeping his comedy career afloat writing for or performing in various shows including presenting The Saturday Banana for ITV, and penning episodes of Doctor in the House and others in the Doctor... franchise, and a sitcom in space called Astronauts, with writing partner Graeme Garden. Bill was originally in the cast of I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue, but, uncomfortable with the largely ad-libbed nature of the show, he quit after the second series.
Music
One of the things that sets The Goodies apart as a great show is the intrinsic use of music, and Bill was instrumental - so to speak - in making that happen. His interest in music dates back to those dirty songs sung in the back of rugger coaches, and while in Footlights Bill’s musical ear developed. It was the 1960s, and Bill was influenced by the rock and pop music of the times. In The Goodies Rule OK, he explains “I was the only one at that time writing contemporary sounding music; funny songs with a rock’n’roll or pop feel. Up to that point, everything had been a bit twee.” Bill’s most noticed early success was a rock version of On Ilkla Moor Baht'at - an inpenetrable Northern England dialect folk song. It was a formula repeated later in The Goodies, with Land of Hope and Glory, Oh I Do Like To Be Beside the Seaside and All Things Bright and Beautiful all given a working over.
As well as occasional covers, Bill churned out a formidable catalogue of original songs. Almost every episode of I’m Sorry, I’ll Read That Again featured an original Oddie song; researcher Robert Ross says more than 140 songs in all. Some ISIRTA songs - like many of the jokes - were later recycled into The Goodies; Nigel Carter-Smith’s Society Band became The Philharmonic Glee Club Rock’n’Roll Band from the episode The Stolen Musicians, and Andy Pandy morphed into Kitten Kong.
The incidental music in every episode of The Goodies was written and performed by Bill, along with an array of musicians including Oddie’s long-time musical associates Michael Gibbs and Dave MacRae. These songs ranged from well-loved standby Run to numbers composed specifically for certain episodes, like Workin’ The Line from Bunfight at the OK Tea Rooms.
Post-Goodies
After The Goodies, Bill worked on a number of children’s programs with his wife and co-author Laura Beaumont, including TV series From The Top, Tickle on the Tum and The Bubblegum Brigade, and the tasteful publication The Toilet Book: 11 ½ minutes a day and how not to waste them. Bill’s also worked in radio, with airshifts on the BBC and Jazz FM. By the 1990s, Bill was becoming more involved in his ‘new’ career, in wildlife program making.
Today
Bill is now a regular fixture on BBC television, presenting Springwatch (or Autumnwatch, depending on the season) with Kate Humble, a television presenter who’s worked in travel and science programming, including a show called The Essential Guide To Rocks. Springwatch and Autumnwatch are largely live programs, incorporating cameras planted in animal-friendly locations such as nestboxes, on a farm in Devon. Other shows, like How to Watch Wildlife, are filmed in the wild across Britian, and occasionally other countries ranging from America to Papua New Guinea. Many of Bill’s wildlife shows are produced, and some directed as well, by Stephen Moss.
Bill was reunited with his fellow Goodies for the first leg of the (still a)Live On Stage Tour, in Australia in 2005 as part of the Big Laugh comedy festival. Since then, his wildlife filming commitments have restricted Bill’s involvement in the second Australian tour and the more recent British shows to pre-recorded video inserts.
In 2003, Bill ironically became the first (and so far, only) Goody to be awarded an OBE, for services to wildlife conservation.
Compiled by Jodie VDW