From the Goons to Beyond The Fringe...

Beatles producer George Martin, who has died at the age of 90, started his career producing records with comedians.

He famously worked with Peter Sellers on two of his hit albums, and became a firm friend of Spike Milligan, becoming best man at his second marriage to Patricia.

He also worked with Bernard Cribbins, Charlie Drake, Terry Scott, Bruce Forsyth, Michael Bentine, and Bill Oddie, among others, with one of his most enduring releases being the Michael Flanders and Donald Swann album At The Drop Of A Hat.

However his biggest breakthrough as a producer came with Beyond the Fringe , the cast album of Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Alan Bennett and Jonathan Miller's breakthrough stage hit.

As his Beatles career is rightly celebrated, here are some of his comedy landmarks:

Peter Ustinov: Mock Mozart

This bizarre record was first hit for the Parlophone in 1952. Martin was working as an assistant to label boss Oscar Preuss, who released it only to give his protege a chance.

Spike Milligan: Bridge On The River Wye

This parody of the 1957 film The Bridge on the River Kwai featured Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers, Jonathan Miller and Peter Cook. It was intended to have the same name as the movie, but the distributors threatened legal action so Martin painstakingly edited out the 'K' every time the word 'Kwai' was spoken. The record jacket advises: 'For best results, play this record in a circular fashion'.

The Best Of Sellers

The first of two big hits, this 10in LP was followed by Songs for Swinging Sellers, the title parodying Frank Sinatra's LP Songs for Swinging Lovers.

Flanders And Swann: At The Drop Of A Hat,

Recorded at the Fortune Theatre, a fringe venue in London and released in 1960, this musical revue would be a strong seller for more than 25 years. It includes the Hippopotamus song (Mud, Mud, Glorious Mud) followed by a musical rendition of the Lord Chamberlain's regulations, which were still in force at the time, dictating what theatrical performances could say or do.

Bernard Cribbins: The Hole in the Ground and Right Said Fred

Two songs released in 1962. The Hole in the Ground got to No 9 in the charts, and Noël Coward even chose it as one of his Desert Island Discs saying he 'would never get sick of' the track 'because I could translate it into French as I walked up and down on the beach'. Right Said Fred got to No 10.

Charlie Drake: My Boomerang Won't Come Back

Another surprise novelty hit, despite its dodgy lyrics. An Aboriginal meeting is described as a 'pow-wow', more normally associated withNative Americans, while their chanting sounds more African than aboriginal. And the BBC insisted the line: 'I've waved the thing all over the place/practiced till I was black in the face' was changed before they would air it. But Martin proved a whizz in the studio, using recording techniques to approximate the sound of Aborigine instruments... cos, you know, why bother with the real thing?

Beyond the Fringe

The show that changed comedy; and George Martin was there recording it... right before he went on to change music, too.

Published: 9 Mar 2016