Pat Dixon

Dixon was born on 15 June 1904; his parents were Professor William Macneile Dixon[1] (1891–1946) and Edith (née Wales, ?–1945).[2] He was educated at Winchester College and Christ Church, Oxford.[1]

Dixon worked for a time as a journalist with the Glasgow Herald,[3] and then in the publicity section of Gaumont British before moving to the advertising agency Mather & Crowther.[4] He joined the BBC in October 1940 as a producer and, in the summer of 1948, produced Listen, My Children, a series which included Harry Secombe and Benny Hill in the cast.[5][6] At the end of 1948 he produced the radio series Third Division, which was broadcast in early 1949; the shows were written by Frank Muir and Denis Norden and the cast included Secombe, Michael Bentine and Peter Sellers.[7] Bentine noted that Dixon was "scholarly and intelligently humorous ... and as radical in his approach to comedy as we were",[8] while Muir considered him "a terrific chap, and a rebel ... he started all sorts of ideas and shows.[9]

In 1951 Dixon agreed to a request from Spike Milligan to record an audition tape which included Milligan, Sellers, Bentine and Secombe; he passed the tape on to the BBC planners and stressed that a series would be an asset to the corporation. They agreed and The Crazy Gang was produced, which was subsequently re-named The Goon Show, although Dixon was not the producer.[10] Dixon had a further impact on the show as he introduced Max Geldray and Ray Ellington into the format.[11] Towards the end of the sixth series of The Goon Show, the regular producer, Peter Eton, left the show to work on BBC television: Dixon became the show's producer for the remaining six episodes.[12] Dixon was less disciplinarian that Eton in his approach,[13] although there was some friction with Milligan and Eton returned to produce the first two shows of series seven, before Dixon completed the rest of the 25 episode series.[14][15] His last Goon Show was broadcast on 28 March 1957.[14] During his tenure as Goon Show producer, Dixon came under pressure from the BBC to ensure no overtly political preferences or jokes were in the script; he resented such coercion, and wrote to the Assistant Head of Variety, "I think it is very dangerous to have these subtle encroachments on free speech".[16] Spike Milligan considered that Dixon was, "the only producer ... who knows what the Goon Show is all about".[17]

Dixon worked with Tony Hancock, when he produced the first episode of the fifth series of Hancock's Half Hour, The New Radio Series.[18] He also produced the series Ignorance is Bliss and These Foolish Things.[1] Dixon also worked again with Michael Bentine on the first series of Round the Bend in Thirty Minutes.

He died of cancer on 8 October 1958, aged 54.[19][1]

• Take It From Here (Radio)
• It's That Man Again (Radio, 1941–44)
• Tom Arnold's Hoop-La! (Radio, 1944–45)
• It's a Pleasure (Radio, 1945)
• Our Shed (Radio, 1946)
• Ignorance is Bliss (Radio, 1947–1949)
• Night Comes too Soon (Film script, 1947)
• Listen, My Children (Radio, 1948)
• Third Division (Radio, 1949)
• The Bradens (Radio, 1950–1956)
• Let's Settle For Music with the Baker's Dozen (Radio, 1952-?)
• In All Directions (Radio, 1952–55)
• Starstruck (Radio, 1955)
• Finkel's Café (Radio, 1956)
• These Foolish Things (Radio, 1956)
• The Goon Show (Radio, 1956–1957)
• Passing Parade (Radio, 1957)
• Round the Bend in Thirty Minutes (1957–58)
• Hancock's Half Hour (Radio, 1958)

Notes

References

• Pat Dixon at the British Film Institute