Simulcast on radio and television on 5 October 1972, the performance reunited Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers and Harry Secombe as well as other contributors to the programme's original run.

The television broadcast began with pre-show announcements by the producer, John Browell, and introduction of the participants, followed by warm-up routines by the cast.

The broadcast begins with Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers and Harry Secombe each trying and failing to lead the other two in saying "It's great to be back."

There is a spoof "warm-up" where Sellers, using a "dramatic voice" announces that the best way to warm up an audience is to have the gentlemen squeeze the thigh of the lady sitting next to them.

Andrew Timothy takes us to the Westminster City Council Rubbish Dump, situated in Hyde Park, where Hercules Grytpype-Thynne and Count Jim Moriarty, more ragged than ever, are starving.

The two villains then attempt their usual swindle of Neddie, in this case convincing him that his legs must be lagged to keep them warm for the coming winter, the payment being his "war gratuity" of one hundred pounds.

However, when Seagoon lifts his trouser leg, it is revealed that Bluebottle has been hiding inside, and is threatening to release pictures of Neddie's bloomers unless he is given money he will use to impress his schoolyard paramour, Mollie Quotts.

Bereft of all cash, Seagoon decides to head for Blackpool to earn some money doing his old stage act, the "shaving routine", which was Secombe's own stock-in-trade.

The show moves to the home of Henry Crun and Minnie Bannister for a typical exchange between the two old fossils, with no consequence to the plot other than to link to the entrance of Major Bloodnok, who is being pursued by the Red Bladder, played as always by Ray Ellington.

After an exchange of empty threats with the Bladder, Bloodnok is told by his Indian aide, Singhiz Thing (Milligan), that it is "time for [his] perversion".

There follows an interlude of bizarre and suggestive sound effects overlaid with ecstatic yelps from Bloodnok, although this could be more of a satire on the kind of lascivious roles Peter Sellers played in several of his films up to that point.

This section ends with Bluebottle persuading Eccles to help him push Seagoon down a well, which naturally leads to Little Jim's catchphrase "He's fallen in the water!"

Bloodnok reappears, pursued by the Red Bladder, but mysteriously transforms into Grytpype-Thynne, who announces to Neddie that "we have found Goon Show number 1-6-3,[7] in which you play the lead all the way through as an underfloor heating detective".

In the full recording broadcast on BBC 7, the cast are then heard saying their thank-you's to the audience, with Milligan coming close to abusing them, again something for which he was known in the years after The Goon Show.

In his Technical Notes for The Goon Show Compendium Volume Twelve (2016), remastering engineer Ted Kendall describes how he and Dirk Maggs decided to produce a 25th Anniversary "restored" version of the programme in 1997 by selecting material from all of the available sources.

During the warm up, Secombe jokes that he is broadcasting "live via satellite from Neasden", a reference to the all-purpose urban location used in Private Eye's parodies and fake news articles.

Fifty years of Reith, Normanbrook, Hill and Alvar Lidell and how does the British Broadcasting Corporation celebrate the occasion?