The Great McGonagall

William Topaz McGonagall fascinated Spike Milligan. Dubbed “the greatest bad verse writer of his age”, McGonagall’s tortured couplets, forced rhymes and complete lack of rhythm and meter made his poems unintentionally hilarious. Or perhaps not so unintentionally. Dundee-born McGonagall made a decent living (by late Nineteenth Century standards) reciting his ‘poems’ in pubs and theatres, so maybe he was an early performance artist, writing poems like Les Dawson played the piano and playing them for laughs? This is one of the many questions this film fails to address, let alone answer… —Denofgeek.com