27 February 2002: Spike Milligan’s gravestone has the last laugh.
For the final Culture Re-View of last week, it was the anniversary of the day Russian troops invaded Ukraine. It seemed fitting to drop the chipper usual tone of this column and elect a more serious remembrance of a year at war.
So it seemed only fair to make the opening Re-View of this week a study of a more humorous, if indeed darkly comical, subject: gravestones.
Specifically, let’s take a look at some of the wittiest, snarkiest and wryest gravestone epitaphs that have been preserved by history. And where else could we start but one of the best comedians ever, Spike Milligan.
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Milligan died on this day in 2002 at the age of 83. Before his death, he made his name as an irreverent Irish-English writer, actor, comedian and more. He’s probably best known as a co-creator and member of the Goons, and their ‘50s radio comedy programme ‘The Goon Show’. Alongside other legendary comedy figures like Peter Sellers, Milligan’s show went on to inspire other surrealist comedy groups like Monty Python.
Read more: Euronews
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