Rhubarb (1969 film) Rhubarb (1969 film) Rhubarb was a 1969 British short film written and directed by Eric Sykes, starring Sykes and Harry Secombe. The dialogue consisted entirely of repetitions of the word ""rhubarb"", all the characters last names were "Rhubarb", and even the number plates on vehicles were "RHU BAR B". A baby "spoke" by holding a sign with the word ""Rhubarb"" written on it. "Rhubarb" is a radio idiom for unintelligible background speech. Typically extras would mutter the word over and over to provide ambience for a crowd or party scene. In "The Goon Show" the cast was usually only the
Eric A. Sykes be because he found it "too Germanic". A shikari hunter, he was an avid rifleman and an expert with the pistol. He first arrived in Shanghai in 1907 while working for Reiss & Co. He met Fairbairn in 1919, then with the Shanghai Municipal Police, beginning their famous professional association. In 1923 Sykes was working for the China & Japan Trading Co, China representative for Remington and Colt. It was not until 1926 that Sykes officially joined the SMP as an unpaid, part-time volunteer officer in the reserve, and in 1929 he joined S.J. David & Co., where he worked