Tim Brooke-Taylor obit

Obituary: Tim Brooke-Taylor, life of funnyman who co-wrote The Four Yorkshiremen

 He was not on the list.

Tim Brooke-Taylor was at the heart of British comedy for more than six decades - with his words, wit and quickfire japery making millions of people laugh.

His comedic roots lay in the Cambridge Footlights, where his contemporaries included John Cleese and the two men he later collaborated with on the TV show The Goodies - Graeme Garden and Bill Oddie.

He began his broadcasting career on BBC radio, quickly developing a reputation as a performer and scriptwriter.

Probably best known as one of the members of the anarchic Goodies, he was also a long-standing panellist on Radio 4's, I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue.

Timothy Julian Brooke-Taylor was born in Buxton, Derbyshire, on 17 Jul 1940. His 59-year-old father was a solicitor and local coroner, who had been wounded in the World War One and was serving in the Home Guard when Tim, his third child was born.

"I was a mistake, as far as I can gather," Brooke-Taylor later recalled.

His father died when he was just 13 and his mother, who was in her 40s at the time, got a job as a school matron.

After attending prep school, the young Brooke-Taylor was packed off to Winchester before going up to Pembroke College, Cambridge, to read law.

The intention had been that he would enter the family firm but fate intervened when he found himself sharing digs with a fellow student, John Cleese.

Membership of the Cambridge Footlights Club brought him into contact with Graeme Garden and Bill Oddie as well as future Python Graham Chapman.

None of them had any thought of taking up careers in showbusiness, seeing Footlights as a way of having some fun before facing the world of work.

A Dali encounter

Brooke-Taylor was Footlights president when, in 1963, their revue - originally entitled A Clump of Plinths - went down a storm at the Edinburgh Festival.

It opened in the West End later that year before embarking on a tour of Australia and New Zealand, finally ending up on Broadway in 1964.

Brooke-Taylor later recalled being taken to a New York nightclub where he encountered the artist, Salvador Dali.

"I started talking to him about art," he told the Daily Telegraph's Neil Tweedie in 2012, admitting that he soon found himself completely out of his depth.

Any thoughts of a career in law swiftly vanished when he began working on a BBC radio show, I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again, which first aired in 1964.

Based on the Footlights review and with its roots in early radio comedy shows, such as ITMA and Beyond Our Ken, it paved the way for a host of shows including Monty Python's Flying Circus and The Goodies.

Brooke-Taylor both wrote and performed in the sketches, his tour de force being the horrendous Lady Constance de Coverlet, whose piercing screech of "Did somebody call?" became one of the highlights of the show.

Rubbish tip

He also made an appearance on TV as a regular in the programme, On the Braden Beat, where he played a right-wing businessman giving the audience the benefit of what he thinks is his reasonable point of view. He would later incorporate it into his character in The Goodies.

Brooke-Taylor was reunited with Cleese and Chapman on ITV's At Last The 1948 Show, another collection of sketches and quick-fire repartee.

The first episode featured The Four Yorkshiremen sketch, co-written by Brooke-Taylor, which would later be revived by the Monty Python team.

The four sat round sipping expensive wine remembering when they lived in "a paper bag on a rubbish tip" or worked "23 hours a day down at mill for a penny every four years."

Brooke-Taylor went on to write and perform with Marty Feldman on his comedy show Marty. There was also a brief spell working with Orson Welles on a film entitled One Man Band, but it was never released.

"He'd seen something on the telly and wanted to work with me for some reason. I spent about 12 days directing him because he didn't trust the actual director."

The first episode of The Goodies was aired in 1970 with Brooke-Taylor appearing alongside Graeme Garden and Bill Oddie, in a series that ran for 12 years, the first 10 of them on BBC Two before being bought up by London Weekend Television for ITV.

Patriotic words

A mixture of sketches, situation comedy and slapstick made use of primitive special effects such as speeded-up filming.

The often surreal show saw the three protagonists cycling around on a "trandem", trying to do good deeds. Memorable episodes include Kitten Kong, featuring a giant feline toppling the Post Office Tower.

A special episode of this show won the Silver Rose at Montreux in 1972.

Brooke-Taylor specialised in a character wearing a Union Flag waistcoat, who would often pause the action to deliver patriotic words to a background of Land of Hope and Glory.

"You've got to have a right wing neo-con loony." Brooke-Taylor said in a 2005 radio interview. "And with a name like mine I don't think I can be the revolutionary."

The series spawned an unlikely hit record, Funky Gibbon, which the three performed on Top of the Pops.

In 1971 he had a short role in the film, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, where he played a computer scientist.

Cameo roles

A year later he joined the panel of Radio 4's antidote to panel games, I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, where he would become a regular fixture over the ensuing four decades.

He also starred with John Junkin and Barry Cryer in Hello Cheeky, a sketch show which started out on BBC Radio 2 before eventually moving to Yorkshire Television.

Together with Graeme Garden he provided voices for the BBC cartoon series Bananaman.

Brooke-Taylor popped up in a number of cameo roles over the years in shows including One Foot in the Grave, Heartbeat and Agatha Christie's Marple.

In 2013 he appeared in Animal Antics, a spoof news programme in which he was usually upstaged by a man dressed as a dog and his final TV appearance as an actor was in BBC One medical drama Doctors in 2015.

In 2011, he and his fellow Goodies star Garden were both appointed as OBEs for services to entertainment. Oddie, the third member of the trio, had been honoured eight years previously for his services to wildlife conservation.

After visiting Buckingham Palace to receive the honour from the Prince of Wales, Brooke-Taylor admitted "one had to bite one's tongue", having often poked fun at the ease with which honours were handed out in the 1970s.

Tim Brooke-Taylor was one of a group of writers and performers who changed the face of British TV and radio comedy, making programmes that have become classics of their time.

Essentially a gentle and sensitive man he once admitted leaving his own living room when the weekly results were announced on Strictly Come Dancing, as he couldn't bear seeing anyone thrown off the show.

Filmography

Film

Year     Title           Role     Notes

1968    One Man Band            Reporter / Young Aristocrat    Uncompleted / Unreleased

1969    The Thirteen Chairs    Jackie 

1971    The Statue       Hillcrest          

Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory           Computer Scientist      Uncredited

1976    Pleasure at Her Majesty's        Tim (with The Goodies)        

1981    The Secret Policeman's Other Ball     Various           

1988    Under the Bed Bin Man         

1989    Asterix and the Big Fight        Cacofonix        Voice, English version / Final film role

Television

Year     Title           Role     Notes

1966    The Wednesday Play   Uncredited Role          Episode: Cathy Come Home

1967–1968      At Last the 1948 Show           Various Characters      Also Writer

1968    How to Irritate People Various Characters      Also Writer

1968–1969      Marty   Various Characters      Also Writer

1968–1969      Broaden Your Mind    Various Characters      Also Writer

1970–1972      His and Hers   Toby Burgess / Larry Seaton  7 episodes

1970–1982      The Goodies    Tim      Also Writer

1975    The Rough with the Smooth   Richard Woodville      Also Writer

1976–1979      Hello Cheeky  Himself            Also Writer

1983–1986      Bananaman     Eric Twinge     Voice

1984–1988      Me and My Girl          Derek Yates    

1985    Assaulted Nuts            Various Characters     

1987–1988      You Must Be the Husband      Tom Hammond          

1989    Barney Barney Voice

1991    Qd - The Master Game     Himself            Presenter

1992    The Upper Hand         Trevor  Episode: Blind Date

1996    Dennis the Menace     Barney Voice, Episode: Unidentified Funny Object

1997    One Foot in the Grave Derek McVitie Episode: "Endgame"

1999    The Nearly Complete and Utter History of Everything                     

2002    TLC    Hospital Chaplain      

2004    Beat the Nation           Quiz Co-Host  Co-Host with Graeme Garden

2005    Absolute Power          Peter Harrow  

2005–2009      Heartbeat         Ronnie Smethers         Guest Role

2008    Agatha Christie's Marple        Dr Edward Humbleby Episode: Murder is Easy

2009    Horne & Corden         Vicar   

2010–2011      Little Howard's Big Question Various Characters     

2013    Animal Antics Co-Host          

2015    Doctors            Graham Parsons          Episode: About Time

Radio

Year     Show or film   Role     Notes

1964–1973      I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again           Various Characters      Wrote for the series

1973–1979      Hello Cheeky (radio show)     Himself            Wrote for the series

1972–2020      I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue      Himself            Panel show