Tim Brooke-Taylor

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Tim Brooke-Taylor (April 2000)

Timothy Julian Brooke-Taylor, (born 17 July 1940 in Buxton, Derbyshire, England) is a British comic actor most well known in Britain as a member of "The Goodies" comedy trio and in the comedy radio shows I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, and I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again.

1 Education and comedy
2 Other information
3 References
4 Bibliography
5 Footlights presidency
6 External links

[edit] Education and comedy

Tim Brooke-Taylor is the grandson of a parson who played centre-forward for England's football team in the 1890s. His mother was an international lacrosse player and his father a solicitor. Despite an expulsion from school at the early age of five and a half years, Tim studied at Winchester College and at Pembroke College at the University of Cambridge. There he read Economics and Politics before changing to read Law and mixed with other budding comedians, including John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Bill Oddie, and Jonathan Lynn in the prestigious Cambridge University Footlights Club (of which Tim became President in 1963). The Footlights Club revue, A Clump of Plinths was so successful during its Edinburgh Fringe Festival run, that the show was renamed as Cambridge Circus and the revue transferred to the West End in London, and then later taken to both New Zealand and to Broadway in September 1964. He was also active in the Pembroke College drama society, the Pembroke Players.

Tim Brooke-Taylor moved swiftly into BBC Radio with the fast-paced comedy show I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again in which he performed and co-wrote. As the screeching eccentric Lady Constance de Coverlet, he could be relied upon to generate the loudest audience response of many programmes in this long-running series merely with her unlikely catchphrase "did somebody call?" uttered after a comic and transparent feed-line, as their adventure story reached its climax or cliffhanger ending. Other members of I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again were John Cleese, Bill Oddie, Graeme Garden, David Hatch and Jo Kendall.

In the mid-60s Tim performed in the TV series On the Braden Beat with Canadian Bernard Braden, taking over the slot then-recently vacated by Peter Cook in his guise as E L Wisty. Brooke-Taylor played a reactionary right-wing city gent who believed he was the soul of tolerance.

In 1967 Tim became a writer/performer on the television comedy series At Last the 1948 Show, with John Cleese, Graham Chapman and Marty Feldman. The famous Four Yorkshiremen sketch was co-written by the four writers/performers of the series. The 'Four Yorkshiremen' sketch was one of the few sketches which survived the destruction of the series (by the tapes being wiped), by David Frost's Paradine Productions (which produced the series), and the sketch appears on the DVD of "At Last the 1948 Show". The "Four Yorkshiremen sketch" has also been performed during Amnesty concert performances (by members of Monty Python - one time including Rowan Atkinson in place of a Monty Python member), as well as being performed during Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl and other on Monty Python shows - as well as being featured on Monty Python record (and on Monty Python CDs), with the inevitable result that the "Four Yorkshiremen sketch" is now considered a Monty Python sketch, and its origin (including the co-authorship of the sketch by the non-Monty Python writers Tim Brooke-Taylor and Marty Feldman) is unfortunately ignored, overlooked or forgotten, by many people.

Tim also took part in Frost's pilot programme How To Irritate People in 1968, designed to sell what would later be recognised as the 'Monty Python' style of comedy to the American market. Many of the sketches were later revived in the Monty Python TV series, notably the job interview sketch where Brooke-Taylor played a nervous interviewee tormented by interviewer John Cleese. The programme was also notable as the first collaboration of John Cleese and Michael Palin.

In 1968-9, Tim was also a cast member and writer on the television comedy series Marty starring Marty Feldman, with John Junkin and Roland MacLeod- a compilation of the two series of "Marty" has been released on a BBC DVD with the title of "The Best of Marty Feldman"

At around the same time, Tim made two series of Broaden Your Mind with Graeme Garden (and Bill Oddie joining the series for the second season). Describing itself as "An Encyclopedia of the Air", this series was a string of comedy sketches (often lifted from 'I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again') linked (loosely) by a weekly running theme. Sadly, nothing but a few minutes of film inserts exist for this programme, though home-made off-air audio recordings survive for both seasons. Its success lead to the commissioning of The Goodies, also with Bill Oddie and Graeme Garden. First transmitted on BBC2 in November 1970, The Goodies was a huge television success, running for over a decade on both BBC TV and (in its final year) UK commercial channel London Weekend Television, spawning many spin-off books and succesful records.

During the run of The Goodies, Brooke-Taylor took part in the BBC radio series Hello, Cheeky!, a bawdy stand up comedy show also starring Barry Cryer and John Junkin. 'Hello Cheeky' transferred to television briefly, produced by the UK commercial franchise Yorkshire Television.

After the end of The Goodies on UK television, Tim also worked again with Garden and Oddie on the animated television comedy series Bananaman, in which Tim was the narrator, as well as voicing the characters of "King Zorg of the Nurks", "Eddie the Gent, "Auntie" and "Appleman". The voice of the children's TV series Gideon was also provided by Tim.

Tim appeared, with Bill Oddie and Graeme Garden, in the Amnesty International show A Poke In The Eye (With A Sharp Stick) (during which they sang their hit song "Funky Gibbon"), and also appeared in the Amnesty International show The Secret Policeman's Other Ball (appearing in the sketches "Top of the Form" (with John Cleese, Graham Chapman, John Bird, John Fortune, Rowan Atkinson and Griff Rhys Jones), and "Cha Cha Cha" (with John Cleese and Graham Chapman).

Tim, Graeme Garden and Bill Oddie also appeared on "Top of the Pops" with their song "Funky Gibbon".

Tim also appeared with Graeme Garden in the theatre production of The Unvarnished Truth.

Other BBC radio programmes in which Tim played a part include the self-styled "antidote to panel games" I'm Sorry, I Haven't a Clue.

On 18 February 1981 Brooke-Taylor was the subject of Thames Television's This Is Your Life.

Graeme Garden was a regular team captain on the political satire game show If I Ruled the World. Tim Brooke-Taylor appeared as a guest in one episode, and, during the game "I Couldn't Disagree More" he proposed that it was high time The Goodies episodes were repeated. Garden was obliged by the rules of the game to rebut this statement, and replied "I couldn't disagree more...it was time to repeat them ten, fifteen years ago." This was followed by uproarious applause from the studio audience.

Tim was also a cast member of John Cleese's series How to Irritate People, as well as appearing on television in British sitcoms, including You Must Be The Husband with Diane Keen, His and Hers with Madeline Smith, and Me and My Girl with Richard O'Sullivan. He also appeared as the nervous computer programmer in the movie Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory with Gene Wilder.

In 2004, Tim Brooke-Taylor and Graeme Garden were co-presenters of Channel 4's daytime game show Beat the Nation, in which they indulged in usual game show "banter", but took the quiz itself seriously. Oddie hosts a very successful series of nature programmes for the BBC.

Tim Brooke-Taylor remains a well-spoken, instantly recognisable, radio and stage actor and has appeared on stage in Australia and England, usually as a middle-class Englishman. Around 1982, he branched-out into pantomime as the Dame in Dick Whittington. He is also the author (and co-author) of several humorous books based mainly around his radio and television work and the sports of golf and cricket. Tim also took part in the Pro-Celebrity Golf television series (opposite Bruce Forsyth).

[edit] Other information

Tim Brooke-Taylor served the University of St Andrews as Lord Rector between 1979 and 1982 and is an honorary Vice-President of Derby County FC.

Academic Offices
Preceded by Frank Muir	Rector of the University of St Andrews 1979 - 1982	Succeeded by Katharine Whitehorn

[edit] References

From Fringe to Flying Circus – 'Celebrating a Unique Generation of Comedy 1960-1980' – Roger Wilmut, Eyre Methuen Ltd, 1980.
Footlights! – 'A Hundred Years of Cambridge Comedy' – Robert Hewison, Methuen London Ltd, 1983.

[edit] Bibliography

As sole author

Rule Britannia
Tim Brooke-Taylor's Golf Bag
Tim Brooke-Taylor's Cricket Box

As co-author

Tim Brooke-Taylor also co-wrote the following books with the other members of The Goodies:

The Goodies File
The Goodies Book of Criminal Records
The Making of The Goodies Disaster Movie

[edit] Footlights presidency

Preceded by Robert Atkins	Footlights President 1962–1963	Succeeded by Graeme Garden

[edit] External links

Tim Brooke-Taylor — BBC Guide to Comedy
Tim Brooke-Taylor — The Museum of Broadcast Communication
Tim Brooke-Taylor — London Speaker Bureau
Tim Brooke-Taylor biography — Personally Speaking – Norman Phillips Organisation
Tim Brooke-Taylor — First Person Quiz
Tim Brooke-Taylor — BBC — I'm Sorry, I Haven't a Clue
Tim Brooke-Taylor — TV Comedy People
Tim Brooke-Taylor — TV.com
Tim Brooke-Taylor at the Internet Movie Database
ISIHAC interviews — with Tim Brooke-Taylor, Graeme Garden, and Barry Cryer
The Origin of Monty Python — mentions Tim, ISIRTA and "At Last the 1948 Show"
Radio Ha Ha interview — Tim discusses his career in Episode 1 of Australian comedy podcast Radio Ha Ha

"A Clump of Plinths" - the 1963 Cambridge Footlights Club revue - later renamed "Cambridge Circus" (this was the Footlights revue during the time when Tim Brooke-Taylor was President of the Footlights, as well as being a member of the revue cast)
Tim Brooke-Taylor in "Cambridge Circus" on Broadway at the Internet Broadway Database

The Goodies — The Goodies TV series
Tim Brooke-Taylor — Graeme Garden — Bill Oddie

At Last the 1948 Show
Tim Brooke-Taylor — Graham Chapman — John Cleese — Marty Feldman — Aimi MacDonald
I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again
Tim Brooke-Taylor — John Cleese — Graeme Garden — David Hatch — Jo Kendall — Bill Oddie
I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue
Tim Brooke-Taylor — Barry Cryer — Graeme Garden — Humphrey Lyttelton — Willie Rushton — Colin Sell