RIP Tim Brooke-Taylor

[Drunk Monk]

Another sad day. I got into The Goodies in Junior High, part of my Brit comedy phase in the wake of Python. I used to think of it as a weaker Python, but in later years grew to respect it on its own merits.  I always delighted in his role in the original Willy Wonka.

Tim Brooke-Taylor dies at 79 after contracting coronavirus, agent says
UK comedian became household name in 1970s as part of TV comedy trio The Goodies

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Mark Brown Arts correpondent
Sun 12 Apr 2020 09.34 EDTFirst published on Sun 12 Apr 2020 08.12 EDT

[/url] Tim Brooke-Taylor (centre) with fellow Goodies Graeme Garden (left) and Bill Oddie in 2015. Photograph: Eamonn McCabe/The Guardian
[url=https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2012/aug/10/what-see-mirror-tim-brooke-taylor]Tim Brooke-Taylor, a much-admired fixture of British comedy for five decades who became a household name as one third of The Goodies, has died aged 79.
In a statement, his agent said: “It is with great sadness that we announce Tim’s death early today from Covid-19.”
His fellow Goodie Graeme Garden said he was “terribly saddened” by the loss of someone who had been a close colleague and friend for more than 50 years.
He said: “Tim and I met at Cambridge University in the early 1960s and have enjoyed working together almost constantly from that time onwards, on radio, stage and TV.
“He was a funny, sociable, generous man who was a delight to work with. Audiences found him not only hilarious but also adorable. His loss at this dreadful time is particularly hard to bear and my thoughts are with Christine, Ben, Edward and their families.”
Brooke-Taylor, born in Buxton, Derbyshire, had been part of British comedy since he was an active member of the Cambridge Footlights, with John Cleese, in the early 1960s.
He was president of Footlights for its hugely successful 1963 revue, A Clump of Plinths, which spawned the pun-filled radio show I’m Sorry, I’ll Read that Again.
In the 1960s, Brooke-Taylor worked on television shows including the consumer affairs magazine On the Braden Beat and helped create the surreal groundbreaking sketch series, At Last the 1948 Show.
Brooke-Taylor, Garden and Bill Oddie became comedy superstars in the 1970s with their surreal show The Goodies, in which Brooke-Taylor played a patriotic, union jack waistcoat-wearing establishment figure.
Along with Garden, he was in 1972 an original panellist on Radio 4’s panel game parody series I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue, a role he maintained for the rest of his life.
Jack Dee, who now hosts I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue, said it was devastating to hear Brooke-Taylor had succumbed to the virus, “especially when we all thought he was recovering”.
He added: “Tim was a delightful man and never anything but great company. It has always been one of the great joys of my career to work with someone who was part of the comedy landscape of my childhood. I can’t bear the thought of introducing I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue without being able to say ‘And on my right, Tim Brooke-Taylor … ’”
Brooke-Taylor’s great comedy gift, said Dee, was “playing the injured innocent and he did it with brilliance and a characteristic lightness of touch”.
Sioned Wiliam, Radio 4’s commissioning editor for comedy, said Brooke-Taylor was “charming, quick-witted and a hugely skilful comic. He was much-loved both by our listeners and by his colleagues, and he will be sorely missed by all at Radio 4.”
The comedian Ross Noble tweeted: “So sorry to hear that Tim Brooke-Taylor has passed away. He was such a lovely funny man. I watched him as a kid and it was always a thrill to work with him.”
Comedian Rory Bremner wrote that Brooke-Taylor’s modesty “belied a huge legacy in British comedy. I queued as a schoolboy in Edinburgh to get my Goodies Album signed, and can’t believe 40-odd years later we were doing Clue together in January.”
David Walliams was another to talk about his childhood obsession with the Goodies. “I queued up to get the Goodies’ autographs as a grownup, and got to meet Tim Brooke-Taylor more recently at a party. I was in total awe, but he was so kind and generous. It is so sad he is gone.”
Stephen Fry called Brooke-Taylor “a hero for as long as I can remember” and someone who was “gentle, kind, funny, wise, warm, but piercingly witty when he chose to be”.