Tim Brooke-Taylor
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Image:Tim-Brooke-Taylor-photo-taken-during-April-2000.jpg Tim Brooke-Taylor (born July 17, 1940 in Buxton, Derbyshire, England) is a British comic actor most well known in Britain as a member of "The Goodies" comedy trio and as one of the panel members of the comedy radio show I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue.
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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 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 Broadway. 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.
Image:The-Goodies-Kitten-Kong.jpg Image:The-Goodies-and-the-Beanstalk.jpg
Tim Brooke-Taylor was 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 — Tim Brooke-Taylor, John Cleese, Graham Chapman and Marty Feldman. 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 was also a cast member of the television comedy series Marty with Marty Feldman, John Junkin and Roland MacLeod- a compilation of the two series of "Marty" has been released on a DVD with the title of "It's Marty", as well as appearing in Hello, Cheeky!, a stand up comedy show also starring Barry Cryer and John Junkin. "Hello, Cheeky!" was performed for both radio and television.
Tim then appeared in Broaden Your Mind with Graeme Garden and Bill Oddie (who joined the series for the second season). This was followed by Tim appearing in The Goodies, also with Bill Oddie and Graeme Garden. Tim also worked with his fellow Goodies 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".
Other BBC radio programmes in which Tim played a part include On the Braden Beat with Canadian Bernard Braden, and 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 refute 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.
Other information
Tim Brooke-Taylor has served the University of St Andrews as Rector and is an honorary Vice-President of Derby County F.C..
Further reading
Further information about Tim Brooke-Taylor can be found in the following books:
- 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.
Bibliography
- Rule Britannia
- Tim Brooke-Taylor's Golf Bag
- Tim Brooke-Taylor's Cricket Box
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
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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
- {{{2|{{{name|Tim Brooke-Taylor}}}}}} at The Internet Movie Database
- Tim Brooke-Taylor at the Internet Broadway 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"
| 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 |
Categories: 1940 births | Alumni of Pembroke College, Cambridge | British comedy writers | British radio actors | British television writers | Cambridge Footlights | English actors | English comedians | English film actors | English humorists | British radio writers | English television actors | English voice actors | Goodies actors | I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue | Just a Minute panellists | Living people | Natives of Derbyshire | Old Wykehamists | Willy Wonka actors