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Famous Like Me > Actor > B > Tim Brooke-Taylor

Profile of Tim Brooke-Taylor on Famous Like Me

 
Name: Tim Brooke-Taylor  
   
Also Know As:
   
Date of Birth: 17th July 1940
   
Place of Birth: Buxton, Derbyshire, England, UK
   
Profession: Actor
 
 
From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia
Tim Brooke-Taylor Photo: April 2000

Tim Brooke-Taylor (born July 17, 1940 in Buxton, Derbyshire) 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.

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.

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.

Tim also appeared 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 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.

Television sketch comedy series included: At Last the 1948 Show (with John Cleese, Graham Chapman and Marty Feldman), It's Marty (with Marty Feldman and John Junkin), and Broaden Your Mind (with Graeme Garden and Bill Oddie).

Tim has also appeared in British sitcoms, including You Must Be The Husband with Diane Keen, and Me & 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.

Tim Brooke-Taylor was co-author, with John Cleese, Graham Chapman and Marty Feldman, of the Four Yorkshiremen sketch, which was written for their television comedy series At Last the 1948 Show. The "Four Yorkshiremen sketch" was 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 Monty Python shows and record albums (and now on CDs). This has led to the inevitable result of the "Four Yorkshiremen sketch" now being considered a Monty Python sketch, with the origin of the sketch, and the co-authorship of the sketch by non-Monty Python writers Tim Brooke-Taylor and Marty Feldman, being unfortunately overlooked, or forgotten, by many people.

He 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.

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 Wilmot, 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 Goodies Disaster Movie

This content from Wikipedia is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Tim Brooke-Taylor