British humorist Tim Brooke-Taylor succumbs to coronavirus at the age of 79
Brooke-Taylor, a luminary of The Goodies and a staple on the BBC ventured into the realm of comedy during the 1960s alongside eventual luminaries of Monty Python, John Cleese, and Graham Chapman.
LONDON — Tim Brooke-Taylor, celebrated British humorist and entertainer, passed away on Sunday morning due to COVID-19, the malady linked with coronavirus. He had reached the venerable age of 79.
Brooke-Taylor was a member of the Footlights revue at Cambridge University, a fertile ground for numerous cohorts of British comedic talent. He embarked on his radio and television comedic journey in the 1960s alongside forthcoming luminaries of Monty Python, John Cleese, and Graham Chapman.
Brooke-Taylor subsequently co-founded The Goodies with Graeme Garden and Bill Oddie. The trio specialized in mildly surreal sketches characterized by visual ingenuity, slapstick, and musical interludes. Their composition “Funky Gibbon” even ascended to the upper echelons of the U.K. music charts in 1975.
Their television program, which aired throughout the 1970s, garnered widespread acclaim in Britain, Australia, and New Zealand and cultivated a devoted following in numerous other nations.
“The Goodies” constituted a facet of a halcyon epoch in British television comedy during the 1960s and ’70s, alongside “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” and “Not the Nine O’Clock News.”
For over four decades, Brooke-Taylor was a fixture on BBC radio’s beloved comedic quiz show “I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue.”
Brooke-Taylor’s colleague Garden remarked that he was “an amusing, convivial, magnanimous individual who was a pleasure to collaborate with. Audiences found him not only uproarious but also endearing.”
“The news of his departure at this dire juncture is especially difficult to endure,” Garden expressed.
Scribe and performer Stephen Fry conveyed on Twitter: “Just received the devastating tidings of Tim Brooke-Taylor’s demise. A luminary for as far back as I can recall, and – on a handful of precious instances – a colleague and cooperator on I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue. Amiable, benevolent, comical, sagacious, affable, yet bitingly witty when the occasion warranted. Such sorrow.”
Brooke-Taylor is survived by his spouse, Christine, and two progeny.