Geoffrey Perkins

Geoffrey Perkins
Geoffrey Perkins hosting Channel 4 panel game Don't Quote Me, 1990
Born	Geoffrey Howard Perkins (1953-02-22)22 February 1953 Bushey, Hertfordshire, England
Died	29 August 2008(2008-08-29) (aged 55) London, England
Occupation(s)	Comedy writer, producer and performer
Years active	1972–2008
Spouse	Lisa Braun (m. 1986)
Children	3
Awards	Best Comedy Programme or Series 1995 Father Ted

Geoffrey Howard Perkins (22 February 1953 – 29 August 2008) was a British comedy producer, writer and performer. He was BBC head of comedy between 1995 and 2001, and produced the first two radio series of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. He is one of the people credited with creating the panel game Mornington Crescent for I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue.^[1] In December 2008 he posthumously received an Outstanding Contribution to Comedy Award.

Early life

Perkins attended the

Perkins read English literature while at Lincoln College, Oxford^[1] and while a student directed and wrote for The Oxford Revues of 1974 and 1975. After his time at Oxford, Perkins joined the Ocean Transport and Trading Company, where he was put to work studying waste timber in Liverpool.^[1] He did not last long in the field of commercial shipping.^[1] In 1977 drawing upon his work for the Oxford Revue, Perkins joined BBC Radio's light entertainment department alongside Cambridge graduates John Lloyd and Griff Rhys Jones.^[1]

In 1986, Perkins married Lisa Braun, who was BBC studio manager on Hitchhiker's Guide.^[1] The couple lost their first child to cot death in 1986.^[3][4][5]

Radio career

Department head David Hatch assigned Perkins to help revitalise the comedy panel show I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue (launched five years earlier). It introduced the incomprehensible Mornington Crescent game which would become an enduring success.^[1][6]

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Perkins produced the first series of

Radio Active

In 1980, Perkins co-wrote and featured in the radio sketch show Radio Active, revised and adapted from the early

Perkins left the BBC in 1988, to become a director of

In 1995, he resigned from Hat Trick[2] and returned to the BBC as BBC Television's Head of Comedy, requesting his contract stipulated "his continued role as a programme producer," as well as overseeing the department.^[1] He stayed in this role until 2001, growing increasingly dissatisfied at "official BBC snootiness about comedy".^[1]

Perkins meticulously read 30 new scripts every week, but "found himself culturally marginalised at the BBC," saying: "Unfortunately, the term sitcom implies a great disdain. People say it with a curl of their lips."

(They) set the people that produce programmes in direct opposition to the people responsible for actually paying for and broadcasting them. There have been occasions when you say, 'Let's just make a deal', knowing everyone is unhappy; where no one gets the budget they want to make their programme. There are people who are inspired by that, but I'm not one of them.[1]

During Perkins' time as Head of Comedy, the BBC produced such hits including Coupling, The Thin Blue Line, Jonathan Creek, The Fast Show, The Royle Family and My Family.^[1] Perkins also persuaded David Jason and Nicholas Lyndhurst to star in a new series of Only Fools and Horses, the first of which was screened at Christmas 2001.^[1]

Tiger Aspect

Having left the BBC, Perkins became a creative director and executive producer for independent production company

Perkins' writing credits for television include

In addition to starring in KYTV, Perkins appeared in small cameo roles in several of the comedy programmes he produced, including Father Ted, Operation Good Guys, One Foot in the Grave and The Catherine Tate Show.^[11] He also hosted the panel game Don't Quote Me, made by Open Media for Channel 4 in 1990.^[12]

In 2006, Harry Enfield was told by

On 5 September 2008 the second series of the re-titled Harry and Paul was broadcast, a week after his death. The first episode was dedicated to his memory and instead of the usual closing credits, featured a short tribute to him and concluded with an out-take of Perkins forgetting his lines in a sketch absent from the transmitted series.^[1] On 8 November 2008, BBC Two aired an evening of programmes in tribute to Perkins, comprising episodes of The Catherine Tate Show, Father Ted (which the BBC was given special permission to broadcast by Channel 4, as part of the tribute) and The Fast Show, together with a special edition of Comedy Connections looking at Perkins' career in comedy.

He was posthumously awarded the Outstanding Contribution to Comedy award at the

External links

• Geoffrey Perkins at
  IMDb
• Geoffrey Perkins at the British Film Institute
• Obituary in The Times
• Obituary in The Telegraph
• Geoffrey Perkins at British Comedy Guide