Tim Brooke-Taylor (1940 - 2020)
So very sad to hear of the passing of the wonderful Tim Brooke-Taylor.
To me, Tim will always be Tim from The Goodies. I grew up on The Goodies. They were a core part of my childhood. Steph and I would watch them every afternoon, and re-watch them again and again on the weekends, taped from the telly with our trusty video player, until Mum or Dad told us to go outside.
We could virtually recite whole episodes. To this day, lines and phrases are still part of my stock vocabulary. A generation of Australian kids, now grown into a generation of Australian adults know exactly what I'm talking about. Dib-Dib-Dib...
Tim was the gentlest of the three. The patriotic man-child with his soft blond hair, baby-face and Union-Jack waistcoat. The one who put 'Land of Hope and Glory' on his record player at every opportunity, and who longed passionately for an OBE, an honour his creator would go on to receive.
I met Tim once. I sold him a book, when working at a book-shop in London in 1998. We spoke for a minute or two, and he was so very kind and self-effacing. When I mentioned my love of the Goodies, he was ever-so-gracious. When I noted that I expected he heard that all the time, he said, 'Not that often, no. But when I do, it's almost always from an Australian. We were repeated a good deal in Australia, but never by the BBC.'
This was grossly unfair of the BBC, for not only did it rob Tim, Bill and Graham of the recognition they and their work deserved, but it robbed an entire generation of Britons of a show genuinely touched with magic. To this day, the program is unique, blending the semi-narrative of episodic sitcoms with the absurdist leadings of the Pythons. But unlike the Pythons, the action was character-lead drawing on the natural chemistry between the three comedic geniuses. Quick-fire wit, wonderful slap-stick, hair-brained schemes, parodied ads, and for their time, incredibly inventive special effects that took hours and hours of painstaking manual effort to produce.
They were also capable of pointed satire and astute social observations. Their ‘string-based’ examination of marketing and commercialism was excellent, and their parody of South African race-violation, where the diminutive became the second-class under ‘Apart-Height’, still hits all the right buttons, even today.
It's important to know that The Goodies and The Pythons grew out the same Cambridge stable of comedic genius. The main group was Footlights, and with talent to spare, Tim was the President. He was always regarded by the most brilliant of peer-groups as a man possessed of both talent and integrity.
And now, because of this accursed virus, he's gone. But what a wonderful life he had. I can think of few better legacies than having made children laugh and smile. Like so many of my generation, Tim made me laugh and smile, and I am sure he will continue to do so until I myself am gone, too. Because his delighted sense of mischievous whimsy will remain with me forever.
Rest easy, Tim. You were smashing. You deserved your OBE and then some.