Born: 22 February, 1953, in London. Died: 29 August, 2008, in London, aged 55.
GEOFFREY Perkins was the godfather of contemporary British TV and radio comedy. He brought to the screen and air a series of classic comedy shows that redefined the genre in the 1980s and his sad early death is a huge loss. He had an instinct for the
"feel of a programme and he was seldom wrong – his ability to spot and nurture talent was exceptional. Perkins's contribution to hit shows on BBC and ITV was fundamental to their eventual success and, although not widely known to the public, he was highly recognised within the profession.
He was associated as a writer, producer or director with shows at the independent Hat Trick Production from 1995 with the BBC and, latterly, with Tiger Aspect Productions. The sheer volume of work and shows with which Perkins was associated over the past two decades is testimony to his skill, imagination and sheer invention.
Geoffrey Howard Perkins was educated at Harrow County School for Boys, where he was chairman of the debating society with Michael Portillo and Bruce Anderson. He then went up to Lincoln College, Oxford, where he read English as an exhibitioner. While there he contributed to a revue called Radio Active with, amongst others, Angus Deayton.
The show came to the Edinburgh Fringe in 1975 and was picked up by the BBC and transferred to Radio 4. Much of its success – a spoof on local radio – was thanks to the zany material written by Perkins and Deayton.
In 1989 it transferred to BBC2 as KYTV and won an award at the Montreux Television Festival in 1992.
Perkins then joined BBC Radio Light Entertainment and was involved, in 1978, in producing several episodes of the classic comedy The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. In 2005 he made a cameo appearance – a kind of in-joke – as the producer of the radio show on which the hero, Arthur Dent, worked.
His other major contribution during this time at the BBC was to create the renowned Mornington Crescent for I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue. The origins, the rules and any understanding of the game were a mystery, and the quiz's host, Humphrey Lyttelton, delighted in deciding arbitrarily who won points.
In 1984 Perkins acted as script editor and occasional producer of ITV's hit satirical programme, Spitting Image. The irreverence and candour of the programme was much criticised but it became a popular Sunday evening show.
Perkins maintained a fine balance to the programme's political content and ensured that the puppets, mannerisms and voices were spot-on. He was also in charge of Saturday Live on Channel 4 which introduced Harry Enfield to the screen and Perkins gave Enfield his own show and created the Loadsamoney character.
Perkins was a co-founder of the independent Hat Trick Productions in the late 1980s and one of his first shows was The Robbie Coltrane Special. Other hits included Lee Evans: So What Now, Harry Enfield's Television Programme and Ben Elton: The Man From Aunty. From 1995 Perkins also produced 14 episodes of The Thin Blue Line and in that same year masterminded Father Ted, a crazy sitcom about three priests and their housekeeper living on an anything but quiet and remote island in Ireland.
Perhaps nothing demonstrates Perkins's influence on a programme more than the way he prepared Father Ted for the screen. The script was brought to him originally as a mock documentary and he fashioned it into a powerful, comic vehicle that proved hugely popular. It was Perkins who found the location and he who chose the music (Neil Hannon's Songs of Love) that provided the show's quirky atmosphere. "Without Geoffrey," according to the writer Graham Linehan, "Father Ted would have been a cacophonous riot, and not nearly as loved as it is today. He gave the show a heart."
Poignantly, at the Edinburgh Television Festival two weeks ago, Linehan thanked Perkins for helping make the show such a success.
In 1995 Perkins left the BBC – the bureaucracy and endless meetings were never the Perkins way – and joined Tiger Aspect Productions, where he was largely responsible for launching Catherine Tate's career after seeing her at the Edinburgh Fringe.
Perkins produced Benidorm for ITV in 2007 and had just completed a new series called Harry and Paul, with two of his major discoveries Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse. The first programme is scheduled for transmission on BBC next week.
Perkins was killed in a London street after being hit by a lorry. He is survived by his wife, Lisa Braun, whom he married in 1986, and their daughter and son.
The full article contains 785 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
