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Barry Ernest Fantoni (born 28 February 1940) is a British author, cartoonist and jazz musician of Italian and Jewish descent, most famous for his work with the magazine Private Eye , for whom he also created Neasden F.C. He has also published books on Chinese astrology as well as a mystery novel set in Miami featuring 87-year-old private investigator Harry Lipkin.
Fantoni was born in London's East End to an Italian father and a Jewish mother of French and Dutch extraction, both gifted musicians. He was educated at the Archbishop Temple School in London. At the age of fourteen, he was awarded the Wedgewood Scholarship for the Arts and studied at the Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts from 1954 until 1958. There, he formed the school's first jazz group as well as a film society and pioneered a drama group before getting expelled. [1]
In 1963, Fantoni became a member of the editorial staff of the satirical magazine Private Eye. He was behind some of the magazine's most famous characters, and appeared in all but 31 of its 1,278 issues until his retirement in 2010. [2] He also wrote scripts for the BBC TV programme That Was the Week That Was in 1962.
Fantoni hosted a short-lived BBC TV show called A Whole Scene Going in 1966, which won him the title of Male TV Personality of the Year. The show focused on contemporary trends in the arts: Twiggy made her first appearance on the show, and it also featured performances from The Who, The Kinks and The Pretty Things. He illustrated the sheet music for "Let's go to San Francisco" by The Flowerpot men.
On 27 January 2007 he debuted on BBC Radio 5 Live's Fighting Talk . He scored 28 points thus finishing in last place which is a programme tradition for a debutant. In September 2007 he was a guest on Private Passions , the weekly music discussion programme hosted by Michael Berkeley on BBC Radio 3. [3]
Fantoni is the creator and writer of poems supposedly penned by one E. J. Thribb – the fictitious poet-in-residence at Private Eye . His poems are usually about recently deceased famous people, and always begin "So, farewell then...".
Thribb also usually mentions the deceased's "catchphrase" or theme song and his poems often feature his friend Keith, or Keith's mum, who usually does something "like" the deceased. The poetry consists of a stream of consciousness which is just broken up into lines.
Craig Joseph Charles is an English actor, comedian, DJ, and television and radio presenter. He is best known for his roles as Dave Lister in the science fiction sitcom Red Dwarf and Lloyd Mullaney in the soap opera Coronation Street (2005–2015). He presented the gladiator-style game show Robot Wars from 1998 to 2004, and narrated the comedy endurance show Takeshi's Castle. As a DJ, he appears on BBC Radio 6 Music.
Peter Edward Cook was an English comedian, actor, satirist, playwright and screenwriter. He was the leading figure of the British satire boom of the 1960s, and he was associated with the anti-establishment comedic movement that emerged in the United Kingdom in the late 1950s.
William George Rushton was an English actor, cartoonist, comedian and satirist who co-founded the satirical magazine Private Eye.
Colemanballs is a term coined by Private Eye magazine to describe verbal gaffes perpetrated by sports commentators. Coleman refers to the surname of the former BBC broadcaster David Coleman and the suffix -balls, as in "to balls up", and has since spawned derivative terms in unrelated fields such as "Warballs", "Dianaballs", "Murrayisms",, and "Borisballs". The all-encompassing term "mediaballs" has since been used by Private Eye as its coverage of gaffes has expanded.
Humphrey Richard Adeane Lyttelton, also known as Humph, was an English jazz musician and broadcaster from the Lyttelton family.
Ian David Hislop is a British journalist, satirist, and television personality. He is the editor of the satirical magazine Private Eye, a position he has held since 1986. He has appeared on numerous radio and television programmes and has been a team captain on the BBC satirical quiz show Have I Got News for You since its inception in 1990. Hislop has been involved in numerous legal battles, as Private Eye has often been sued for libel over the years. Despite these challenges, Hislop has remained a key figure in British satire and journalism.
Victor Lewis-Smith was a British film, television and radio producer, a television and restaurant critic, a satirist and newspaper columnist. He was executive producer of the ITV1 Annual National Food & Drink Awards. He was an alumnus of the University of York and received an honorary doctorate from the University of Westminster in November 2008.
Gerald Anthony Scarfe is an English cartoonist and illustrator. He has worked as editorial cartoonist for The Sunday Times and illustrator for The New Yorker.
John Barry Humphries was an Australian comedian, actor, author and satirist. He was best known for writing and playing his stage and television characters Dame Edna Everage and Sir Les Patterson. Humphries's characters brought him international renown. He appeared in numerous stage productions, films and television shows. Originally conceived as a dowdy Moonee Ponds housewife who caricatured Australian suburban complacency and insularity, the Dame Edna Everage character developed into a satire of stardom – a gaudily dressed, acid-tongued, egomaniacal, internationally fêted "housewife gigastar".
Christopher Logue, CBE was an English poet associated with the British Poetry Revival, and a pacifist.
William Edward Tidy, MBE was a British cartoonist, writer and television personality, known chiefly for his comic strips. He was noted for his charitable work, particularly for the Lord's Taverners, which he supported for over 30 years. Deeply proud of his working-class roots in Northern England, his most abiding cartoon strips, such as The Cloggies and The Fosdyke Saga, were set in an exaggerated version of that environment.
Robert Russell Davies is a British journalist and broadcaster.
E. J. Thribb is the fictitious poet-in-residence at the satirical magazine Private Eye. The character was created in 1972 by Barry Fantoni, who wrote the poems until 2010, when he was succeeded by other staff members. Thribb's poems are usually about recently deceased famous people, and titled "In Memoriam", with the first line almost invariably reading: "So. Farewell then...". He is an obituarist and threnodist.
Private Eye, the British fortnightly satirical magazine, has produced various comedic audio recordings since its founding in 1961.
Private Eye, the fortnightly British satirical magazine, has published various books and other material separately from the magazine since 1962.
Private Eye TV was an unsuccessful attempt to turn the satirical magazine Private Eye into a television programme.
Sean Street is a writer, poet, broadcaster. and Britain's first Professor of Radio. He retired from full-time academic life in 2011 and was awarded an Emeritus Professorship by Bournemouth University. He continues to write and broadcast. He is also a Life Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
William Anthony Husband was a British cartoonist known for his black humour. He was mainly known for his work in Private Eye magazine, and his work has appeared in The Times, the Daily Mail and the Sunday Express as well as magazines including Playboy and The Spectator.
Leslie Gilbert Illingworth was a Welsh political cartoonist best known for his work for the Daily Mail and for becoming the chief cartoonist at the British satirical periodical Punch.
Private Passions is a weekly music discussion programme that has been running since 15 April 1995 on BBC Radio 3, presented by the composer Michael Berkeley. The production was formerly made by Classic Arts Productions, a British radio and audio production company that provided programmes to the BBC until June 2013. Since June 2013, it has been produced by Loftus Audio. The producers are Elizabeth Burke, Jane Greenwood and Olivia Seligman.
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