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John Antrobus | |
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| Born | 2 July 1933 Woolwich, London, England |
| Occupation |
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| Period | 1956–2010 |
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| Spouse | Margaret McCormick |
John Arthur Antrobus (born 2 July 1933) is an English playwright [1] and screenwriter. He has written extensively for stage, screen, TV and radio, including the epic World War II play, Crete and Sergeant Pepper at the Royal Court. He authored the children's book series Ronnie, which includes Help! I am a Prisoner in a Toothpaste Factory. [2]
John Arthur Antrobus [3] was born at Woolwich, London. [4] His father was a regimental sergeant-major in the Royal Horse Artillery, and the family was stationed at the School of Artillery in Larkhill, on the edge of Salisbury Plain. After attending Bishop Wordsworth's School in Salisbury, Wiltshire, Selhurst Grammar School, Croydon, and King Edward VII Nautical College, London, where he was an apprentice deck officer in the Merchant Navy from 1950 to 1952, [4] Antrobus attended the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, serving with the East Surrey Regiment from 1952 to 1955, [5] but rebelled and dropped out of the Army. [2] [6] [7]
After leaving the Army, spending time also working as a supply teacher and waiter, [5] Antrobus pursued a future writing comedy, and went to Associated London Scripts (ALS), the writers' co-operative set up by Spike Milligan and Eric Sykes. [8] Antrobus states "I met Spike in 1954 or 55. I had sent a sample script to Galton and Simpson and they took me on at Associated London Scripts". Antrobus and Milligan "wrote a couple of Goon Shows together. I wish I had done more of them with him but I wanted to be a playwright. I didn't realise they were golden times and how they gave life". [9] The two shows were The Spon Plague, and The Great Statue Debate, both broadcast in March 1958. [10] [11] [12] [13]
At ALS, Antrobus also worked with Johnny Speight on The Frankie Howerd Show in 1956, [8] After contributing material to the first Carry On film, Carry On Sergeant (1958), he wrote his first movie screenplay: for Idol on Parade (1959), starring Anthony Newley. [8] [14] During 1960 he worked with Milligan and Sykes in the second series of Sykes and A... (August- September 1960). [8] He was also a contributing writer to the television series The Army Game , in the 1958 and 1961 shows, along with Larry Stephens, Maurice Wiltshire, and Lew Schwarz in 1958, and Brad Ashton, Barry Took, Marty Feldman and Wilshire in 1961. [15] During the 1960s and 1970s, he provided scripts for television series as diverse as That Was the Week That Was , [6] Television Playhouse and Spike Milligan's Milligan in...[ citation needed ] Antrobus wrote for Milligan's last radio series, The Milligan Papers , a BBC Radio Collection released in 2002. [2] Milligan said he did not actually like Antrobus.[ citation needed ]
Antrobus' best known play is the surrealist The Bed-Sitting Room (1963) (co-written with Milligan). [16] A film version was released in 1969 and a sequel from 1983. His other plays include Cane of Honour (1965), Captain Oates' Left Sock (1969), An Apple A Day (1970) and City Delights (1978). In October 2005, Antrobus and Ray Galton (with whom he had collaborated on the 1986 sitcom Room at the Bottom and Get Well Soon from 1997) unveiled their play Steptoe and Son – Murder at Oil Drum Lane at the Theatre Royal, York. In 2010, Antrobus and Ray Galton's production of Not Tonight Caligula, originally written for Frankie Howerd, was recorded as a live radio play at The Leicester Square Theatre by The Wireless Theatre Company directed by Antrobus and starring Clive Greenwood in Howerd's role. Although largely retired, Antrobus still writes and is involved in fringe productions and talent scouting.
In 1958, John Antrobus married Margaret née McCormick. They had two sons and a daughter. [4] [17]
| Production | Notes | Production company / Distributor or Broadcaster |
|---|---|---|
| Son of Fred |
| Associated-Rediffusion / ITV |
| Early to Braden |
| BBC Television |
| The April 8th Show (Seven Days Early) |
| BBC Television |
| Carry On Sergeant |
| Peter Rogers / Anglo-Amalgamated |
| Idol on Parade |
| Warwick / Columbia |
| Jazz Boat |
| Warwick / Columbia |
| Sykes and a... |
| BBC Television |
| The Army Game |
| Granada Television / ITV |
| Bootsie and Snudge |
| Granada Television / ITV |
| ITV Television Playhouse |
| Associated-Rediffusion / ITV |
| That Was the Week That Was |
| BBC Television |
| The Wrong Arm of the Law |
| British Lion Films |
| Room at the Bottom |
| ABC Weekend TV / ITV |
| A World of Comedy |
| Rediffusion / ITV |
| The Big Job |
| Peter Rogers / Anglo-Amalgamated |
| Q9 |
| BBC2 |
| The Bed-Sitting Room |
| Oscar Lewenstein / United Artists |
| The Dustbinmen |
| Granada Television / ITV |
| Oh In Colour |
| BBC1 |
| Some Matters of Little Consequence |
| BBC2 |
| Ronnie Corbett in Bed |
| BBC1 |
| An Apple a Day |
| BBC1 |
| Milligan in... |
| BBC2 |
| Too Close for Comfort |
| D.L. Taffner / Metromedia for American Broadcasting Company (ABC) |
| Last Laugh Before TV-am |
| Ravel Productions / Channel Four |
| The Ratties |
| Central / ITV |
| Alfred Hitchcock Presents |
| Michael Sloan Productions / Universal Television |
| Room at the Bottom |
| Yorkshire Television / ITV |
| The Dreamstone |
| Central / ITV |
| Carry On Columbus |
| Island World / Comedy House / Peter Rogers |
| Get Well Soon |
| BBC1 |
| Year | Award | Work | Category | Result | Reference |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1970 | Hugo Award | The Bed-Sitting Room | Best Dramatic Presentation (with Richard Lester, Charles Wood and Spike Milligan) | Nominated |
| International | |
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| National | |
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Sir Harry Donald Secombe was a Welsh actor, comedian, singer and television presenter. Secombe was a member of the British radio comedy programme The Goon Show (1951–1960), playing many characters, most notably Neddie Seagoon. An accomplished tenor, he also appeared in musicals and films – notably as Mr Bumble in Oliver! (1968) – and, in his later years, was a presenter of television shows incorporating hymns and other devotional songs.
Terence Alan "Spike" Milligan was an Irish comedian, writer, musician, poet, playwright and actor. The son of an English mother and Irish father, he was born in British India, where he spent his childhood before relocating in 1931 to England, where he lived and worked for the majority of his life. Disliking his first name, he began to call himself "Spike" after hearing the band Spike Jones and his City Slickers on Radio Luxembourg.
The Goon Show is a British radio comedy programme, originally produced and broadcast by the BBC Home Service from 1951 to 1960, with occasional repeats on the BBC Light Programme. The first series, broadcast from 28 May to 20 September 1951, was titled Crazy People; subsequent series had the title The Goon Show.
Eric Sykes was an English radio, stage, television and film writer, comedian, actor and director whose performing career spanned more than 50 years. He frequently wrote for and performed with many other leading comedy performers and writers of the period, including Tony Hancock, Spike Milligan, Tommy Cooper, Peter Sellers, John Antrobus and Johnny Speight. Sykes first came to prominence through his many radio credits as a writer and actor in the 1950s, which include collaboration on some scripts for The Goon Show. He became a TV star in his own right in the early 1960s when he appeared with Hattie Jacques in several popular BBC comedy television series.
Galton and Simpson were a British comedy scriptwriting duo, who wrote for radio, television and film, consisting of Ray Galton OBE and Alan Simpson OBE. They are best known for their work with comedian Tony Hancock on radio and television between 1954 and 1961 and their long-running television situation comedy, Steptoe and Son, eight series of which were aired between 1962 and 1974, they had an association lasting 60 years.
William Henry Kerr was a British and Australian actor, comedian, and vaudevillian.
Johnny Speight was an English television scriptwriter of many classic British sitcoms.
Valentine Dyall was an English character actor. He worked regularly as a voice actor, and was known for many years as "The Man in Black", the narrator of the BBC Radio horror series Appointment with Fear.
The Bedsitting Room is a satirical play by Spike Milligan and John Antrobus. It began as a one-act play which was first produced on 12 February 1962 at the Marlowe Theatre in Canterbury, England. The Bedsitting Room was then adapted to a longer play and Bernard Miles put it on at the Mermaid Theatre, where it was first performed on 31 January 1963 before transferring several weeks later to the Duke of York's Theatre in London's West End.
Graham William Stark was an English comedian, actor, writer and director.
John Bluthal was a Polish-born Australian actor and comedian, noted for his six-decade career internationally in Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Q... is a surreal television comedy sketch show written by Spike Milligan and Neil Shand, and starring Spike Milligan with supporting players, usually including Julia Breck, John Bluthal, Bob Todd, and John Wells. The show ran from 1969 to 1982 on BBC2. There were six series in all, the first five numbered from Q5 to Q9, and a final series titled There's a Lot of It About. The first and third series ran for seven episodes, and the others for six episodes, each of which was 30 minutes long.
Bernard James Miles, Baron Miles, CBE was an English character actor, writer and director. He opened the Mermaid Theatre in 1959, the first new theatre that opened in the City of London since the 17th century.
William Simpson Fraser was a Scottish actor who appeared on stage, screen and television for many years. In 1986 he won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Comedy Performance for his stage role in the play When We Are Married.
Brian Todd, known professionally as Bob Todd, was an English comedy actor, mostly known for appearing as a straight man in the sketch shows of Benny Hill and Spike Milligan. For many years, he lived in Tunbridge Wells, Kent.
The Temperance Seven is a British band originally active in the 1950s, specialising in 1920s-style jazz music. They were known for their surreal performances.
Idol on Parade is a 1959 British comedy film directed by John Gilling and starring William Bendix, Anthony Newley, Sid James and Lionel Jeffries. The screenplay was by John Antrobus, based on the 1958 William Camp novel Idle on Parade which was inspired by Elvis Presley's conscription into the US Army. It was produced by Irving Allen and Albert R. Broccoli for Warwick Films. Jeep Jackson serves his two years of compulsory National Service in the British military.
Associated London Scripts (ALS) was a writers' agency organised as a co-operative which involved many leading comedy and television writers of the 1950s and 1960s.
Peter Randolph Eton was a producer for BBC radio and television. He was invalided out of the navy after being wounded during the Dunkirk evacuation and joined the BBC.
Lawrence Geoffrey Stephens was a BBC radio scriptwriter, best remembered for co-writing The Goon Show with Spike Milligan. Stephens was a regular writer of the show for the first two years, and then returned to The Goon Show to assist Milligan. From his association with Milligan, Stephens became involved with Associated London Scripts (ALS), and was said to have been "one of the most eye-catching characters, in the earliest days of the company...he played a significant cameo role in the first phase of success for ALS".
