Brian Cooke (born 1937) is a British comedy writer who, with co-writer Johnnie Mortimer, penned scripts for and devised many top 1970s/80s television sitcoms, including Man About the House, George and Mildred, and Robin's Nest.
Cooke also wrote and created the 1980s TV sitcom Keep It in the Family, starring Robert Gillespie and the late-1960s/early-1970s sitcom Father, Dear Father starring Patrick Cargill.
Early career
He was born in
Liverpool,
Lancashire - now
Merseyside. Starting off as a cartoonist during his term of
national service, he soon began to sell strips to magazines and newspapers. He met Johnnie Mortimer at a cartoonists convention. They also wrote the screenplays for the film version of the play
No Sex Please, We're British, and the movie versions of their series
Man About the House and
Father Dear Father.
Scriptwriter
Earlier in his career, Cooke was a writer for the last series of the 1960s radio series
Round the Horne and its short-lived successor
Stop Messing About. He had much success in 2003-5 when he revived the format for a theatre tribute show,
Round the Horne ... Revisited, which ran in the West End for 15 months and spawned three national tours. In 2004, it was made into a television film, with the original London cast, by
BBC Four.
was also turned into a stage play in 2009.
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