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Peter Baynham is a Welsh screenwriter, stand-up comedian and performer. His writing work includes collaborations with comedy figures such as Armando Iannucci, Steve Coogan, Chris Morris, Sacha Baron Cohen and Sarah Smith. Born in Cardiff, Wales, Baynham served in the British Merchant Navy at age 16 with a desire to travel the world after leaving school and later pursued a career in comedy as a stand-up comedian and then he became a writer and a performer for various news and sketch comedies in radio and television. He also became a writer in feature film.
In television, with Iannucci and Coogan, Baynham is a writer for the sitcom I'm Alan Partridge and a presenter for the satirical comedy sketch show The Saturday Night Armistice. With Morris, he is a writer for the satirical comedy miniseries The Day Today, Brass Eye and Jam. Baynham himself created, written and directed the adult animated black comedy miniseries I Am Not an Animal. In feature film, with Baron Cohen, Baynham is a writer for the comedy films Borat (2006), Brüno (2009), Grimsby (2016) and Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (2020). With Smith, he is a writer for the animated films Arthur Christmas (2011) and Ron's Gone Wrong (2021). With Iannucci and Coogan again, Baynham is a writer for the crime comedy film (2013). Other feature films as a writer include the romantic comedy film Arthur (2011) and the animated film Hotel Transylvania (2012).
Aiming to break into television, Baynham wrote one-liner jokes for a Terry Wogan-presented Friday Night show. He was unimpressed by Wogan's delivery of the jokes. While working at the BBC offices and looking for photocopier paper, Baynham encountered Armando Iannucci who would introduce him to Chris Morris who was creating the satirical sketch comedy miniseries The Day Today. Although Morris was not interested in accepting more writers for the project, Baynham was born a writer after Morris was impressed by a sketch that he wrote that involved horses who infest the London Underground. Baynham also appears in a sketch as a reporter (named "Colin Poppshed") who presented "Gay News" where he farcically announces the gayness of various roads, periodic table elements, cars and walls. Baynham also became a guest and contributor for the radio show The Chris Morris Music Show, but he was suspended by the BBC for two weeks for conceiving a joke where Morris falsely implies on air that Michael Heseltine had died. Baynham stated that Morris technically did not announce his death, saying "if there is any news of Michael Heseltine's death in the next hour, we'll let you know". Baynham even became a cast member for the radio series Lee and Herring.
Baynham became a writer for the sitcom I'm Alan Partridge, a spin-off of the comedy character Alan Partridge (as performed by Steve Coogan in The Day Today), an incompetent sports reporter who gets progressed as a tactless and self-satisfied television personality. Baynham thought that Alan Partridge was underdeveloped because the format of The Day Today made him "bracketed and contained within presenting to the camera". Baynham would realise that Alan Partridge would be a "three-dimensional" character. Baynham, with the writing team of Coogan and Iannucci, applied worldbuilding such as establishing the geography of Alan Partridge's residence of "Linton Travel Tavern". Coogan credited Baynham for making Alan Partridge more human and sympathetic. Baynham described his work on I'm Alan Partridge as a highly productive and enjoyable period of his career, saying "It's my happiest, most fun writing experience ever really, it was just so exciting".
In the same period, Fist of Fun transferred to television where Baynham makes an on-screen appearance of his character "Peter", a 32-year-old Welshman. Baynham also served as a presenter of the satirical comedy sketch show The Saturday Night Armistice. Baynham created and performed the character "Terry from Pontypridd" in a popular television advertising campaign for Pot Noodle, promoted with the catchphrase "they're too gorgeous". The campaign propelled Baynham to unexpected fame which he reported that strangers would shout "gorgeous" at him in public and that a university student would threw a Pot Noodle at him on stage, while touring with Lee and Herring. Baynham has written with Morris for the satirical black comedy miniseries Brass Eye and its controversial special "Paedogeddon" that attracted widespread media attention for its comedic portrayal of paedophilia. Baynham also wrote the Bob and Margaret episode "Neighbors" as well as writing the additional material for the three episodes of the sketch show Big Train. He even served as a writer for the radio series Blue Jam which was adapted into the TV miniseries Jam that Baynham and Morris worked together on. Baynham also became a guest for the eighteen episodes of the radio comedy game show The 99p Challenge. He created the adult animated black comedy miniseries I Am Not an Animal which follows a group of intelligent talking animals who escape a vivisection laboratory.
Earlier in 2005, Baynham conceived of a Christmas story (where Santa Claus has an "impractical and useless" son) and collaborated with Sarah Smith at Aardman Animations to write a screenplay for the 2011 animated film Arthur Christmas. The story deals with Santa's global operation to deliver presents to every child, which Baynham said he considered with a "pedantic" detail such as what would be mathematically possible in 12 hours with one million elves and a mile wide spaceship. Under director Genndy Tartakovsky, Baynham became a writer for the 2012 animated film Hotel Transylvania. He even became an executive producer for the 2012 political satire black comedy film The Dictator which he worked with Baron Cohen on. He collaborated with Armando Iannucci and Steve Coogan again to create an Alan Partridge feature film and he became a writer for the 2013 crime comedy film . With Baron Cohen again, Baynham became a writer for the 2016 spy action comedy film Grimsby and continued this collaboration as a writer for the 2020 mockumentary comedy film Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, a sequel to the previous Borat film. In 2021, Baynham launched the six-episode surreal comedy podcast series Brain Cigar with his close friend and long-time collaborator Jeremy Simmonds. In the same year, Baynham also collaborated with Smith on her animation studio Locksmith Animation's first animated feature film Ron's Gone Wrong.
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