It’s always down to me like everything else. ibid. Ernie to Eric
Nobody’s got what we’ve got. ibid. Eric to Ernie
It’s also the story of Comedy's difficult journey from theatre and radio to its brand new home – television. Morecambe and Wise: The Whole Story, BBC 2013
The 1960s and ’70s was their time. ibid.
In the summer of 1941 Eric and Ernie became Morecambe and Wise. ibid.
1958 was spent touring Australia as part of the Winifred Atwell stage show. ibid.
They insisted we call our members key-holders. And Peter casually looked around and said, ‘Humm, beauty is in the eye of the key-holder.’ Victor Lownes, executive Playboy Club New York, re Peter Cook
You know, I go to the theatre to be entertained ... I don’t want to see plays about rape, sodomy and drug addiction ... I can get all that at home. Peter Cook, caption to cartoon by Roger Law, cited The Observer 8th July 1962
Hitler was a very peculiar person, wasn’t he? He was another dominator you know – Hitler. And he was a wonderful ballroom dancer. Not many people know that. Peter Cook as E L Wisty
I've been reading a very interesting book recently. It’s called The Universe and All That Surrounds It by T J Bleendreeble. It’s an extremely good book about it. It’s about seventy pages long, so it’s fairly comprehensive about the whole thing and it’s fairly interesting. Bleendreeble specialises in the universe. He doesn’t branch out much beyond that. But he’s quite interested in this limited field. Peter Cook as E L Wisty, Food for Thought 1964
I could have been a Judge, but I never had the Latin for the judgin’. I never had it, so I’d had it, as far as being a judge was concerned ... I would much prefer to be a judge than a coal miner because of the absence of falling coal. Peter Cook, Beyond the Fringe, ‘Sitting on the Bench’, 1961
The leg division, Mr Spiggot. You are deficient in it to the tune of one. Your right leg, I like. I like your right leg; it’s a lovely leg for the role. That's what I said when I saw it come in. I said, That’s a lovely leg for the role. I’ve got nothing against your right leg. The trouble is – neither have you. You fall down on your left. Peter Cook, Beyond the Fringe, sketch ‘One Leg Too Few’ 1964 audition of one-legged man for role of Tarzan
I would like to like to make one thing clear at the very outset and that is, when you speak of a train robbery, this involved no loss of train, merely what I like to call the contents of the train, which were pilfered. We haven’t lost a train since 1946, I believe it was – the year of the great snows when we mislaid a small one. Peter Cook, Beyond the Fringe, sketch ‘The Great Train Robbery’ 1964
We believe this to be the work of thieves, and I’ll tell you why. The whole pattern is very reminiscent of past robberies where we have found thieves to be involved. The tell-tale loss of property – that’s one of the signs we look for. ibid.
The funniest man who ever drew breath. Stephen Fry
Being British in this part of the century meant living in the country that had Peter Cook in it. There are wits and there are clowns in comedy, I suppose. Peter was a wit, it goes without saying, but he was funny in an almost supernatural way that has never been matched by anyone I’ve met or even heard about. It wasn’t to do with facial expression or epigrammatic wit, or cattiness or rant or anger or technique: he had funniness in the same way that beautiful people have beauty or dancers have line and grace. He had an ability to make people gasp and gasp and gasp for breath like landed fish. Stephen Fry
It is a sad fact that when people are really enjoying themselves and laughing immoderately, they can afterwards remember very little of the conversation, very few of the jokes. There was the famous occasion when Peter addressed a group of revellers at a lunch celebrating 25 years of Private Eye. Almost everyone who was there, myself included, will tell you it was the funniest, most brilliant speech they had ever heard. But ask us to recall the jokes and there will be a complete blank. Peter’s funniest performances were generally of this impromptu, unscripted variety. Richard Ingrams, The Observer 19 December 2004
He wasn’t just a genius, he had the genius’s impatience with the whole idea of doing something again. He reinvented an art form, exhausted its possibilities, and just left it. There is always something frightening about that degree of inventiveness ... He didn’t lose his powers. He just lost interest in proving that he possessed them. Clive James
I didn’t know dirty words could be done that artfully. Mike Myers
Let’s bomb Russia! ... Let’s kick Michael Foot’s stick away! Kenny Everett, Conservative Party rally
Computer: Why was you sacked from Radio One?
Kenny Everett: Oh blimey, I’ll have to run through a past-catalogue of horror. Yeah, it was for insulting some politician. Oh, the Transport Minister’s wife. Star Test, 1989
He [Kenny Everett] enjoyed all his characters. Cleo Rocos
He had a fantastic view of the world; he was the fantasy within it. Barry Took, script writer
Never take a joke seriously. Bernard Manning
Women comics are the worst. You know, they’re certainly not funny. All they talk about is fucking Tampax, tits and arses. Bernard Manning, British right-wing comedian, televised interview 2006
I dragged myself up by my bootlaces. I don’t drink or smoke, I don’t take drugs. I have never been a womaniser. I was brought up right with good parents and I have never been in trouble or harmed no-one. And I love my family. Bernard Manning
For me he’s the villain of comedy. Esther Rantzen, re Bernard Manning
You are about to hear Bernard Manning as you would never hear him on television recorded secretly talking about black people. He could be arrested but this was a party organised by policemen. World in Action, 1995
’Cause I’m not strictly a comic; I’m not a comic at all. There’s other blokes are comedians; I’m more a sort of reactor. Sid James interview
We wanted someone to play a dubious bloke who used to get Hancock into scrapes ever week. Alan Simpson, writer
When you’re writing, it’s terrible. It’s the loneliest thing in the world. Eric Sykes, The Parkinson Show
Writer, performer, director, actor, Eric Sykes was a unique talent in the world of British comedy. The Late Great Eric Sykes, BBC 2012
By the 1950s Sykes was one of the highest paid scriptwriters in the country. ibid.
Sykes now teamed up with fellow writer Spike Milligan. ibid.
Sykes burst on to our screens with a brand-new series. ibid.
Sykes’s love for the theatre never faded. ibid.
I wouldn’t expect happiness. Tony Hancock, interview BBC 1960
Hal – low. Hello: A Portrait of Leslie Phillips, Phillip’s catchphrase
It’s you alone against them. Les Dawson
Les Dawson is a legend in British comedy. The Many Faces of Les Dawson, BBC 2012
1967: a new comedy star is born ... Les had one last chance: Opportunity Knocks. ibid.
The first face is deadpan. ibid.
The mother-in-law was a big thing for Les Dawson. ibid.
He personally loved the long rambling monologues. ibid.
Within a year of appearing on Opportunity Knocks Les had his own show on ITV: Sez Les. ibid.
Sez Les ran for eleven series on ITV. ibid.
Blankety Blank was a huge success for Les. ibid.
Morning, Joan. Eleven minutes late. Leonard Rossiter, The Rise & Fall of Reginald Perrin