Roger Wilmut

Roger Wilmut (born 1942 in Stratford Upon Avon, Warwickshire) is a British writer and compiler of books on British comedy. Wilmut attended Warwick School, and began his 'day job' as studio technician for the BBC on leaving school in 1961. Wilmut claims to have drifted into a career as a writer "by accident". [cite web
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Wilmut's books include "The Goon Show Companion", "Tony Hancock: Artiste", "From Fringe to Flying Circus" (a history of Oxbridge comedy in the sixties and seventies) and "Didn't You Kill My Mother-in-law" (a history of the 1980's Alternative Comedy movement in the UK).

His enthusiasm for the Goons led to the first of these books. In 1974, with the help of friends Tim Smith and Peter Copeland, he revised a list of the series' episodes supplied by the BBC, and his own earlier research, into a "much more complete typewritten list". He then sent it to Robson Books, who showed an interest. While writing the accompanying text he was "approached by the late Jimmy Grafton, who had been involved with the Goons in their early days, and had helped to get the show on the air. He suggested combining his memoirs with my book, and this is what happened, with the book being published in 1976 under the title "The Goon Show Companion"."

Wilmut was then signed by the agent Roger Hancock, who then commissioned him to "write a similar book about Tony Hancock", his elder brother. The result was 1978's "Tony Hancock - 'Artiste"', the book for which he conducted his first interviews. Whilst considering a book on "Monty Python's Flying Circus", Roger Hancock suggested that he cover "the entire generation of comedy which arose from Oxford and Cambridge Universities after 1961". The result was "From Fringe to Flying Circus".

It wasn't until 1985 that Wilmut's next book appeared, a history of theatrical variety, titled "Kindly Leave The Stage". Over seventy people were interviewed for the project, with Wilmut remarking he thought he "ought to do the interviews as soon as possible in view of the age of the people involved."

In 1989 he produced "Didn't You Kill My Mother-in-Law?", a history of British Alternative comedy. The book was originally the idea of Peter Rosengard, a life insurance salesman who had helped start this comedy movement by opening "The Comedy Store" in London in 1979. Like Jimmy Grafton with "The Goon Show Companion", the book was part memoir (this time Rosengard's), and part history of the subject by Wilmut.

Other books by Wilmut are "The Illustrated Hancock", and his compiling and editing of "No More Curried Eggs For Me" and "Son of Curried Eggs" (both anthologies of scripts for the likes of "Yes Minister", "The Goon Show" and "Rutland Weekend Television"). He has also text edited the scripts for "The Complete Beyond The Fringe" and the "Monty Python's Flying Circus" complete script collection "Just The Words" (both volumes 1 and 2).

He says of his time writing comedy books, "it was, on the whole, fun to do and well worth doing - particularly when you consider that all I was trying to do in the first place was type out a list of just one radio show." [cite web
last =Wilmut
first =Roger
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title =Roger Wilmut's writing career
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url=http://www.rfwilmut.clara.net/biog/xbooks.html
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"The Guardian" had "From Fringe to Flying Circus" and "Didn't You Kill My Mother-In-Law" in its "top 10 books about comedians". [cite web
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first =William
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title =William Cook's top 10 books about comedians
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publisher =The Guardian
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url=http://books.guardian.co.uk/top10s/top10/0,,1698147,00.html
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He is nowadays an avid collector of Gramophone records and currently runs a podcast on the subject titled "The Sound of 78s". [cite web
last =Wilmut
first =Roger
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title =The Sound of 78s
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publisher =Roger Wilmut
date =2003-07
url=http://www.wilmut.org.uk/podcast/
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doi =
accessdate = 2007-11-21 ]

References

External links

* [http://www.rfwilmut.clara.net/ Roger Wilmut's official site]
* [http://www.wilmut.org.uk/weblog/ Roger Wilmut's World Wide Weblog]
* [http://www.wilmut.org.uk/podcast/ Roger Wilmut's "Sound of 78s" podcast]
* [http://www.thegoonshow.org.uk/page18.html Roger Wilmut's writing career at goonshow.org.uk]