Ned Sherrin, wit, impresario, bon viveur and Radio 4 stalwart, dies at 76
Friends and colleagues last night paid generous tribute to Ned Sherrin, the writer and bon viveur who died of cancer at his home in Chelsea yesterday afternoon.
Sherrin's entertainment career spanned five decades and he blazed a trail for generations of comedians in the 1960s, before becoming a much loved fixture on Radio 4, fronting the enduring popular show Loose Ends from its start in 1986.
As one of broadcasting's most consistent and wryly amusing presences, Sherrin was described as "one of Britain's best loved voices" by BBC director general Mark Thompson last night.
The warm and witty, if often waspish, broadcaster had been ill for the past year and stepped down from Loose Ends just before Christmas.
Of all the myriad plays, books, TV programmes and radio shows for which he was responsible, Sherrin once singled out a series that ran for just two seasons, 1962-63, as the work of which he was most proud: That Was the Week That Was.
The first TV show to intelligently lampoon the political establishment, it proved hugely influential, gave Sir David Frost his big break, and provided a launch pad for a diverse and influential cast of script writers including John Cleese, Peter Cook, Richard Ingrams, Dennis Potter, John Betjeman, Frank Muir and many others.
Mr Thompson, who said he was "deeply saddened" by the news of Sherrin's death, paid tribute to the show's far-reaching influence. "Through his brilliant early work Ned was a trail blazer who paved the way for the sophisticated modern comedy satire shows that are so much loved by audiences today," he said.
"The entertainment industry owes Ned Sherrin a huge debt and he will be remembered with enormous affection and gratitude by the BBC and by countless millions of viewers and listeners."
Radio 4 controller Mark Damazer said: "Ned brought to Radio 4 a fabulous cocktail of wit, zest, curiosity and mischief - all based on an extraordinary knowledge of stage, screen and writing. Ned and Loose Ends introduced to Radio 4 an incredible array of talent. He was an impresario as well as a great raconteur. He was a natural broadcaster - and got the best out of others. He sparkled and made us all smile and laugh."
It was a chance meeting with a floor manager who had seen Sherrin in a revue at Oxford University in the early 1950s that led to him abandoning a career as a barrister to join the fledgling ATV franchise. He later wrote: "In a long career of happy accidents, perhaps the most useful was to have been born in 1931 and to complete National Service, Oxford and bar exams precisely in time for the opening of commercial television."
Two years later he left for the BBC and spent the next decade producing variety shows, panel games and musicals. Following the success of That Was the Week That Was, he left 1966 to produce films including The Virgin Soliders, The National Health and Up Pompeii. As an author, he had a long collaboration with Caryl Brahms which produced a string of songs, three novels, two short story collections, a number of radio and TV plays, five theatre plays, and six musicals. His life produced a rich seam of anecdotes, which he mined for five years, touring his one man show An Evening With Ned Sherrin.
Writer and comedian Arthur Smith, a regular on Loose Ends, described Sherrin as a "kind of London, English boulevardier". He told BBC News 24: "Whenever he interviewed someone, he had always done his homework big time. He had been to the play, read the book, swotted up on everything. He often knew more than the guest he was interviewing."
Playwright Alistair Beaton added: "He could be waspish, and the waspish side was the one I think listeners knew best, but there was also an extraordinarily generous, warm and good person that all the people who met him knew about."
Sherrin's long time personal manager, Deke Arlon, said last night the broadcaster had died peacefully at home in bed, surrounded by friends: "He was just a great writer and a great entertainer ... He was today's Noel Coward, and one of the great men of the entertainment industry."
A life that was
Edward George Sherrin was born the son of a farmer in 1931 in Low Ham, in the Somerset Levels. He read law at Exeter College, Oxford, and was called to the bar in 1955 but left immediately to become a producer on commercial station ATV.
Two years later he joined the BBC as director of the Tonight programme. In 1962 he devised, produced and direc-ted That Was The Week That Was, which attracted 12 million viewers at its peak. He followed it up with Not So Much A Programme More A Way Of Life. Sherrin left the BBC in 1966 to produce films including The Virgin Soldiers, Up The Junction, Girl Stroke Boy and comedy classic Up Pompeii.
He was nominated for a Tony Award in 1977 and in 1985 won a Laurence Olivier Award for The Ratepayer's Iolanthe. He also wrote six musicals, among them Sing A Rude Song, Nicholas Nickleby and Me and The Mitford Girls. In 1986 he directed Keith Waterhouse's play Mr and Mrs Nobody, starring Judi Dench, and began presenting Radio 4 show Loose Ends.
Three years later he directed Peter O'Toole in a production of Jeffrey Bernard Is Unwell at London's Apollo Theatre. Sherrin was awarded a CBE in 1997. He was also a patron of the London Gay Symphony Orchestra.
guardian
