Barry Took was a British comedian,
writer and television presenter. He is most well-known
in the UK for his weekly role as presenter of Points
Of View, a BBC TV programme in which viewers' letters
criticising or praising the BBC were broadcast. He
also presented the BBC Radio 4 programme The News Quiz
until the late 1990's.
Took was born in London and brought up there during
the war, running away from the home in Wisbech to which
he had been evacuated. It was during his period of
National Service that he began performing seriously,
and it was also then that he met his wife, Dorothy.
He later worked as a stand-up comedian, eventually
becoming a West End revue performer.
In terms of comedy writing, he was the writing partner
of Marty Feldman and wrote for several seminal radio
shows in the 1950s and 1960s, including Round The Horne.
Took also went to the USA to work on Rowan and Martin's
Laugh-In, before joining the BBC, where he helped devise
both Monty Python's Flying Circus. The Goodies, and
the popular literacy programme, On the Move (starring
Bob Hoskins). |