John Bird: The death of the actor and comedian at the age of 86 | UK News

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Actor and comedian John Bird has died at the age of 86, his representatives said.

Bird became known for sketches performed alongside John Fortune and Rory Bremner on the Channel 4 satirical show Bremner, Bird and Fortune. The show ran for 16 series, plus one-off specials, between 1999 and 2008.

A statement announcing Baird’s death said he died “peacefully” at Pendian Care Home in West Sussex. She added that a family funeral would be followed by a celebration of his life in the new year.

Bird and Fortune became household names with their comedy The Long Johns. In the tracks that were largely improvised, one actor always portrayed a prominent figure from public life being interviewed by the other.

Bremner, Bird and Fortune on the NHS

The interviewer will attempt to interrogate the fictional businessman, government consultant, or struggling politician, who has always been called George Barr.

The comedians have been nominated for four Baftas and won a Television Award in 1997 for their work on Channel 4’s Rory Bremner, Who Else? Baird, Bremner and Fortune also collaborated on BBC’s Now Something Else.

On Wednesday, Bremner paid tribute to his former colleague, calling him “one of our greatest satirists.” It was ironic, he said, that someone “so adept at portraying self-satisfied ministers, civil servants, or high-ranking officials, is himself so humble and self-absorbed”.

“John Bird was never, to the end, pleased with himself,” said Bremner, “and always felt he should have done better, and been less lazy, and had a late period like Brahms, when everything was empty and abstract.”

“The fact is that he and his friend and collaborator John Fortune, along with Peter Cook, were pillars of the anti-establishment.”

Bremner added that it was “amazing” that Bird died on Christmas Eve “nine years, almost to the day” after Fortune, who died at the age of 74 on New Year’s Eve in 2013.

“Lord knows,” he said, “they missed out on cynicism in the last decade, and now the loss is permanent.” “John may not have felt he got his life right, but God wrote it.”

Bremner added that watching the work of Bird and Fortune was the “highlight” of his life and that he would “marvel at the genius of it all”.

Rory Bremner (center) on stage at the Albury Theater with John Bird (left) and John Fortune. Photo: PA Images/Alamy

Born in Nottingham, Baird attended grammar school before going to Cambridge and meeting his comedy partner Fortune.

While there, he also directed comedian Peter Cook and actress Eleanor Bron in the 1959 Cambridge Footlights Revue, an annual show organized by the University Comedy Club, which also had David Mitchell, Richard Ayode and Eric Idle among its members.

Baird then joined the Royal Court Theater as an assistant director, hosting the first episode of Beyond the Fringe, directing the Austrian-American singer Lotte Linnea in Brecht’s play, and opening nightclubs with Cook in London and New York.

Over the course of his career, Bird has also appeared in the fantasy comedy Jabberwocky, and the comedy shows Yes, Prime Minister, A Very Strange Practice, Chambers and One Foot in the Grave, as well as the detective shows Jonathan Creek, Inspector Morse, and The Midsomer Murders.

He is survived by his wife, Libby, a concert pianist, along with sons Dan and Josh.

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