Penguins Stopped Play

Product Information

a b O'Keeffe, Alice (13 November 2005). " 'I don't know how I'm going to get through the next day, let alone the rest of my life' ". The Observer . Retrieved 17 September 2012. Harry Thompson also produced non-comedy documentaries for BBC Radio. He made several programmes with writer/presenter Terence Pettigrew, starting with anniversary tributes to Hollywood icons James Dean ( You're Tearing Me Apart) and Montgomery Clift ( I Had The Misery Thursday). Pettigrew and Thompson subsequently worked together on a second series of documentaries, including on national service ( Caught in the Draft), and also about the evacuation of children from major British cities during the Second World War ( Nobody Cried When The Trains Pulled Out). Both programmes were presented by Michael Aspel. [ citation needed]

A leopard seal, perhaps the most fearsome predator of the southern ocean, hauled itself up on an ice floe to take a gander. Ignore the "seal" bit — think "leopard"... Imagine the head of Ridley Scott's Alien atop the body of Mike Gatting after a particularly hefty tea. Harry William Thompson was born on 6 February 1960 in London. [1] [2] His father was a marketing manager who worked for The Guardian, while his mother was a teacher who campaigned for higher standards in education. [1] He attended the private, fee-paying school Highgate School before going on to study History at Brasenose College, Oxford. There he became editor of the university newspaper, Cherwell, working alongside arts editor Roly Keating, the future controller of BBC2. [1] [2] Harry William Thompson (6 February 1960 – 7 November 2005) was an English radio and television producer, comedy writer, novelist and biographer. He was the creator of the dark humour television series Monkey Dust, screened between 2003 and 2005.

Thompson's book does roam wider. When Berkmann left to start a splinter club, Thompson carried on captaining Captain Scott, so he has several more years of club memories to milk. And the world tour carries him away from the village greens of England to take in Singapore, Buenos Aires and Antarctica. Sketching each stop with deft relish, Thompson almost launches another genre - the picaresque comic memoir of sporting incompetence. Coren, Victoria (12 June 2005). "Having cancer is like a big hard bastard has invited me outside the pub, and when I get there he's brought two of his mates". The Observer . Retrieved 17 September 2012. In a 2005 episode of Have I Got News For You, featuring Alexander Armstrong as host and Fi Glover and Ian McMillan as guest panellists, a message stating "In Memory of Harry Thompson, the first producer of Have I Got News For You (1960–2005)" was displayed. At its heart, it is the true story of someone who epitomised a certain sort of person that this country produced in the 19th century. There was a fantasy of chivalric empire, run by Britons who were gentlemen and played the game. Of course the reality was that our empire was no better than any other. We were busy conniving in the extermination of tribes, robbing natives of their land and we sent droves of brilliant young men, brought up with the chivalric fantasy, to enforce what was in many cases a visibly corrupt system [...] But Fitzroy's morality was iron. He said no. And it destroyed him. [11]

A biographer and novelist, Thompson wrote six books: an investigation into the story of The Man in the Iron Mask; a biography of Hergé with a commentary on his Adventures of Tintin series; biographies of Peter Cook and Richard Ingrams; a novel, This Thing of Darkness; and the semi-autobiographical Penguins Stopped Play. Thompson's last broadcast work was the Channel 5 sitcom Respectable, on which he finished work the week before he died. [7] Co-written with Shaun Pye, the programme was set in a suburban brothel and aired in 2006. The Guardian criticised the programme's "woefully old-fashioned, juvenile outlook" and called it "drearily unsophisticated". [8] The programme was also criticised in some quarters on the grounds that it made light of prostitution. [9] Other work [ edit ] I thought Glen McCready did a wonderful job of reading the book, giving us a range of accents for the great diversity of people we met. If you're not sure if you'll enjoy this book, consider the following extract from the opening chapter: Gaisford, Sue (27 October 1994). "Leader of a tiny, respectable gang: 'Richard Ingrams Lord of the Gnomes' – Harry Thompson". The Independent. Archived from the original on 9 May 2022 . Retrieved 17 September 2012.

a b Bennun, David (5 September 2008). "Censorship? How I mourn for Monkey Dust". The Guardian . Retrieved 18 September 2012. blow for deathbed widow of Have I Got News For You writer". The Evening Standard. 23 September 2006 . Retrieved 14 August 2020.

Treneman, Ann (24 November 1997). "Not as sweet as she looks". The Independent. Archived from the original on 9 May 2022 . Retrieved 18 September 2012.As well as writing for television, Thompson wrote biographies of Hergé (1991), Private Eye editor Richard Ingrams (1994) (of which The Independent said, "The problem is that Thompson simply worships Ingrams, and his biography melts steadily into hagiography... [an] overlong panegyric") [10] and Peter Cook (1997). His novel This Thing of Darkness, a historical fiction about Charles Darwin and Robert FitzRoy, the captain of the Beagle, was longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2005. Thompson described Fitzroy, rather than Darwin, as the book's hero: This book was thus a race against the ultimate deadline. Thompson opted to say very little about his predicament, showing admirable stoicism - Captain Scott with a hint of Captain Oates - but questionable literary judgment. It made it harder for his tale to shake off Berkmann's shadow.