Friday, October 5, 2007

Ned Sherrin

As I'm sure everyone knows Ned Sherrin died on Monday. In my few stints working on his show Loose Ends I only worked with him a couple of times as he fell ill shortly after I started. Of all the presenters and producers I've worked with at the BBC he was the only one that left me a little awe struck.

This was the man that back in the day gave countless stars and now institutions their first jobs, who gave Sir David Frost his 1st gig! Loose Ends is recorded as live on a Saturday morning and remember him coming in at 8:30am and sitting down to honey and toast before adding the final polish his script with me nervously checking the guests that I had booked, praying to god that one of them hadn’t developed the flu and the taxi’s had picked them up. As I sat there sweating I’d catch a glance of him muttering to himself rehearsing his script, he really reminded me about what the BBC was all about, he exuded that old school classiness and eccentricity alongside a rapier wit that made him so good at everything he touched.

His list of achievements is outrageously long having produced 10 films; wrote novels, musicals and plays; he’s hosted Loose Ends for 21 years; and produced seminal television series like “That Was the Week That Was,” which was the forerunner to shows like Saturday Night Live. “TW3,” the live political review and the news-based quiz show “We Interrupt This Week.” where both formats that are now used as a gold standard around the world and have been cloned a million times. He also wrote two autobiographies, a novel, a collection of theatrical anecdotes, a dictionary of humorous quotations and was a member of the Bar! If I can pack half as much into my life I’ll be a very happy man. He was one of the last of his kind, the world of broadcasting, film, theatre and literature will be a poorer place without him.

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