Writer Nick Salaman’s school play with Peter Cook

THIS PICTURE WAS TAKEN during the school production of The Alchemist. I was at Radley with Peter Cook. He was in a different house but we were both in this production, under the direction of our English teacher, Peter Way (who would later introduce Andrew Motion to poetry).

It was March; exams were coming up but the spring term was more relaxed and we had time to learn our lines and rehearse. Radley, though keen on sport, was becoming a more artistic place. The play was in what they called the Old Gym, a great corrugated-iron structure, which had once been a cathedral in Newfoundland.

The plot of The Alchemist is very simple: London is closed because of the plague, and the remaining population are crooks, such as Subtle, who pretends to be a ‘cunning man of magic’, an alchemist, who can turn the gullible Londoners’ pots and pans into gold.

I’m at the centre of things, playing Subtle; Peter is on the right, playing Dol Common, the tart; while the student on the left, John Gant, is Abel Drugger.

The character Peter was most famous for in later years was EL Wisty, who was based on our college high-table butler – a man named Arthur Boylett. Arthur had a nasal voice and an odd and more than whimsical turn of thought. Peter told outrageous stories about what Arthur got up to, but nobody knew whether Arthur was serious or taking Peter for a ride.

Peter was a very good mimic but there is an element of cruelty in mimicry. Maybe also in Peter. He was ever a joker, not just with the boys, but with the masters too. They made him a prefect, so obviously thought he was a leader of men.

We went our separate ways after school and I saw more of Dudley Moore, who I met at Oxford

while doing a revue at the Playhouse with the Experimental Theatre Club. Everyone called him Cuddly Duddly because he had a very sweet character. Dudley did endless comedy sketches with Peter (‘Pete and Dud’), which became things of legend.

I was sorry that Peter died aged 57; he wasted the latter part of his life and could have done so much more.

At Peter’s memorial, Eleanor Bron read out a wonderful poem by Sir Thomas Wyatt:

‘I am as I am, and so will I be

But how that I am, none knoweth truly. But be it evil, be it well,

Be I bond, be I free

I am as I am, and so will I be.’

This was as good a summing up of Peter as you can get. — Interview by Jessica Carpani

The Experimentalist, by Nick Salaman, will be published on 19 July (The Dome Press, £8.99)

Peter was a very good mimic but there is an element of cruelty in mimicry. Maybe also in Peter. He was ever a joker

Nick Salaman (centre) performing in The Alchemist with Peter Cook (right) and John Gant