John Langdon
Comedy writer who worked with Rory Bremner and survived a libel action by Derek Jameson
JOHN LANGDON, the comedy writer, who has died aged 72, helped to establish BBC radio satirical shows such as The News Huddlines and The News Quiz before becoming the impressionist Rory Bremner’s most loyal and trusted collaborator.
Langdon came up against the dangerous consequences of satire early in his career in 1984, when the BBC was the recipient of a libel writ for a skit he had written about Derek Jameson for Radio 4’s Week Ending programme four years earlier. In a “Man of the Week” item, the tabloid newspaper editor was described as “the archetypal East End boy made bad” who “retired from newspaper work to become editor of the Daily Express”, believed “erudite” was a glue and had an editorial policy of publishing “all the nudes fit to print and all the news printed to fit”.
However, Jameson lost the action, leaving him with £75,000 legal costs, after the jury considered the broadcast defamatory but fair comment.
The year of the court action was an important one in Langdon’s career. Two BBC radio comedy producers, Alan Nixon and Jennie Campbell, wanted Rory Bremner – who was doing his stand-up act at the 1984 Edinburgh Festival – to use his impressions to link other Fringe highlights, so introduced him to Langdon, who remained the star’s right-hand man for the next 30 years, on stage, radio and television.
There was even a term, “a Langdon”, used to describe one of his favourite forms of joke construction. Andy Riley, another comedy writer, described it: “The stages of a Langdon are: (i) Two elements are introduced. (ii) It appears that we’re continuing to talk about one of those elements in particular … (iii) But then it turns out we were talking about the other one.” For example: “Ronald Reagan met a chimpanzee today. The simple, gibbering creature … was delighted to meet a chimp.”
Langdon’s own lines were cherished and oft-repeated in the industry,– and brought great amusement to television viewers in shows featuring Bremner, as well as Kenny Everett, Jasper Carrott, Russ Abbot, Ronnie Corbett, Marti Caine, Bobby Davro and others. He was also known among his peers as “the Late John Langdon” for his nerve-racking – for producers, at least – trait of delivering scripts at the last minute. One friend put it that he never delivered “on time” but only “in time”.
While his brilliance kept him in work, colleagues regarded him as a one-off, his appearance characterised by a gaucho moustache, wild hair, a hat and a battered satchel hanging from his shoulder.
John Langdon was born in London on December 15 1947 to Monica (née Cronin) and Richard Langdon. As a child he excelled at music, playing the double bass and guitar. On leaving Hornchurch Grammar School he worked in a variety of jobs, from scaffolding to selling antiques on Portobello Road market.
In the evenings he was sometimes to be found in the Russian restaurant Borshcht ’n’ Tears, taking on the persona of Vanya Podzhopnikov, as half of faux-russian duo Bibs & Vanya. His guitar-playing accompanied the famed balalaika player Bibs Ekkel.
He broke into radio with a stint from 1978 until 1984 on Week Ending and was soon writing for The News Huddlines (from 1978 to 1981), alongside other writers such as Andy Hamilton. For his entire 10-year run (1980-90) on The News Quiz, in collaboration with the producer, he was the sole writer for the presenters Barry Took and Simon Hoggart.
From 1979 to 1981, with Geoff Atkinson, Bremner’s later producer, he scripted episodes of Stop the World … the show featuring “amusing and bizarre stories from home and abroad”.
After teaming up with Langdon, Bremner’s big break came in
1985, when he was invited on to the Wogan chat show, in which he did impersonations of cricket commentators. He followed it with a Top 20 single, N-n-nineteen (Not Out), a parody of Paul Hardcastle’s anti-war song 19 written with Langdon and Kim Fuller and released under the name of the Commentators.
Now – Something Else (1986-87), Bremner’s first television series, was straightforward light entertainment of the type previously seen in shows by the mimic Mike Yarwood.
In the eponymously titled Rory Bremner (1988-92), he and Langdon – as script editor – were encouraged to become more satirical by their script consultant John Wells, who had been at the heart of the 1960s satire boom. Two of his peers, the writer-performers John Bird and John Fortune, were added to the mix.
As the comedy became spikier, Bremner felt that the BBC was holding him back, so he – along with Langdon, Wells, Bird and Fortune – debunked to Channel 4 for his next series, Rory Bremner – Who Else? (1993-98).
Langdon and Bremner wrote sketches and monologues together, and relished the chance to be topical by recording the show the night before transmission.
Meanwhile, Bird and Fortune developed their own two-handers in “interviews” pillorying establishment figures and policies. This contribution was acknowledged in the title of the subsequent series, Bremner, Bird & Fortune (1999-2008).
Early in his career, Langdon and others, such as Ben Elton and Rik Mayall, wrote for the 1986 series Saturday Live, a Channel 4 show mixing variety and edgy comedy. He also contributed to Roland Rat: The Series and Not the Nine O’clock News.
His later radio work included the sitcom Lean on Me (2002), written with Bruce Hyman and Richard Warren and starring Maureen Lipman and Julia Mckenzie, and Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency (2007-08), which he adapted with Dirk Maggs from Douglas Adams’s comic fantasy novels, with Harry Enfield starring.
Langdon’s last television show with Bremner was Rory Bremner’s Election Report (2015); before his death, the pair were working on scripts for Bremner’s appearance in a tour of the radio panel game I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue.
Bremner has said of Langdon that he was “the kindest, most generous, least judgmental man you could ever meet”. They lost contact for a while, and Bremner found out that it was because Langdon had been unwell, but wanted no one to know.
Langdon’s first marriage ended in divorce. In 1975 he married Rosalind Jardine, who survives him along with their son.
John Langdon, born December 15 1947, died March 23 2020