Peter Edward Cook (
17 November 1937 –
9 January 1995) was an
English satirist,
writer and
comedian. Cook is widely regarded as the leading figure in the British
satire boom of the 1960s. He has been described by
Stephen Fry as 'the funniest man who ever drew breath'. He is closely associated with an
anti-establishment style of comedy that first emerged in the late
1950s.
Cook was born at Shearbridge, Middle Warberry Road, Torquay, Devon, the only son and eldest of the three children of Alexander Edward (Alec) Cook (d. 1984), a colonial civil servant, and his wife (Ethel Catherine) Margaret, née Mayo (d. 1994). He was educated at Radley School and later Pembroke College at the University of Cambridge, where he read French and German. It was at Pembroke that he performed and wrote comedy sketches as a member of the prestigious Cambridge Footlights Club, of which he became President in 1960.
While still at university, Cook wrote professionally for Kenneth Williams, for whom he created a successful West End revue show called "One Over the Eight", before finding fame in his own right as a star of the satirical stage show, Beyond the Fringe, together with Jonathan Miller, Alan Bennett and Dudley Moore.
The show included Cook impersonating the then Prime Minister Harold Macmillan this was one of the first occasions that political mimicry had been done in live theatre, and caused some shock amongst audiences. During one performance, Macmillan himself was in the theatre, and having spotted him Cook departed from his script and directly attacked him verbally.
