In 1981 I saw Bob Goody and Patrick Barlow in the National Theatre of Brent while at university. It was a revelation to discover you didn’t have to be in Monty Python to be as funny as Monty Python. Two months later, I had written and performed in my first comic play, never having dreamed of a life on the stage.
Hugh Laurie remembers seeing Bob taking his daughters to school in Archer Street, Soho, next to the strip club. I was working a lot in Soho in the late 1980s and would also often see Bob charging around with his girls in a buggy, but was too frightened to approach him and tell him how he had inspired me, for fear he’d think I was a tit.
