Graeme Garden

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Graeme Garden bigraphy, stories - Comedians

Graeme Garden : biography

18 February 1943 –

David Graeme Garden OBE (born 18 February 1943) is a British author, actor, comedian, artist and television presenter, best known as a member of The Goodies.

Footlights presidency

Personal life and family

Graeme Garden is married to Emma and they have a son, Tom. Garden also has a daughter, Sally, and a son, John, from his previous marriage to Mary Elizabeth Wheatley Grice."Who’s Who on Television" – Independent Television Books, London, England (1985). ISBN 0-907965-31-8"Who’s Who on Television" – Independent Television Books, London, England (1988). ISBN 0-907965-49-0 His son John Garden is the keyboardist for the music group Scissor Sisters, and shares songwriting credit on their 2006 album.

Graeme Garden lives in Oxfordshire with his family; his leisure interests include painting and playing the banjo. He played the banjo in the Goodies episodes, "Gender Education", "Bunfight at the O.K. Tea Rooms" and "Daylight Robbery on the Orient Express".

Garden was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2011 Birthday Honours for services to light entertainment.

Graeme’s father, Robert Symon Garden, was an eminent orthopaedic surgeon who created the Garden classification of hip fractures and the Garden screw, used to repair certain hip fractures. He died on 16 October 1982 at the age of 72.http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1500675/pdf/bmjcred00636-0072.pdf

1970s and The Goodies

Garden, along with Tim Brooke-Taylor and Bill Oddie, became a co-writer and performer in the comedy series The Goodies (1970–1982). Later, he was the voice of the title character in Bananaman (1983), in addition to General Blight and Maurice of the Heavy Mob in the children’s animated television comedy series, which also featured the rest of the Goodies team. The series parodied comic book super-heroes.

With Tim Brooke-Taylor and Bill Oddie, Garden appeared in the Amnesty International show A Poke In The Eye (With A Sharp Stick) (during which they sang their hit song "Funky Gibbon").

In 1982 Garden and Oddie wrote, but did not perform in, a 6-part science fiction sitcom called Astronauts for Central and ITV. The show was set in an international space station in the near future.

Early life and beginnings in comedy

Born in Aberdeen, Scotland, he grew up in Preston, England. Garden was educated at Repton School, and studied medicine at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he joined the prestigious Cambridge University Footlights Club (of which he became President in 1964), and performed with the 1964 Footlights revue, Stuff What Dreams Are Made Of at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Garden qualified in medicine at King’s College London, but has never practised. Asked how he justified making jokes rather than saving lives, he answered:

Garden and Bill Oddie co-wrote many episodes of the television comedy series Doctor in the House, including most of the first season episodes of the series and all of the second season episodes, as well as co-writing episodes of the subsequent Doctor at Large and Doctor in Charge series. Later, Garden also wrote for Surgical Spirit (1994). Graeme Garden has also presented three series of the BBC’s health magazine Bodymatters.

Garden was co-writer and performer in the classic BBC radio comedy show, I’m Sorry, I’ll Read That Again (ISIRTA) (1965–1970, and 1973). Garden was studying medicine during the early seasons of I’m Sorry, I’ll Read That Again, and this commitment made it difficult for him to be a member of the cast during the third season because of a midwifery medical course in Plymouth. However, he kept on sending scripts for the radio show by mail – and rejoined the cast of ISIRTA upon his return to his medical studies in London.From Fringe to Flying Circus – ‘Celebrating a Unique Generation of Comedy 1960–1980’ – Roger Wilmut, Eyre Methuen Ltd, 1980. On several occasions his medical qualifications are lampooned; in the 25th Anniversary Show, David Hatch asks him if he’s still a writer. Garden: "Here’s something I wrote this morning". Hatch: "It’s a prescription". "Yes," says Garden, "but it’s a funny one…".