"Jimmy Gilbert, who has died aged 93, was the BBC producer who commissioned many of the Corporation’s most enduring comedies, including Yes Minister; The Two Ronnies; Fawlty Towers; The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin; The Good Life; Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? and Last of the Summer Wine. The fountainhead for many of these was The Frost Report (1966-67), the idea for which was hatched by Gilbert and David Frost, who had already established his name as host of the topical satirical show That Was The Week That Was (1962-3). Intent on creating a new type of social comedy, they set off on a Europe-wide tour of festivals, clubs and revue bars looking for talent, but came back empty-handed. Back in Britain, Gilbert recommended Ronnie Barker, a radio and stage performer who had appeared on screen with Benny Hill and Jimmy Edwards. Frost suggested Ronnie Corbett, whom he had seen performing in late-night cabaret with Danny La Rue. Gilbert was doubtful, but Frost saw potential and persuaded Corbett to join up. Other recruits included John Cleese, with Julie Felix, Tom Lehrer, Sheila Steafel and Nicky Henson completing the original cast. The team of writers included Antony (later Sir Antony) Jay (co-creator of Yes Minister), Bill Oddie and Tim Brooke-Taylor – who became two thirds of The Goodies – Graham Chapman, Marty Feldman, Barry Cryer, Keith Waterhouse, Willis Hall, Peter Tinniswood, Frank Muir and Denis Norden, and David Nobbs (creator of The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin). A visit by Frost and Gilbert to a revue at the Rehearsal Club above the Royal Court Theatre led them, in addition, to hire a writing duo called Michael Palin and Terry Jones, who also appeared as extras in Frost Report sketches. Then Brooke-Taylor asked his friend Eric Idle to join the writing team. Cleese, Chapman, Palin, Jones and Idle would, in due course, go on to create Monty Python’s Flying Circus together – and numerous other shows on their own. The Frost Report, produced by Gilbert, only ran for two seasons in 1966 and 1967 and a special one-off edition, Frost Over England, won the Golden Rose of Montreux in 1967. But as Sir Antony Jay later recalled, “the shrapnel enriched British comedy for years to come.” Frost and Gilbert recognised the chemistry between Barker and Corbett and started to write for them as a duo. Sketches such as Cleese, Barker and Corbett’s “I look up to him” satire on the British class system, written by Marty Feldman and John Law, became oft-repeated classics. When Frost moved to ITV, Barker and Corbett moved with him. But in 1971 Gilbert lured them back to the BBC as stars of their own show, The Two Ronnies, which would run until 1986 with an average audience of around 15 million viewers. Gilbert, who produced the first series, and the director Terry Hughes, were largely responsible for establishing the pattern of the show with its quick-fire verbal gags, double entendres and cavalcade of naive caricatures of British life: bumbling colonels, half-witted yokels and bosomy barmaids. Cecil James Gilbert was born in Edinburgh on May 5 1923. He was educated at Edinburgh University and Rada, spent four years in the RAF, and cut his teeth as an actor/writer at the Citizen’s Theatre, Glasgow, where he became friends with the comedian Stanley Baxter. Having moved to London in the late 1950s to take a job as a BBC producer, Gilbert called Baxter, whose career was at a low ebb, and offered him his own satirical sketch show, On The Bright Side, which he co-hosted with Betty Marsden from 1959 to 1960, and which launched the comedian on a successful career south of the border. In 1961 Gilbert also directed the pair in On the Brighter Side, a revue based on the show, at the Phoenix Theatre." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2016/07/08/jimmy-gilbert-bbc-producer-who-presided-over-a-golden-age-of-lig/
