HARRY THOMPSONHarry Thompson, a non-smoker who died of inoperable lung cancer on 7 November, 2005, aged 45, will always be remembered as one of the most successful television comedy writers and producers of his generation.His legendary TV creations, including ‘Have I Got News For You’ and ‘They Think It’s All Over’, delighted audiences for decades.A massive fan of cricket, Mr Thompson was also a successful radio producer, author and biographer, whose most recent publication was a historical novel concerning the voyages of ‘The Beagle’.The British Comedy Awards had planned to present him with a Jury’s Award for his outstanding contribution to the genre at its ceremony a month after his death.Harry Thompson was born on 6 February, 1960, and educated at Highgate Grammar School for Boys, before going on to Brasenose College, Oxford, where he studied history and was editor of the university newspaper.After taking a news and directors’ trainee course at the BBC, he began his career working for ‘Newsnight’.However, he later described his time there as “the most awful experience of my life” and soon went on to join BBC radio, producing several comedy shows including ‘The News Quiz’ and Alexei Sayle’s ‘Lenin of the Rovers’.It was his friend, Ian Hislop, who suggested him as producer for Hat Trick’s news-based comedy panel show titled ‘Have I Got News For You.’ ‘They Think It’s All Over’, a sports-based panel show, soon followed and Mr Thompson quickly became a well-known name within the industry.The 1990s saw the cult ‘11 O’Clock Show’ hit British screens, as well as ‘Harry Enfield and Chums’ and ‘Never Mind the Buzzcocks’.Meanwhile , he was also gaining a reputation as a prolific writer with biographies of Richard Ingrams, Herge and Peter Cook. Fiction and travel-writing too made an appearance, with his novel ‘This Thing of Darkness’ long-listed for the Booker Prize.Shortly after completing it, however, Mr Thompson was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer, despite having never smoked in his life and eating only organic food. There were additional complications too, including pneumonia, about which he was typically wry.He married girlfriend Lisa Whadcock on 7 November, 2005. He died later that day at the age of 45.In 2003, the Observer newspaper listed Mr Thompson as one of the 50 funniest or most influential people in British comedy.His comedy creations live on today, with ‘Have I Got News For You’ and ‘They Think It’s All Over’ alone notching up hundreds of episodes and still going strong. Panellist and close friend Ian Hislop himself recently described Mr Thompson’s shows as “a complete and astounding legacy in themselves.”“He was that rarity in television,” BBC One controller Peter Fincham said after his death, “the talented, single-minded, subversive maverick.”Bizarrely, Mr Thompson established his own cricket team, ‘Captain Scott XI’, which undertook world tours but were regularly beaten. They even played one match in Antarctica, inspiring the book ‘Penguins Stopped Play’, a semi-autobiographica l record of his involvement in the team.
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