彼得·库克，Peter Cook (born in Torquay on 17 November 1937) was, without doubt, one of the most intelligent wits of his or any other generation. Yet despite his obvious talent, his film and television output was erratic at best. This is especially true in the decades following his 1960s creative peak, when projects became relatively sporadic and his behaviour increasingly unpredictable (Cook himself often admitted that his ambition ran out at the age of 24). Nevertheless, Cook's legacy is some of the finest comedy to have been produced in Britain. His influence on the British comedy scene remains immense.A child of the Cambridge Footlights, Cook came to prominence between 1960 and 1963 with Beyond the Fringe, the stage comedy revue featuring himself and fellow Oxbridge students Dudley Moore, Alan Bennett and Jonathan Miller.The four 'satirists' (as they became labelled) moved into television with less than enthusiastically-received appearances in the first three episodes of the arts series Tempo (ITV, 1961-68), where they provided 'satirical comment on the cultural scene'. They were to reprise sketches from the original revue itself in Beyond the Fringe (BBC, tx. 12/12/1964).Cook more or less confirmed his leading satirist status, at least in London, with his co-founding of the Establishment Club in 1961 (it folded within two years) and his acquisition in 1962 of the majority shareholding in the magazine Private Eye (which he retained until his death).On television, however, Cook's satirical thunder was stolen by the success of That Was The Week That Was (BBC, 1962-63), launched while he was working in America He would only become familiar to a wider audience with his appearances, from late 1964, in sporadic episodes of On The Braden Beat (ITV, 1962-67) as his creation E.L. Wisty.His television popularity was sealed by the success of Not Only... But Also (BBC, 1965-70), originally envisaged as a showcase solely for Dudley Moore but soon becoming a platform for the pair's inspi