John Bird: actor and comedian dies aged 86

The actor and comedian John Bird has died aged 86, his representatives have said.

Bird became known for sketches performed alongside John Fortune and Rory Bremner in Channel 4’s satirical show Bremner, Bird and Fortune. The show ran for 16 series, as well as one-off specials, between 1999 and 2008.

A statement announcing Bird’s death said he had died “peacefully” at Pendean care home in West Sussex. A family funeral will be followed by a celebration of his life in the new year, it added.

Bird and Fortune became household names with their The Long Johns comedy skits. In the set pieces, which were largely improvised, one of the two actors would always portray a senior figure from public life being interviewed by the other.

Bremner, Bird and Fortune on the NHS

The interviewer would try to grill the fictional businessman, government consultant or bumbling politician, who always went by the name of George Parr.

The comedians were nominated for four Baftas and won the TV award in 1997 for their work on Channel 4’s Rory Bremner, Who Else? Bird, Bremner and Fortune also collaborated in the BBC show Now Something Else.

On Wednesday, Bremner paid tribute to his former colleague, calling him “one of our greatest satirists”. He said it was ironic that someone “so brilliant at portraying ministers, civil servants or high-ranking officials who exuded self-satisfaction, was himself so modest and self-effacing”.

“John Bird was, to the end, never pleased with himself, always feeling he should have done better, been less lazy, had a late period like Brahms, ‘where everything was spare and abstract’,” Bremner said.

“The reality was that he and his friend and collaborator John Fortune, together with Peter Cook, were pillars of the anti-establishment.”

Bremner added it was “striking” Bird had died on Christmas Eve “nine years, almost to the day” after Fortune, who died aged 74 on New Year’s Eve in 2013.

“Lord knows, satire has missed them this last decade and now that loss is permanent,” he said. “John may not have felt he got his life right, but by god he got it written.”

Bremner added that seeing Bird and Fortune work was the “highlight” of his life and he would “marvel at the genius of it all”.

Rory Bremner (centre) on stage at the Albery Theatre with John Bird (left) and John Fortune. Photograph: PA Images/Alamy

Born in Nottingham, Bird went to a grammar school before going to Cambridge and meeting his comedy partner Fortune.

While there, he also directed the comedian Peter Cook and the actor Eleanor Bron in the 1959 Cambridge Footlights Revue, an annual show by the university comedy club, which has also had David Mitchell, Richard Ayoade and Eric Idle among its members.

Bird then joined the Royal Court Theatre as an assistant director, hosted the first episode of Beyond the Fringe, directed Austrian-American singer Lotte Lenya in a Brecht revue, and opened nightclub the Establishment Club with Cook in London, and New York.

Over the course of his career, Bird also made appearances in fantasy comedy film Jabberwocky, comedy shows Yes, Prime Minister, A Very Peculiar Practice, Chambers and One Foot in the Grave, as well as detective shows Jonathan Creek, Inspector Morse and Midsomer Murders.

He is survived by his wife, Libby, a concert pianist, along with his stepsons Dan and Josh.