PeterBaynham

Peter Baynham worked in the Merchant Navy for several years before dipping his toe into comedy waters by touring his stand-up character Mr. Buckstead (a psychotic poet) and writing material for Radio 4's topical comedy Week Ending.

It was this radio show that was to prove a formative milestone in his career, as there he met Stewart Lee, Richard Herring and Armando Iannucci, all of whom he was to collaborate with regularly throughout the 1990s.

Iannucci invited Baynham to join the brains trust behind seminal news spoof The Day Today and in the mid-Nineties the pair teamed up again, this time on-screen, together with David Schneider to present satirical review series The Saturday Night Armistice.

Meanwhile Baynham both wrote and performed on Lee and Herring's Fist of Fun, but by the late 1990s his acting roles became rarer as he concentrated on writing.

He joined forces again with Iannucci and Steve Coogan to pen the acclaimed sitcom I'm Alan Partridge, and with Chris Morris on Brass Eye and Jam, before writing and directing his own BBC TWO series, jilted animation I am Not an Animal.

Baynham's writing continues to go from strength to strength and in 2007 he was Oscar-nominated for his work on the screenplay for Borat.