Iain Pattinson (2 January 1953 – 14 February 2021) was a British

scriptwriter A screenplay writer (also called screenwriter, scriptwriter, scribe or scenarist) is a writer who practices the craft of screenwriting, writing screenplays on which mass media, such as films, television programs and video games, are based. T ...

. His work included writing the chairman's script for the long-running

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...

panel game ''

I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue ''I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue'' is a BBC radio comedy panel game. Billed as "the antidote to panel games", it consists of two teams of two comedians being given "silly things to do" by a chairman. The show was launched in April 1972 as a parod ...

'', delivered by the programme's veteran chairman

Humphrey Lyttelton Humphrey Richard Adeane Lyttelton (23 May 1921 – 25 April 2008), also known as Humph, was an English jazz musician and broadcaster from the Lyttelton family. Having taught himself the trumpet at school, Lyttelton became a professional ...

from 1992 until Lyttelton's death in 2008. Pattinson continued to write the scripts for subsequent chairmen, including

Jack Dee James Andrew Innes Dee (born 24 September 1961), known professionally as Jack Dee, is an English stand-up comedian, actor, presenter and writer known for his sarcasm, irony and deadpan humour. He wrote and starred in the sitcom ''Lead Balloon'' ...

, for a further 11 years.

Early life and education

Pattinson was born in

Sidcup Sidcup is an area of south-east London, England, primarily in the London Borough of Bexley. It is south-east of Charing Cross, bordering the London Boroughs of Bromley and Greenwich. Before the creation of Greater London in 1965, it was in the ...

. He attended Chislehurst and Sidcup Grammar School, leaving before his

A level The A-Level (Advanced Level) is a subject-based qualification conferred as part of the General Certificate of Education, as well as a school leaving qualification offered by the educational bodies in the United Kingdom and the educational au ...

s. His father Geoffrey (1924–2018) worked in shipping; a D-Day veteran who served in the 9th Parachute Battalion, Geoffrey's portrait was painted by

Jonathan Yeo Jonathan Yeo (born 18 December 1970, in London, England) is a British artist who rose to international prominence in his early 20s as a contemporary portraitist, having painted Kevin Spacey, Dennis Hopper, Cara Delevingne, Damien Hirst, Prince ...

for the Royal Collection in 2015.

Career

After leaving school, Pattinson worked at

Shell Shell may refer to: Architecture and design * Shell (structure), a thin structure ** Concrete shell, a thin shell of concrete, usually with no interior columns or exterior buttresses ** Thin-shell structure Science Biology * Seashell, a hard o ...

, eventually becoming a marketing executive at the company before leaving to take up comedy scriptwriting.

Scripts

Pattinson's scripts are well known for their use of

double entendre A double entendre (plural double entendres) is a figure of speech or a particular way of wording that is devised to have a double meaning, of which one is typically obvious, whereas the other often conveys a message that would be too socially ...

, often centred around the supposed sexual proclivities of the chairman's fictitious assistant, Samantha: "Samantha is off to see a chef gentleman friend who is renowned for his fine-quality offal dishes. While she's very keen on his kidneys in red wine and his oxtail in beer, Samantha says it's difficult to beat his famous tongue in cider." They also played on whatever location the show was being recorded, such as "By the 1890s, Wimbledon was well established as a commuter town with regular horse buses running to the city. However, when the electric tramline arrived in 1907, the horses went to London on that instead." Dee said Pattinson's "unique brilliance was his ability to combine the absurd with the plausible." Pattinson was also a writer on many other well-known TV and radio light entertainment programmes, including ''

Week Ending ''Week Ending'' was a satirical radio current affairs sketch show broadcast on BBC Radio 4 between 1970 and 1998. It was devised by writer-producers Simon Brett and David Hatch and was originally hosted by '' Nationwide'' presenter Michael B ...

'', ''

The News Quiz ''The News Quiz'' is a British topical panel game broadcast on BBC Radio 4. History ''The News Quiz'' was first broadcast in 1977 with Barry Norman as chairman. Subsequently, it was chaired by Barry Took from 1979 to 1981, Simon Hoggart f ...

'', '' Would I Lie to You?'' and '' Bring Me the Head of Light Entertainment'', as well as the author of several books.List of credits at pbjmanagement
/ref> He died of

leukaemia Leukemia ( also spelled leukaemia and pronounced ) is a group of blood cancers that usually begin in the bone marrow and result in high numbers of abnormal blood cells. These blood cells are not fully developed and are called ''blasts'' or ...

, survived by his mother Audrey and his sister Edwina.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pattinson, Iain 1953 births 2021 deaths People from Sidcup British comedy writers British male television writers I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue