Barry Took (19 June 192831 March 2002) was an English writer, television presenter and comedian. His decade-and-a-half writing partnership with Marty Feldman led to the television series Bootsie and Snudge, the radio comedy Round the Horne and other projects. He is also remembered in the UK for presenting Points of View, a BBC Television programme featuring viewers' letters on the BBC's output, and the BBC Radio 4 programme The News Quiz. Early life and education The son of a manager at the Danish Bacon Company, Took was born in Victoria Road, Muswell Hill, north London, and lived in Winton Avenue, Bounds Green. When evacuated to Wisbech in Cambridgeshire during the Second World War, he ran away from his assigned home there, cycling 20 miles to Peterborough in order to get a train back to London. He attended Stationers School but left at the age of 15. His elder brother Philip would eventually work for the US Space Program before dying as a young man. Career With his limited education, Took found work as an office boy for a publisher and a cinema projectionist. During his period of National Service in the Royal Air Force, in which he played the trumpet, he began performing and later worked as a stand-up comedian, eventually becoming a West End revue performer, working on For Amusement Only and For Adults Only. In terms of his comedy writing, Took's best work was written in collaboration with Marty Feldman, whom he first met in 1954. The two men wrote for several television shows in the 1950s and '60s, including The Army Game and its spin-off Bootsie and Snudge. He co-wrote Beyond Our Ken for two series (1958–59) with Eric Merriman for BBC Radio before leaving after a disagreement with his fellow writer. With Marty Feldman he wrote most episodes of Round the Horne; the intermittent partnership between them continued until 1974. In the late 1960s Took became comedy advisor to the BBC, and was responsible for bringing together the performers who formed Monty Python's Flying Circus before he moved to the US to work briefly on Rowan and Martin's Laugh In. He returned to the UK in early 1970 and was involved in setting up the BBC series The Goodies, although he had returned to take up the position of Head of Light Entertainment at London Weekend Television. He resigned from this position when Stella Richman, his