John Antrobus obituary

"John Antrobus, who has died aged 92, was just 21 when in 1955 he joined the writers' cooperative Associated London Scripts. Based in an office above a greengrocer's shop in Shepherd's Bush, it housed a cradle of talent shaking up postwar television and radio comedy. Newly out of army officer training at Sandhurst, with a father who was a regimental sergeant-major and arriving wearing a herringbone suit, he found himself among a new generation sticking two fingers up at the establishment."

"Spike took a fancy to my work and we got on well, Antrobus recalled in a 2015 radio interview. He was very fatherly, really ... always telling me, Look after your money.' Then Spike asked me to work on The Goon Show. Antrobus, who loved the programme's irreverence and surreal humour, scripted two 1958 episodes with Milligan, although he said he resisted offers to do more for the Goons because his ambition was to be a playwright."

"This worked to his advantage when Milligan was commissioned to write a satirical play for the Tomorrow's Audience theatre company founded by Richard Ingrams and John Duncan and he needed help to meet a deadline. The Bed-Sitting Room, set in London following a nuclear attack, with survivors believing themselves to be transformed into inanimate objects, was performed as a one-act play at the Marlowe t"

He died aged 92. He joined Associated London Scripts in 1955 at age 21, based above a greengrocer's shop in Shepherd's Bush among writers reshaping postwar television and radio comedy. Newly out of Sandhurst and from a military family, he initially worked with Johnny Speight and scripted The Frankie Howerd Show on BBC radio in 1955–56. His most fruitful partnership came with Spike Milligan; he scripted two 1958 episodes of The Goon Show but resisted further work to pursue playwriting. He co-wrote the film The Wrong Arm of the Law (1963) with Ray Galton and Alan Simpson and helped Milligan complete The Bed-Sitting Room.

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