Jeremy Thorpe and Peter Cook

The death of Jeremy Thorpe will fill many column inches in the papers over the next few days. I'm old enough to remember his glory days and to have followed the scandal and prosecution which ruined him very closely. Out of this came one of my comic hero Peter Cook's best ever sketches. As I understand it, after the first performance of that year's Secret Policeman's Ball, there was criticism that it wasn't satirical enough. Stung by this, Cook went home and overnight produced this brilliant version of the judge's summing up of the case.