We were very sad to hear of John Pidgeon’s death on 19 July 2016.

Along with the Linda Smith Collection, John Pidgeon’s deposit of audio interviews, primarily recorded for radio, was one of the foundation collections, and inspiration for, the establishment of the British Stand-Up Comedy Archive in 2013.

John Pidgeon was a successful journalist, author, radio producer and comedy producer.  John started his career in music journalism in the 1970s working for publications such ‘New Musical Express’ (NME) and becoming editor of ‘Let It Rock’ in 1973. In the early 1980s he began writing for radio, initially on music and pop, before making comedy radio programmes in the 1990s through independent production companies John Pidgeon Productions and later Gilmour Productions.

The John Pidgeon Collection archived with the British Stand-Up Comedy Archive includes original audio interviews, on Digital Audio Tapes (DAT), recorded with comedians for the programmes ‘Laughing Matters’ (recorded 1994-1995 and broadcast on British Airways Radio), and ‘Talking Comedy’ (a show broadcast on BBC Radio 2 between 1996 and 2002). Both these programmes were interviews with comedians talking about their comedy heroes and inspiration.  This collection is a fantastic resource, featuring the unedited interviews (often between one and two hours in length) as well as the edited thirty minute programme as broadcast.  Comedians interviewed for ‘Laughing Matters’ and ‘Talking Comedy’ include Eddie Izzard, Alexei Sayle, Harry Hill, Jo Brand, Graham Norton, Al Murray, Phill Jupitus, Josie Lawrence, Ronni Ancona, as well as American comedy legends George Carlin and Joan Rivers.  John’s collection also includes interviews with comedians about Chic Murray (recorded for the BBC Radio 2 programme ‘Chic Murray: the Comic’s Comic’ in 1997; interviews with Barry Murphy, Tommy Tiernan and Jason Byrne about the Irish comedy scene; and even a unique interview with The Rolling Stones recorded in 1994.

In 1999 John became the head of BBC Radio Entertainment, a post which he held for 6 years, where he supported and produced for acts such as Ross Noble, Little Britain and Flight of the Concords. As well as original recordings from his career in radio production, John gave the Archive a large collection of published cassettes and CDs from the country’s most popular comedians, many of whom he had worked with; we are very lucky to have the personal comedy collection of a collector and comedy enthusiast.

Our thoughts are with John’s family and friends.

Interviews with comedians on DATs (Digital Audio Tapes) from the John Pidgeon Collection