The Undiscovered Peter Cook

A wonderful BBC4 film exploring the considerable archive recently opened up by Peter Cook's third wife Lin, shortly before her own death last week. It's a treasure trove for fans, featuring as it does, holiday footage, an unreleased interview in which the rakish young comic discusses blasphemy, a few Cook cover versions of Elvis songs and, particularly excitingly, an unreleased Derek and Clive clip. There's also some intriguing scuttlebutt about the possibility of Cook having had an affair with former Flotus Jackie Kennedy.

Peter Cook's widow Lin dies at 71

Peter Cook's widow Lin has died at the age of 71.

The Undiscovered Peter Cook (BBC Four, Wednesday) was, among other things, a strong argument against the current fad for decluttering. When Cook died in 1995, his wife Lin locked up his Hampstead house just as it was, with a lifetime of memorabilia scattered about, and refused all requests to look inside. 'Until,' as the unseen presenter Victor Lewis-Smith inevitably put it, 'now.'

In fact, this thumping cliché pointed to the one disappointment about the programme: that the unruly talents of Lewis-Smith and Cook himself were combined to produce a documentary that not only observed TV conventions so scrupulously, but that also treated its subject with a most un-Cook-like reverence.

Happily, there was no denying the quality of the material that Lewis-Smith unearthed from various cardboard boxes, shelves and carpets. Home movies from the 1930s reminded us how posh Cook's upbringing was, by featuring garden parties and servants -- and by being home movies from the 1930s. We also got any number of never-before-seen clips, including from Cook's fabled 1971 chat show, originally planned to last 13 episodes, but pulled after three. (Left with a sudden gap in the schedules, the BBC hastily replaced Cook with a journalist called Michael Parkinson.)

Given the reverent tone -- which was presumably linked to Lin's involvement -- Cook's last years were duly treated with almost Jeeves-like discretion. Cook, Lewis-Smith told us, was by no means the 'tortured genius' of popular imagining, and had 'long periods off the booze', once 'even' giving up for seven months. Yet, despite such efforts, the final sections of this programme were distinctly melancholy too -- not least when Lin rather gave the game away by explaining that she once asked her husband why he drank so much. 'Despair, really,' Cook replied.

What happened between Peter Cook and Jackie Kennedy?

All parts of the comic's life are explored in The Undiscovered Peter Cook - from his love of playing golf on the cobbles outside his house - and creating a ball game named 'Los Bollockos', to his nights on the town with members of the Rolling Stones. His many romances are also touched on; from love letters to wife Liz to his fleeting dalliance with Jackie Kennedy.

But what really happened between the boy from Devon and America's First Lady - and one of the most stylish women in the world - Jackie Kennedy (later Onassis) is uncertain. What we do know is there was almost definitely a romantic fling between the unlikely pair.

Preview - The Undiscovered Peter Cook

To this day Peter Cook is still considered one of the greatest comedians to have ever lived. A key part of the 1960s satire boom, financial backer for Private Eye magazine, and famed for his partnership with Dudley Moore on TV in Not Only... But Also and on record in the foul-mouth Derek & Clive, Cook was even named The Comedians' Comedian to find the comic most admired by other comedians.

Why I love Peter Cook

As the BBC screens a documentary featuring new material from the comedy master who died in 1995, Ben Dowell salutes a legend.

Inside the secret world of Peter Cook

Two decades after he died we uncover a treasure trove of his comedy gold.

TV review: The Undiscovered Peter Cook, BBC4

It's the kind of scoop every journalist/documentarist dreams of. Getting access to hitherto unseen archives of someone dead and famous. And that is exactly what Victor Lewis-Smith landed when Peter Cook's widow Lin allowed him to rummage through Cook's personal possessions in his Hampstead mews home that hadn't been touched since his death in 1995. The results have been painstakingly cherry picked and put together to produce this fascinating doc on a man who has already had umpteen fascinating docs made about him.

BBC to broadcast sketch containing the c-word 12 times

The Undiscovered Peter Cook features a 70-second piece of dialogue between Cook and his comedy co-conspirator Dudley Moore that uses the c-word 12 times and the f-word 15 times. It's rapid-fire vulgarity and is, almost certainly, the most profanity riddled rant ever broadcast on British TV.