Peter Baynham is a Welsh screenwriter, stand-up comedian and performer. His writing work includes collaborations with comedy figures such as Armando Iannucci, Steve Coogan, Chris Morris, Sacha Baron Cohen and Sarah Smith. Born in Cardiff, Wales, Baynham served in the British Merchant Navy at age 16 with a desire to travel the world after leaving school and later pursued a career in comedy as a stand-up comedian and then he became a writer and a performer for various news and sketch comedies in radio and television. He also became a writer in feature film.

In television, with Iannucci and Coogan, Baynham is a writer for the sitcom I'm Alan Partridge and a presenter for the satirical comedy sketch show The Saturday Night Armistice. With Morris, he is a writer for the satirical comedy miniseries The Day Today, Brass Eye and Jam. Baynham himself created, wrote and directed the adult animated black comedy miniseries I Am Not an Animal. In feature film, with Baron Cohen, Baynham is a writer for the comedy films Borat (2006), Brüno (2009), Grimsby (2016) and Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (2020). With Smith, he is a writer for the animated films Arthur Christmas (2011) and Ron's Gone Wrong (2021). With Iannucci and Coogan again, Baynham is a writer for the crime comedy film Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa (2013). Other feature films as a writer include the romantic comedy film Arthur (2011) and the animated film Hotel Transylvania (2012).

Early life

Baynham was born and raised in Cardiff, Wales as the second of four children. He attended St Mary's Primary School in Canton and Lady Mary RC High School in Cyncoed. Baynham said he found school difficult, finding himself shy, weedy and unpopular. He found himself too unathletic to enjoy rugby, despite expectations from his father. He left school with eight O-Levels, four with an "A" grade and joined the British Merchant Navy at age 16 with a desire to travel the world. Baynham described his experience in the British Merchant Navy as unsuited to his character, saying "I was with men who drank beer for breakfast. A lot of them were fascist, and I mean really fascist. They say travel should broaden the mind but these blokes would have been kicked out of the Ku Klux Klan for being too extreme". Baynham is qualified to navigate a supertanker. After five years, he was made redundant due to government cuts in defence. He went on to serve as second mate on a private yacht in Monte Carlo, Monaco as a summer job.

Aiming to break into television, Baynham wrote one-liner jokes for a Terry Wogan-presented Friday Night show. He was unimpressed by Wogan's delivery of the jokes. Baynham also became a guest and contributor for the radio show The Chris Morris Music Show, but he was suspended by the BBC for two weeks for conceiving a joke where Morris falsely implies on air that Michael Heseltine had died. Baynham stated that Morris technically did not announce his death, saying "if there is any news of Michael Heseltine's death in the next hour, we'll let you know". Coogan credited Baynham for making Alan Partridge more human and sympathetic. Baynham also served as a presenter of the satirical comedy sketch show The Saturday Night Armistice. Baynham created and performed the character "Terry from Pontypridd" in a popular television advertising campaign for Pot Noodle, promoted with the catchphrase "they're too gorgeous". The campaign propelled Baynham to unexpected fame which he reported that strangers would shout "gorgeous" at him in public and that a university student would threw a Pot Noodle at him on stage, while touring with Lee and Herring. Baynham has written with Morris for the satirical black comedy miniseries Brass Eye and its controversial special "Paedogeddon!" that attracted widespread media attention for its comedic portrayal of paedophilia. Baynham also wrote the Bob and Margaret episode "Neighbors" as well as writing the additional material for the three episodes of the sketch show Big Train. He even served as a writer for the radio series Blue Jam which was adapted into the TV miniseries Jam that Baynham and Morris worked together on. Under director Jason Winer, he became a writer for the 2011 romantic comedy film Arthur, a remake of the 1981 film of the same name.

Earlier in 2005, Baynham conceived of a Christmas story (where Santa Claus has an "impractical and useless" son) and collaborated with Sarah Smith at Aardman Animations to write a screenplay for the 2011 animated film Arthur Christmas. The story deals with Santa's global operation to deliver presents to every child, which Baynham said he considered with a "pedantic" detail such as what would be mathematically possible in 12 hours with one million elves and a mile wide spaceship. Under director Genndy Tartakovsky, Baynham became a writer for the 2012 animated film Hotel Transylvania. He even became an executive producer for the 2012 political satire black comedy film The Dictator which he worked with Baron Cohen on. He collaborated with Armando Iannucci and Steve Coogan again to create an Alan Partridge feature film and he became a writer for the 2013 crime comedy film Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa. and continued this collaboration as a writer for the 2020 mockumentary comedy film Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, a sequel to the previous Borat film. In the same year, Baynham also collaborated with Smith on her animation studio Locksmith Animation's first animated feature film Ron's Gone Wrong.

Reputation

James Rampton of The Independent described Baynham as "an anonymous foot-soldier in Armando Iannucci's all-conquering comedy army".

See also

  • List of Academy Award winners and nominees from Great Britain

References

  • Baynham article from The Guardian on "dark" humour
  • Baynham entry on Cookdandbombd
  • Peter Baynham – His Own Bit, in The Guardian
  • BBC Comedy A-Z
  • Brain Cigar Website