Tim Brooke-Taylor's county show a real Goodie

The show, the latest in the Church Stretton Festival programme, saw veteran TV presenter Mr Searle spend about two hours interviewing Mr Brooke-Taylor about his long and distinguished career in film, television and radio.

Sitting in a comfy chair angled towards the audience, the 73-year-old recalled his early years growing up in a family of Derbyshire lawyers - "the mafia of lawyers in Buxton" - and attending Cambridge University.

His first audition at university saw 33 people going for 32 parts, and he turned out to be the 33rd. "So my acting career did not get off to a great start", he admitted.

John Cleese, Graham Chapman and Graeme Garden were also there and they all became part of the Footlights Club.

"We all loved what we were doing but thought we would have to get a proper job at some point," he recalled.

But first his revue group went on to tour Australia, New Zealand and America,where they performed on the Ed Sullivan Show.

Later he worked with comedy greats including Spike Milligan and Marty Feldman, but thanks David Frost for helping to really establish his career.

The audience was shown clips from several programmes, including At Last the 1948 Show, and The Goodies, which made Mr Brooke-Taylor, Bill Oddie and Graeme Garden hugely famous in the 1970s.

He also spoke about directing the legendary Orson Welles and acting in the 1971 film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, in which he played a computer operator. His five-minute scene was filmed in the actual Nestle factory.

In a 50-year career which has brought laughter to millions, he did speak about one very dark spot - when The Goodies' brand of comedy was praised by clean-up TV campaigner Mary Whitehouse.

Their response? An hilarious send up called How to Make a Baby by Doing Dirty Things – which included giving flowers and chocolates, undressing but remaining covered by duvets, and shaking hands.

Speaking before Saturday's performance Mr Brooke-Taylor said the show worked because he and Mr Searle made sure they did not perform it too often.

"This is the second year we've been doing this and we perform occasionally, which keeps it fresh. Our next one is in Windsor in early September.

"Chris interviews me and changes his questions. We use anecdotes and people can ask us questions at the end, so it has a relaxed feeling to it. He won't let me see the questions, either."

As well as The goodies, Mr Brooke-Taylor is well-known for spending the past 40 years as a team-member on Radio 4's I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, and the recent BBC1 hit Animal Antics.

"We wanted to call it Newshound," he said, "but the BBC changed it because they thought it would sound like a news programme."

Mr Brooke-Taylor admits he has always preferred performing to writing, due to its lonely nature, but has picked up plenty of writing tricks along the way, especially while working on The Goodies.

He said: "What we learned with The Goodies was to write for ourselves and not the audience.

"The first couple of series were not that great, but when we were started playing the characters regularly the audience knew how to react – we assumed the audience was bright.

"Television seems to have almost come full circle now and sometimes it can be a shame, but I do love shows like Not Going Out When, which is excellent."

Despite working all over the country, neither performer had been to his area of Shropshire before.

"I've never been to Church Stretton but I was completely knocked over the hills," said Mr Brooke-Taylor.

Mr Searle, on the other hand, was so impressed he said he might return one day to try an old hobby.

"We came to Church Stretton simply because we were invited," he said. "It's a lovely town, which I hadn't visited before.

"I used to do a lot of gilding in the south of England and the Long Mynd is legendary for that, so I might pop up one afternoon."