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Trevor Peacock, actor in The Vicar of Dibley who enjoyed early success on stage and writing hit songs – obituary

Trevor Peacock as Jim Trott in The Vicar of Dibley - TODD ANTONY  /Television Stills  
Trevor Peacock as Jim Trott in The Vicar of Dibley - TODD ANTONY /Television Stills

Trevor Peacock, the actor, who has died aged 89, started out in a comedy double act at the Windmill Theatre in London, wrote stage musicals, sketches for Peter Sellers, a No 1 US single for Herman’s Hermits, and performed with the RSC; but he found his greatest fame playing Jim Trott, rustic stalwart of the parish council in The Vicar of Dibley.

Trott was most memorable for his habit, particularly during parish debates, of repeatedly stuttering “no” – until finally switching to “yes!” The character, was twice married (once, accidentally, to a man) and had a reputation as the village lecher, with a taste for oriental women. He resembled, in the words of one critic, a “hairy troll”.

Peacock took the “no, no, no, no” catchphrase into a different context when Trott performed a tortuous rendition of the Abba song Knowing Me, Knowing You for Dawn French’s pioneering female vicar, Geraldine.

The actor appeared in every episode of the sitcom, including Comic Relief specials, from 1994 until 2015 – but was absent from the mini-shows of last Christmas.

Trevor Peacock in 1963 -  Daily Sketch/Shutterstock
Trevor Peacock in 1963 - Daily Sketch/Shutterstock

Trevor Edward Peacock was born in Tottenham, north London, in 1931 to Alexandra or “Queenie” (née Matthews), and Victor Peacock, a drug company sales rep.

Trevor was stage-struck as a child and put on shows at home for his family during the war.

“I loved the Crazy Gang and I wrote to them asking for signed photographs,” he recalled. “They sent me these huge black and white photographs. I wrote notes on all their scenes and how they could improve their comedy. I think I was only eight.”

Peacock performed in shows while attending Enfield Grammar School and during National Service as a corporal in the Army (1949-51) he not only proved to be a crack shot, but was also put in charge of entertainment for the troops.

Nevertheless, he started his working life teaching for several years at Cuckoo Hall Primary School in Edmonton, Middlesex.

His route into show business began when a mutual friend introduced him to Jack Good, then a student at Balliol College, Oxford.

Peacock with Tom Courtenay in The Lads for ITV's Television Playhouse - ITV/Shutterstock
Peacock with Tom Courtenay in The Lads for ITV's Television Playhouse - ITV/Shutterstock

In 1956, he and Good teamed up as a comedy double act, appearing between the female strippers’ performances at the Windmill, among other venues.

The charismatic Good went on to become a television producer and created Six-Five Special, the BBC’s first music show, launched in 1957 with a jiving young audience in the studio; he hired Peacock to write the scripts – and to perform a few comic turns.

Each programme started with the presenter Pete Murray announcing it was “time to jive on the old six-five”, alluding to the programme’s Saturday-evening start time, and big stars made their early television appearances on the show.

“Me and my mate Jack Good co-discovered these fellows called Cliff Richard and Adam Faith,” said Peacock, “and we laboriously taught them how to sing and gyrate!”

Good then took Peacock to ITV as writer for a similar programme, Oh Boy! (1958-59), broadcast live from the Hackney Empire in London, and Boy Meets Girls (1959-60), hosted by Marty Wilde and featuring the Vernon Girls.

He was also in front of the camera every week as compère of a similar BBC series, Drumbeat (1959).

A regular group featured throughout these different shows was the John Barry Seven, whose leader eventually went his own way as a great composer and arranger of film music.

When Barry scored Beat Girl (1960), a vehicle for Adam Faith, Peacock wrote two of the songs, including the hit single Made You. He hit the Top 20 again with Jess Conrad’s Mystery Girl (1961).

One missed opportunity came when Barry asked Peacock to come up with lyrics to his music for the theme to Goldfinger. After a couple of weeks, Peacock told him: “Sorry, but I can’t find anything to rhyme with ‘finger’. ”

With his Vicar of Dibley colleagues Dawn French and James Fleet - Gary Moyes/BBC
With his Vicar of Dibley colleagues Dawn French and James Fleet - Gary Moyes/BBC

But they did team up to write the 1965 West End stage musical The Passion Flower Hotel at the Prince of Wales Theatre, starring Francesca Annis as one of the schoolgirls arranging a “service” for local boys.

That year also brought Peacock his biggest pop achievement when Mrs Brown You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter hit the top of the US charts for Herman’s Hermits. He had originally written it – words and music – for Tom Courtenay in Ronald Harwood’s 1963 TV play The Lads.

By then, he was beginning a new career, after meeting director Michael Elliott at a party in 1961 and telling him he wanted to be an actor. “You start next week at the Old Vic,” Elliott responded.

Peacock followed Elliott to Manchester, where they worked together first at the university’s Century Theatre, then were among the founding members of the Royal Exchange Theatre in 1976. The company established a reputation for performing everything from the classics to French farce and new works.

Peacock, similarly, showed a wide range in his performances, from comedy as Bob Acres in The Rivals – the theatre’s début show, starring Courtenay – and the title role in Zack (both 1976) to drama as Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman (1985) and Hobson in Hobson’s Choice (2003).

He wrote several musicals for the company, among them Leaping Ginger (1977), about a petty criminal raising cash for an old people’s outing; Andy Capp (1982), with his script and lyrics to the music of Alan Price – and Courtenay again starring, in a production that transferred to the Aldwych; and Class K (1985).

The Royal Shakespeare Company also utilised Peacock’s talents. His roles between 1974 and 2006 included the Bishop of Ely in Henry V; Silence in Henry IV Part Two; the Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz, and Giles Corey in The Crucible.

Among his parts in BBC TV Shakespeare productions were Feste in Twelfth Night (1980) and the title role in Titus Andronicus (1985).

The Vicar of Dibley cast, l-r standing, Roger Lloyd Pack, Emma Chambers, Dawn French, James Fleet and Trott. On the sofa, John Bluthal and Gary Waldhorn - Television Stills
The Vicar of Dibley cast, l-r standing, Roger Lloyd Pack, Emma Chambers, Dawn French, James Fleet and Trott. On the sofa, John Bluthal and Gary Waldhorn - Television Stills

Peacock’s numerous other television roles included Dennis Tonsley, Max Wall’s “keeping up with the Joneses” grown-up son, in Born and Bred (1980); the French Resistance leader Renard in the final series of Wish Me Luck (1990); Ralf in Merlin of the Crystal Cave (1991); the former gangland boss Dad Middlemass in Andy Hamilton’s black comedy thriller Underworld (1997) and the patriarch Arthur Brooker in Family Business (2004).

His rare feature film included Fred Claus (2007), playing Father Christmas’s father alongside Vince Vaughn and Paul Giamatti, and the gentle musicians’ retirement-home drama Quartet (2012) – as George, putting on a skit as Bud Flanagan, with David Ryall’s Chesney Allen, recreating the music-hall double act’s Underneath the Arches.

Peacock’s first marriage (1957-75), to Iris Jones, ended in divorce; they had a son and a daughter. He married secondly, in 1979, the actress Tilly Tremayne, who survives him, along with their son and daughter and the children of his first marriage.

Trevor Peacock, born May 19 1931, died March 8 2021