Simon Brint
Encyclopedia
Simon Tracey Brint was a British
musician, best known for his role as part of the comedy duo Raw Sex with Rowland Rivron
. He also composed for many British TV comedy and drama programmes.
designer. He worked with the artist Anthony Benjamin
, the singer and tightrope walker Hermine Demoriane
, and theatre director Ken Campbell
, as well as helping to disguise elephants as mammoth
s for the film Quest for Fire
and co-writing, with Simon Wallace
, the music for the Oscar-winning short A Shocking Accident
in 1982.
In the late 1970s, he began working regularly at the Blitz
club in central London, where he met drummer and comedian Rowland Rivron and pianist Rod Melvin. They became the house band at The Comic Strip
club, and Brint subsequently wrote several scores for the ensuing TV series, The Comic Strip Presents... With Rivron, he also developed the comedy music act "Raw Sex", in which he performed as the straight-laced father of the dissolute Rivron, most famously on the French and Saunders
show. Raw Sex were also the house band on several comedy tours around this time, including Kevin Turvey And The Bastard Squad Featuring The Young Ones, Live, Nigel Planer
's neil's Bad Karma In The UK Tour (with The Wow Show, whose TV series Hello Mum Brint contributed written material to), and French and Saunders' 1990 tour. He also continued to work as a composer for other TV comedy series, including Bottom
(producing versions of BB's Blues and Last Night with the specially-formed group 'The Bum Notes'), Hippies (which he also sang the theme tune to), Absolutely Fabulous
, music and dozens of songs for multiple incarnations of The Lenny Henry Show
, all of Alexei Sayle
's TV work, Comic Relief (on which he was resident composer), A Bit of Fry & Laurie (producing all of Hugh Laurie's songs for the fourth and final series), the musical episodes of Two Pints Of Lager And A Packet Of Crisps
and Murder Most Horrid
, as well as TV drama including London's Burning
and Monarch of the Glen.
As an actor, he appeared in several episodes of The Comic Strip Presents (his biggest role being that of a doctor in the episode Queen Of The Wild Frontier), the film Eat The Rich (as Dickie the pianist), Saturday Live, Girls On Top
(as half of 'Shelley's People'), and four series and one special of French And Saunders, in which he played various roles as a member of the supporting cast in addition to his regular role as Ken Bishop and occasional appearances as himself. He also appeared on-screen with Rivron in the final ever episode of A Bit Of Fry And Laurie, providing the rhythm section for Hugh Laurie's A Sophisticated Song. Brint and Rivron eventually created a Raw Sex feature film, There's No Business..., which was released on VHS in 1994. The duo ceased to appear on the French And Saunders series from the 1994 special onwards (their role having being gradually decreased by incoming producer Jon Plowman
), but Brint continued to provide music until the show ended in 2009 and his singing voice (occasionally as Ken) was frequently heard. His last TV appearance as Ken Bishop was on the 1998 documentary First On Four.
Though most of Brint's musical work remained commercially unreleased, a few items appeared in shops. A 1999 EMI Gold compilation of London's Burning soundtrack cues included his work for the series, and in 2001, BBC Music released a dedicated compilation of his work for Monarch Of The Glen. Additionally, his themes for Bottom and the Joanna Lumley series Girl Friday turned up on the compilation album The Best Of British Television. As a producer for other artists, he oversaw Victoria Wood
's single The Smile Song (released in 1991 as the B-side of Hale And Pace's The Stonk), and the debut EP of Ella Edmondson
. There were unfinished attempts at assaulting shop shelves too - 1992 saw an aborted attempt to release Christmas Is Charity in time for that year's Christmas charts, a comedy single produced by Brint and co-written with Charlie Higson
and performed by Harry Enfield
and Paul Whitehouse
as characters Smashie and Nicey
. In 1990, the majority of work for Raw Sex: The Album was completed for Sony BMG, featuring assorted guest comedians performing assorted cover songs with the band, but the project was shelved. In his autobiography, Rowland Rivron attributes the cancellation to BMG's UK operations concentrating almost entirely on marketing Take That
.
In 2004, Brint helped set up a charity, Action for Music, to help undiscovered musicians in Kenya
, and later worked as a composer for the Kenyan TV soap opera
Makutano Junction. In 2010 he founded The Idiot Bastard Band with Edmondson, Rivron, Phill Jupitus
and Neil Innes
, which had been planning a nationwide tour and an LP for 2012. The initial rounds of Idiot Bastard Band gigs, incorporating original comedy songs, oddball cover versions, guest comedians and some resurrected Raw Sex routines, became Brint's final public appearances. His last TV work saw him compose and produce music for Bellamy's People
and The One Ronnie
in 2010.
, Somerset
, moving to Hythe
in Kent
with his family when he was 16, and developing an interest in eccentric musical projects. He married in 2003.
On 29 May 2011 at the age of 60, Brint committed suicide. The news was made public the following month via social networking avenues by several of his friends and colleagues.
Describing him as a "celebrated nonconformist", comedian Adrian Edmondson
wrote of Brint:
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
musician, best known for his role as part of the comedy duo Raw Sex with Rowland Rivron
Rowland Rivron
Rowland J. Rivron is a British comedian, musician, writer and television presenter.-Early life: Rivron was brought up in Hillingdon, West London and attended Abbotsfield Secondary School...
. He also composed for many British TV comedy and drama programmes.
Career
Brint studied at Reading University, graduating in English literature in 1972, before taking part in various artistic collaborations as both a musician and propTheatrical property
A theatrical property, commonly referred to as a prop, is an object used on stage by actors to further the plot or story line of a theatrical production. Smaller props are referred to as "hand props". Larger props may also be set decoration, such as a chair or table. The difference between a set...
designer. He worked with the artist Anthony Benjamin
Anthony Benjamin
Anthony Benjamin was an English artist noted for his abstracts. Born in Boarhunt, Hampshire, he dropped out of an engineering apprenticeship in 1949 to study art at the Regent Street Polytechnic, an education that was complemented by three months' studying drawing in Paris with Fernand Léger.When...
, the singer and tightrope walker Hermine Demoriane
Hermine Demoriane
Hermine Demoriane is a French singer, writer and former tightrope walker. Born in 1942 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, daughter of an engineer and a journalist, she married the British poet Hugo Williams in 1965, with whom she has a daughter, Murphy Williams, also a writer and journalist.-Bohemian London:At...
, and theatre director Ken Campbell
Ken Campbell
Ken Campbell was an English writer, actor, director and comedian.Ken Campbell may also refer to:* Ken Campbell , Canadian evangelist* Ken Campbell , former Scotland international goalkeeper...
, as well as helping to disguise elephants as mammoth
Mammoth
A mammoth is any species of the extinct genus Mammuthus. These proboscideans are members of Elephantidae, the family of elephants and mammoths, and close relatives of modern elephants. They were often equipped with long curved tusks and, in northern species, a covering of long hair...
s for the film Quest for Fire
Quest for Fire (film)
Quest for Fire is a 1981 film adaptation of the 1911 Belgian novel by J.-H. Rosny aîné . Directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud and adapted by Gérard Brach, the film stars Everett McGill, Ron Perlman, Nameer El-Kadi, and Rae Dawn Chong. It won the Academy Award for Makeup. Michael D...
and co-writing, with Simon Wallace
Simon Wallace
Simon Wallace is a British composer and pianist.Simon Wallace was born in Newport, South Wales. He studied music at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama and University College, Oxford, where he ran the Oxford University Jazz Club and played with The Oxcentrics a Dixieland jazz band...
, the music for the Oscar-winning short A Shocking Accident
A Shocking Accident
A Shocking Accident is a 1982 short comedy film directed by James Scott, based on Graham Greene's short story by the same name. It won an Academy Award in 1983 for Best Short Subject.-Cast:* Rupert Everett - Jerome and Mr...
in 1982.
In the late 1970s, he began working regularly at the Blitz
Blitz Kids
The Blitz Kids were a group of young people who frequented the Blitz nightclub in Covent Garden, London in the very early 1980s, and are credited with launching the New Romantic cultural movement...
club in central London, where he met drummer and comedian Rowland Rivron and pianist Rod Melvin. They became the house band at The Comic Strip
The Comic Strip
The Comic Strip is a group of British comedians, known for their television series The Comic Strip Presents.... The core members are Adrian Edmondson, Dawn French, Rik Mayall, Nigel Planer, Peter Richardson and Jennifer Saunders, with frequent appearances by Keith Allen, Robbie Coltrane and...
club, and Brint subsequently wrote several scores for the ensuing TV series, The Comic Strip Presents... With Rivron, he also developed the comedy music act "Raw Sex", in which he performed as the straight-laced father of the dissolute Rivron, most famously on the French and Saunders
French and Saunders
French and Saunders is a British sketch comedy television show written by and starring comic duo Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders. It is also the name by which the performers are known on the occasions when they appear elsewhere as a double act....
show. Raw Sex were also the house band on several comedy tours around this time, including Kevin Turvey And The Bastard Squad Featuring The Young Ones, Live, Nigel Planer
Nigel Planer
Nigel George Planer is an English actor, comedian, novelist and playwright.Planer is perhaps best known for his role as Neil Pye in the cult BBC comedy The Young Ones. He has appeared in many West End musicals, including Evita, Chicago, We Will Rock You, Wicked and Hairspray...
's neil's Bad Karma In The UK Tour (with The Wow Show, whose TV series Hello Mum Brint contributed written material to), and French and Saunders' 1990 tour. He also continued to work as a composer for other TV comedy series, including Bottom
Bottom (TV series)
Bottom was a British sitcom television series that originally aired on BBC2 between 1991 and 1995. It was written by comic duo Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson who star as Richie and Eddie, two flatmates living on the dole in Hammersmith, London...
(producing versions of BB's Blues and Last Night with the specially-formed group 'The Bum Notes'), Hippies (which he also sang the theme tune to), Absolutely Fabulous
Absolutely Fabulous
Absolutely Fabulous, also known as Ab Fab, is a British sitcom created by Jennifer Saunders, based on an original idea by her and Dawn French, and written by Saunders, who plays the leading character. It also stars Joanna Lumley and Julia Sawalha, along with June Whitfield and Jane Horrocks...
, music and dozens of songs for multiple incarnations of The Lenny Henry Show
The Lenny Henry Show
The Lenny Henry Show is a comedy sketch show featuring Lenny Henry. In its first incarnation it ran for two seasons on BBC 1, in 1984 and 1985. Each season had six episodes. A 40-minute special was aired in December 1987...
, all of Alexei Sayle
Alexei Sayle
Alexei David Sayle is a British stand-up comedian, actor and author. He was a central part of the alternative comedy circuit in the early 1980s. He was voted the 18th greatest stand-up comic on Channel 4's 100 Greatest Stand-ups in 2007...
's TV work, Comic Relief (on which he was resident composer), A Bit of Fry & Laurie (producing all of Hugh Laurie's songs for the fourth and final series), the musical episodes of Two Pints Of Lager And A Packet Of Crisps
Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps
Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps was a BBC sitcom created and written by Susan Nickson. It is set in the town of Runcorn in Cheshire, England, and initially revolves around the lives of five twenty-somethings, played by Ralf Little , Sheridan Smith , Will Mellor , Natalie Casey and...
and Murder Most Horrid
Murder Most Horrid
Murder Most Horrid is a BBC dark comedy anthology series starring comedian Dawn French. It ran for four series runs, in 1991, 1994, 1996 and 1999....
, as well as TV drama including London's Burning
London's Burning
London's Burning was a British television drama programme produced by London Weekend Television for the ITV network that focused on the lives of members of the London Fire Brigade, principally those of the Blue Watch at a fictional fire station called Blackwall.It was broadcast between 1986 and...
and Monarch of the Glen.
As an actor, he appeared in several episodes of The Comic Strip Presents (his biggest role being that of a doctor in the episode Queen Of The Wild Frontier), the film Eat The Rich (as Dickie the pianist), Saturday Live, Girls On Top
Girls On Top
Girls On Top was a British television sitcom on ITV from 1985 to 1986. It was conceived by and starred French & Saunders - their first high-profile writing for television - and despite a low budget and poor critical reception received high ratings. It was made for the ITV network by Central.The...
(as half of 'Shelley's People'), and four series and one special of French And Saunders, in which he played various roles as a member of the supporting cast in addition to his regular role as Ken Bishop and occasional appearances as himself. He also appeared on-screen with Rivron in the final ever episode of A Bit Of Fry And Laurie, providing the rhythm section for Hugh Laurie's A Sophisticated Song. Brint and Rivron eventually created a Raw Sex feature film, There's No Business..., which was released on VHS in 1994. The duo ceased to appear on the French And Saunders series from the 1994 special onwards (their role having being gradually decreased by incoming producer Jon Plowman
Jon Plowman
Jon Plowman has been a producer at the BBC since 1980, when he produced Russell Harty's chat show Harty...
), but Brint continued to provide music until the show ended in 2009 and his singing voice (occasionally as Ken) was frequently heard. His last TV appearance as Ken Bishop was on the 1998 documentary First On Four.
Though most of Brint's musical work remained commercially unreleased, a few items appeared in shops. A 1999 EMI Gold compilation of London's Burning soundtrack cues included his work for the series, and in 2001, BBC Music released a dedicated compilation of his work for Monarch Of The Glen. Additionally, his themes for Bottom and the Joanna Lumley series Girl Friday turned up on the compilation album The Best Of British Television. As a producer for other artists, he oversaw Victoria Wood
Victoria Wood
Victoria Wood CBE is a British comedienne, actress, singer-songwriter, screenwriter and director. Wood has written and starred in sketches, plays, films and sitcoms, and her live stand-up comedy act is interspersed with her own compositions, which she accompanies on piano...
's single The Smile Song (released in 1991 as the B-side of Hale And Pace's The Stonk), and the debut EP of Ella Edmondson
Ella Edmondson
Eleanor Rose "Ella" Edmondson is an English singer-songwriter. Her primary instrument is the guitar though she can also play piano.-Biography:...
. There were unfinished attempts at assaulting shop shelves too - 1992 saw an aborted attempt to release Christmas Is Charity in time for that year's Christmas charts, a comedy single produced by Brint and co-written with Charlie Higson
Charlie Higson
Charles Murray Higson , more commonly known as Charlie Higson - also Switch - is an English actor, comedian, author and former singer...
and performed by Harry Enfield
Harry Enfield
Henry Richard "Harry" Enfield is a BAFTA-winning English comedian, actor, writer and director.-Early life:...
and Paul Whitehouse
Paul Whitehouse
Paul Whitehouse is a Welsh actor, writer and comedian. He became known for his work with Harry Enfield and as one of the stars of the popular BBC sketch show, The Fast Show. In a 2005 poll to find The Comedian's Comedian, he was in the top 50 comedy acts voted for by comedians and comedy insiders...
as characters Smashie and Nicey
Smashie and Nicey
Mike Smash and Dave Nice were two fictional television characters who first appeared in the early 1990s TV sketch show Harry Enfield's Television Programme. They were played by comedians Paul Whitehouse and Harry Enfield respectively...
. In 1990, the majority of work for Raw Sex: The Album was completed for Sony BMG, featuring assorted guest comedians performing assorted cover songs with the band, but the project was shelved. In his autobiography, Rowland Rivron attributes the cancellation to BMG's UK operations concentrating almost entirely on marketing Take That
Take That
Take That are a British five-piece vocal pop group comprising Gary Barlow, Howard Donald, Jason Orange, Mark Owen and Robbie Williams. Barlow acts as the lead singer and primary songwriter...
.
In 2004, Brint helped set up a charity, Action for Music, to help undiscovered musicians in Kenya
Kenya
Kenya , officially known as the Republic of Kenya, is a country in East Africa that lies on the equator, with the Indian Ocean to its south-east...
, and later worked as a composer for the Kenyan TV soap opera
Soap opera
A soap opera, sometimes called "soap" for short, is an ongoing, episodic work of dramatic fiction presented in serial format on radio or as television programming. The name soap opera stems from the original dramatic serials broadcast on radio that had soap manufacturers, such as Procter & Gamble,...
Makutano Junction. In 2010 he founded The Idiot Bastard Band with Edmondson, Rivron, Phill Jupitus
Phill Jupitus
Phillip Christopher Jupitus is an English stand-up and improvised comedian, actor, performance poet, musician and podcaster....
and Neil Innes
Neil Innes
Neil James Innes is an English writer and performer of comic songs, best known for his collaborative work with Monty Python, and for playing in the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band and later The Rutles.-Personal life:...
, which had been planning a nationwide tour and an LP for 2012. The initial rounds of Idiot Bastard Band gigs, incorporating original comedy songs, oddball cover versions, guest comedians and some resurrected Raw Sex routines, became Brint's final public appearances. His last TV work saw him compose and produce music for Bellamy's People
Bellamy's People
Bellamy's People, also known as Bellamy's People of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, is a British comedy show first broadcast on BBC 2 as an eight episode series. The show is a spin off from the BBC Radio 4 show Down the Line...
and The One Ronnie
The One Ronnie
The One Ronnie was a one-off comedy television sketch show that aired on BBC One on Christmas Day 2010 to celebrate the 80th birthday of Ronnie Corbett. It featured sketches between Corbett and Lionel Blair, Rob Brydon, James Corden, Jon Culshaw, Harry Enfield, Jocelyn Jee Esien, Miranda Hart,...
in 2010.
Personal life
Brint was born in High HamHigh Ham
High Ham is a village and civil parish in Somerset, England. Within the parish of High Ham are the villages of High Ham and Low Ham and the hamlets of Bowdens, Henley, Paradise and Picts Hill.-History:...
, Somerset
Somerset
The ceremonial and non-metropolitan county of Somerset in South West England borders Bristol and Gloucestershire to the north, Wiltshire to the east, Dorset to the south-east, and Devon to the south-west. It is partly bounded to the north and west by the Bristol Channel and the estuary of the...
, moving to Hythe
Hythe, Kent
Hythe , is a small coastal market town on the edge of Romney Marsh, in the District of Shepway on the south coast of Kent. The word Hythe or Hithe is an Old English word meaning Haven or Landing Place....
in Kent
Kent
Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...
with his family when he was 16, and developing an interest in eccentric musical projects. He married in 2003.
On 29 May 2011 at the age of 60, Brint committed suicide. The news was made public the following month via social networking avenues by several of his friends and colleagues.
Describing him as a "celebrated nonconformist", comedian Adrian Edmondson
Adrian Edmondson
Adrian Charles "Ade" Edmondson is an English comedian. He is probably best known for his comedic roles in the television series The Young Ones and Bottom , for which he also wrote together with his long-time collaboration partner Rik Mayall.-Early life:Edmondson, the second of four children, was...
wrote of Brint:
- "He had a phenomenal gift for interpreting mood through music, and an innate sense of humour which never let the music intrude on any jokes. It was a difficult trick to pull off, but it suited his particular style of creativity, a magpie talent for collecting lots of references and making them into something entirely new that made you appreciate things in a different way."