Coren, Alan 1938–2007

OBITUARY NOTICE—

See index for SATA sketch: Born June 27, 1938, in London, England; died of cancer, October 18, 2007. Broadcaster, humorist, journalist, editor, television writer, and author. In 1994 British radio listeners voted Coren the wittiest man in England. For more than thirty years, beginnning in 1975, his radio performances on The News Quiz captured his talent for humor and his gleeful gamesmanship with words. Coren began his media career in television in the 1960s, as a writer for British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) programs such as the series That Was the Week That Was. He also spent nearly twenty-five years on the editorial staff of the venerable British humor magazine Punch, ten of those at its helm, and edited several "best-of" collections from past issues of the periodical. He spent the late 1980s and early 1990s as a columnist for the London Times and other British newspapers. Coren's unique brand of humor also appeared in dozens of books, from The Dog It Was That Died (1965) to The Sanity Inspector (1974) and The Collected Bulletins of Idi Amin (1974), the last a collection of fictional monologues. He continued writing long after his retirement from the airwaves and from the world of print journalism. Among his later books were The Alan Coren Omnibus (1996) and The Cricklewood Tapestry (2000), the latter named for the London suburb where he spent his last years. Coren's other primary claim to fame was a popular series of children's stories about a seven-year-old adventurer named Arthur; these were originally written and published between 1976 and 1981, when his own children were growing up, and some were later adapted as television movies.

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Times (London, England), October 20, 2007, p. 75.