British actor and comedian John Bird has died aged 86, his representatives have confirmed.
The Cynthia actor was best known most recently for his TV work on barrister series Chambers, BBC Two series Absolute Power with Stephen Fry and three episodes of Jonathan Creek, as well as in one episode of One Foot in the Grave.
The Yellow Pages actor was well known for his work in satirical 1960s TV shows, particularly his many appearances opposite John Fortune such as That Was The Week That Was.
But he was perhaps best known for his work with Fortune and Rory Bremner in the TV series Bremner, Bird and Fortune.
The satirical show ran for 16 series, as well as one-off specials, between 1999 and 2008, and was nominated for several Bafta TV Awards.
During an appearance on BBC radio series Desert Island Discs in 2004, Fortune said it was "very difficult to keep a straight face" during his and Bird's largely improvised duo-logues.
Bird's film credits include Red and Blue, Cynthia, A Dandy in Aspic, 30 Is a Dangerous Age, Jabberwocky, and Yellow Pages.
Comedian Rory Bremner, 61, wrote: "It’s an irony that one of our greatest satirists, so brilliant at portraying ministers, civil servants or high-ranking officials who exuded self-satisfaction, was himself so modest and self-effacing.
"John Bird was, to the end, never pleased with himself, always feeling he should have done better, been less lazy, had a late period like Brahms, 'where everything was spare and abstract’.
"The reality was that he and his friend and collaborator John Fortune, together with Peter Cook, were pillars of the anti-establishment."
A statement announcing Bird’s death said he died "peacefully" at Pendean care home and that a family funeral will be followed by a celebration of his life in the new year.
Bremner said it was "striking" Bird had died on Christmas Eve "nine years, almost to the day" after Fortune, who died aged 74 on New Year’s Eve in 2013.
"Lord knows, satire has missed them this last decade and now that loss is permanent," he added.
"John may not have felt he got his life right, but by God he got it written."
He added that Bird could be shy and nervous before the cameras started rolling but once he had to perform he would be "shamelessly playful".
In 2007, Bird and Fortune revived their show in a special called The Last Laugh which was broadcast on ITV’s The South Bank Show.
Bremner added that watching the sketch with the comedians, playing an investment banker and an interviewer, was a way to "understand the madness behind the 2008 financial crash" as it "ridicules the city culture that led to the crash with astonishing perspicacity".
"They realised that true satire lay not in ad hominem attacks on politicians but in exposing the cant behind the ‘discipline of the market’ and the culture of privatisation where chief executives were rewarded for success and equally compensated for failure," he added.
Bird, born in Nottingham, went to a grammar school before going to Cambridge and meeting his comedy partner Fortune.
While there, he also directed comedian Peter Cook and actress Eleanor Bron in the 1959 Cambridge Footlights Revue, an annual show by the university comedy club which has seen David Mitchell, Richard Ayoade and Eric Idle among its members.
Bird then joined the Royal Court Theatre as an assistant director, hosted the first episode of Beyond The Fringe, directed Austrian-American singer Lotte Lenya in a Brecht revue and opened nightclub the Establishment Club with Cook in London, and New York.
He is survived by his wife Libby, a concert pianist, along with his step-sons Dan and Josh.
