In pictures: Geoffrey Perkins

Comedy producer and performer Geoffrey Perkins died after a road accident in London on 29 August. He helped bring some of TV's best-loved comedies to the screen during his career.

Perkins (second left) joined BBC Radio's light entertainment department in the late 1970s, producing The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which became a huge hit for Radio 4.

He also created - and starred in - broadcasting spoof Radio Active, which became BBC Two series KYTV, also starring Helen Atkinson Wood and Angus Deayton.

Another of Perkins' successes was Channel 4's Saturday Live. In 1990 he took host Ben Elton to the BBC to front sketch show The Man From Auntie.

Perkins also nurtured the career of another Saturday Live star, producing The Harry Enfield Television Programme. He also worked with co-star Paul Whitehouse on The Fast Show.

While with production firm Hat Trick, Perkins suggested a script for a mock-documentary about an Irish priest should become a sitcom. "He gave the show a heart," Father Ted creator Graham Linehan said.

Perkins produced sitcom Game On, and stayed with the programme when he was appointed BBC TV's head of comedy in 1995.

As head of comedy, he commissioned shows like long-running sitcom My Family. But he complained of snobbery in the BBC: "The term sitcom implies a great disdain. People say it with a curl of their lips."

In 2001, Perkins moved to Tiger Aspect Productions, where he nurtured the career of another rising star - Catherine Tate.

More recently, Perkins produced ITV1's Benidorm, which returns next year. He also resumed his partnership with Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse for BBC One's Harry and Paul, which returns on Friday.

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