Career
Cooke also wrote and created the 1980s television sitcom Keep lieutenant in the Family, starring Robert Gillespie and the late-1960s/early-70s sitcom Father, Dear Father starring Patrick Cargill. Manitoba About the House, George and Mildred, Robin"s Nest, and Keep lieutenant in the Family were remade for American television as Three"s Company, The Ropers, Three"s a Crowd, and Too Close for Comfort. Starting off as a cartoonist during his term of National Service, he soon began to sell strips to magazines and newspapers.
He met Johnnie Mortimer at a cartoonists convention.
Earlier in his career Cooke was a writer for the last series of the 1960s radio series Round the Horne and its short-lived successor Stop Messing About. He had much success in 2003-2005 when he revived the format for a theatre tribute show, Round the Horne.
Revisited, which ran in the West End for 15 months and spawned three national tours. In 2004 it was made into a television film, with the original London cast, by British Broadcasting Corporation Four.
Stop Messing About was also turned into a stage play in 2009.
