Andrew McGibbon - Creighton Wheeler

Creighton Wheeler

Creighton Wheeler, a character created by McGibbon during his time with Kevin Greening, has enjoyed the longest life of any of his characters. A sufferer of splicer’s disease, words and phrases are skipped as he speaks, thus creating conjunctions made out of fragments from unrelated words. The conceit grew out of the parodies of radio ads featuring Raymond Sinclair on – initially – Greening’s Virgin show, where crude tape edits breathlessly cut from one sentence to another, often losing syllabic sounds. McGibbon could eventually mimic this naturally and, with the tilt of a cut-glass accent broadly based on art critic Brian Sewell, a new character emerged.

Wheeler diversified from the Greening show with regular appearances on Loose Ends, on which McGibbon had first met The Nimmo Twins. Live performances followed as part of their Edinburgh show, as did a variation on the character for an episode of Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer’s revival of Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased).

Two series for BBC Radio 4 aired in 2003. Wheeler’s Fortune and Wheeler’s Wonders were narrated by Brian Hayes and explored the character’s Zelig-like presence in cultural history. Jon Snow, Bernard Cribbins, David Frost, Brian Sewell, Ned Sherrin and Michael Winner were amongst his deadpan witnesses. A rave review followed courtesy of Gillian Reynolds of The Daily Telegraph, who claimed it had “made me whoop, yell and fall out of bed laughing.” Applauding an arts show parody called ‘Art, Art, Art, Art’, she continued “We have all heard parodies of television arts shows. We have all experienced arts shows that are beyond parody. This one was both spot on and deliciously off. Hayes linked it with the dignity of Kenneth Horne encountering Julian and Sandy.”