Career
Nimmo was born in Liverpool and was educated at Quarry Bank High School and began his stage career at the Hippodrome Theatre in Bolton, Lancashire. It was during this time that he made a cameo appearance in The Beatles' movie, A Hard Day's Night (in which he appeared as "Leslie Jackson", a magician with doves).
He appeared in a number of British films and television series, as aristocrats, including starring roles in the television comedy series The World of Wooster (as "Bingo Little"), and in the comedy movie One of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing (as "Lord Southmere"), as well as appearing in the James Bond spoof film Casino Royale.
Derek Nimmo made his name as the Reverend Mervyn Noote in the British sitcom All Gas and Gaiters (1966). At the time it was considered rather controversial because the main characters were senior churchmen (the Bishop, his chaplain Noote and the Archdeacon) who got into various scrapes as a result of their general incompetence. By the time the series finished, Nimmo was identified with the stereotype of a traditional British clergyman and he went on to play a bungling monk in another BBC clerical sitcom, Oh, Brother! and its sequel series Oh, Father!. Another sitcom in which he appeared in a starring role as a clergyman, many years later, was Hell's Bells. He also appeared as the Reverend Jonathan Green in a television production of Cluedo. Later he became so well known for his clerical parody that, in the 1975 The Goodies' episode "Wacky Wales", a "team of Derek Nimmos" played in a spoof "Ecclesiastical Rugby Sevens" competition.
In 1966, he appeared in the second series of The Bed-Sit Girl. Derek Nimmo appeared on stage in many West End plays and starred in the musical Charlie Girl, which contained a scene specially written to allow him to perform his party trick of wiggling his toes. He also became a regular panelist on the popular BBC radio show Just a Minute, and had a chat show on BBC Television, If It's Saturday, It Must Be Nimmo, from 24 October to 19 December 1970, though it was felt that he seemed less at ease as a chat show host. Having been away from television for some time, he made an appearance in Neighbours in 1991, playing Lord Ledgerwood alongside Madge and Harold Bishop.
As a theatrical impresario, he took his own touring production (Intercontinental Entertainment) to 30 countries, including Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand, Oman and the UAE (Abu Dhabi and Dubai) and so provided himself with material for many stories on Just a Minute.
In the 1970s, Derek Nimmo sang the jingle "P…p…pick up a Penguin" in a series of television advertisements for McVitie's Penguin biscuits, echoing a stammer he had used for his character in All Gas and Gaiters.
Read more about this topic: Derek Nimmo
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