In 1979 the BBC aired 'Decision '79 Breakfast Special' as part of its coverage of the parliamentary elections that brought Margaret Thatcher to power the show featured Stilgoe singing the election results. He has also written and presented BBC radio programmes, including Hamburger Weekend, Used Notes, Stilgoe's Around, Maestro and Richard Stilgoe's Traffic Jam Show on BBC Radio 4. His ability to write a song from almost any source material and at speed is part of his cabaret act, which includes singing the instructions from a Swedish payphone a pastiche of the King's Singers listing the kings and queens of England in which he sings all four parts and composing a song in the interval from words and musical notes called out by the audience. One notable song concerned officials who have ' Statutory Right of Entry to your Home', with Stilgoe playing and singing, in barber-shop style, all parts himself using trick photography. He made his name on the BBC television teatime programme, Nationwide, followed by Esther Rantzen's That's Life!, a light-hearted consumer affairs programme for which he wrote comic songs satirising minor domestic misfortunes, often to the tune of ' Oh! Mr Porter'. In 1966 Stilgoe played Benjamin in the West End musical, Jorrocks. He was educated at Liverpool College, Monkton Combe School in Somerset and at Clare College, Cambridge, where he was a member of the Cambridge University Footlights.

He was brought up in Liverpool, where, as lead singer of a group called 'Tony Snow and the Blizzards', he performed at the Cavern Club. Stilgoe was born in Camberley, Surrey, on 28 March 1943.

Richard webber