Peter Cook's widow Lin dies at 71

Peter Cook's widow Lin has died at the age of 71.

The Undiscovered Peter Cook (BBC Four, Wednesday) was, among other things, a strong argument against the current fad for decluttering. When Cook died in 1995, his wife Lin locked up his Hampstead house just as it was, with a lifetime of memorabilia scattered about, and refused all requests to look inside. 'Until,' as the unseen presenter Victor Lewis-Smith inevitably put it, 'now.'

In fact, this thumping cliché pointed to the one disappointment about the programme: that the unruly talents of Lewis-Smith and Cook himself were combined to produce a documentary that not only observed TV conventions so scrupulously, but that also treated its subject with a most un-Cook-like reverence.

Happily, there was no denying the quality of the material that Lewis-Smith unearthed from various cardboard boxes, shelves and carpets. Home movies from the 1930s reminded us how posh Cook's upbringing was, by featuring garden parties and servants -- and by being home movies from the 1930s. We also got any number of never-before-seen clips, including from Cook's fabled 1971 chat show, originally planned to last 13 episodes, but pulled after three. (Left with a sudden gap in the schedules, the BBC hastily replaced Cook with a journalist called Michael Parkinson.)

Given the reverent tone -- which was presumably linked to Lin's involvement -- Cook's last years were duly treated with almost Jeeves-like discretion. Cook, Lewis-Smith told us, was by no means the 'tortured genius' of popular imagining, and had 'long periods off the booze', once 'even' giving up for seven months. Yet, despite such efforts, the final sections of this programme were distinctly melancholy too -- not least when Lin rather gave the game away by explaining that she once asked her husband why he drank so much. 'Despair, really,' Cook replied.

Peter Cook's wife releases previously unheard sketches

Lin Cook has released a private collection that includes more than 40 hours of audio-cassette recordings featuring Peter Cook. It also features photographs, letters, home movies and watercolours painted by the star.