Widow Lin has hundreds of hours

Previously unheard Peter Cook sketches are set to be released after his widow Lin opened up the archive.

She has allowed access to a private collection of hundreds of hours of tape recordings – some of which also feature Dudley Moore – in the hope some can be made public.

There are also unseen photographs, private letters, scripts, home movies and watercolours painted by Cook, who died in 1995.

The opening of the archive coincides with the revival of Cook’s Establishment club by actor Keith Allen, record label boss Mike O'Brien and writer Victor Lewis-Smith.

O’Brien said he was ‘slowly trawling through’ the archive and hoped to release some on his Laughing Stock label.

He said: 'We want to make as much of the material available as possible.’

In one of the newly discovered sketches , Cook plays a murder trial judge weighing up a wealth of evidence against the accused, against the surreal defence that at the time he was in Nicaragua having travelled there on a centipede.

Another is a previously unheard Derek and Clive track called Porno.

The material, much of which was unlabeled or on defunct formats, was found in a safe in a secure facility away from Lin's house in north London.

Published: 9 Sep 2012