In early 1976 a group of Oxford students met to discuss sketch material for the summer review. Richard Curtis noticed this rather odd electrical engineering PhD student who always turned up but failed to utter a single word. In the final meeting, the 19-year-old Curtis read out what he describes as a 'rather feeble sketch'.
Then the dark, silent one stood up and overcame his stutter. 'He did a monologue about driving followed by the thing he still does now, where he mimes and talks at the same time. It was unlike anything else I had ever seen. It was pure genius. Within three years, Rowan Atkinson was a star.
The excessively shy farmer's son had grown up obsessed with all things electrical - Curtis says he was always locked away in his room at Oxford with a fusing iron, making an electric organ - and it seems the comedy was almost an accident. Still, by 1979 he was appearing in the ground-breaking satirical sketch show Not the Nine O'Clock News alongside Mel Smith, Griff Rhys Jones and Pamela Stephenson.
Not the Nine O'Clock News was as short-lived as it was vital but it showcased a new generation of comic talent. He later hit it big as Mr Bean.