Editing Michael Bentine (section)

==Comedy career==
After the war Bentine decided to become a comedian and worked in the [[Windmill Theatre]] where he met [[Harry Secombe]]. He specialised in off-the-wall humour, often involving cartoons and other types of animation. His acts included giving lectures in an invented language called Slobodian, "Imaginative Young Man with a Walking Stick" and "The Chairback", with a broken chairback having a number of uses from comb to machine gun and taking on a demoniacal life of its own. [[Peter Sellers]] told him this was the inspiration for the prosthetic arm routine in ''[[Dr Strangelove]]''. This act led to his engagement by [[Val Parnell]] to appear in the Starlight Roof revues starring [[Vic Oliver]], where he met and married his second wife Clementina, with whom he had four children. Also on the bill were [[Fred Emney]] and a young [[Julie Andrews]].

Bentine co-created ''[[The Goon Show]]'' radio show with [[Spike Milligan]], Peter Sellers and Harry Secombe, but appeared in only the first 38 shows on the [[BBC Home Service]] from 1951 to 1952. The first of these shows were actually called ''Those Crazy People'' and subtitled "The Junior Crazy Gang"; the term "Goon" was used as the headline of a review of Bentine's act by ''Picture Post'' dated 5 November 1948. Only one of this first series (and very few of the following three in which he did not appear) has survived, the rest of the original disc recordings having apparently been destroyed or discarded as no longer usable, so there is almost no record of his work as a radio "Goon". He also appeared in the 1952 ''Goon Show'' film ''[[Down Among the Z Men]]''.

In 1951 Bentine was invited to the United States to appear on ''[[The Ed Sullivan Show]]''. On his return he parted amicably from his partners and continued touring in variety, remaining close to Secombe and Sellers for the rest of his life. In 1972, Secombe and Sellers told [[Michael Parkinson]] that Bentine was "always calling everyone a genius" and, since he was the only one of the four with a "proper education", they always believed him.

His first appearances on television were as presenter on a 13-part children's series featuring remote controlled puppets, ''The Bumblies'', which he also devised, designed and wrote. These were three small creatures from outer space who slept on "Professor Bentine's" ceiling and who had come to Earth to learn the ways of Earthling children. Angelo de Calferta modelled the puppets from Bentine's designs and Richard Dendy moulded them in latex rubber. He sold the series to the BBC for less than they had cost to make. He then spent two years touring in Australia (1954–55).

On his return to Britain in 1954, he worked as a scriptwriter for Peter Sellers and then on 39 episodes of his own radio show ''Round the Bend in 30 Minutes'', which has also been wiped from the BBC archive. He then teamed up with [[Dick Lester]] to devise a series of six TV programmes ''Before Midnight'' for [[ABC Weekend TV]] in Birmingham in 1958. This led to a 13-programme series called ''[[After Hours (1958 British TV series)|After Hours]]'' in which he appeared alongside [[Dick Emery]], [[Clive Dunn]], [[David Lodge (actor)|David Lodge]], Joe Gibbons and [[Benny Lee]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=After Hours - ITV Sketch Show|url=https://www.comedy.co.uk/tv/after_hours_1958/|access-date=2020-06-24|website=British Comedy Guide|language=en-GB}}</ref> The show featured the "olde English sport of drats, later known as nurdling". Some of the sketches were adapted into a stage revue at the [[Cambridge Theatre]], ''Don't Shoot, We're English''. He also appeared in the film comedy ''[[Raising a Riot]]'', starring [[Kenneth More]], which featured his five-year-old daughter "Fusty". He joked that she got better billing.

From 1960 to 1964, he had a television series, ''[[It's a Square World]]'', which won a [[BAFTA]] award in 1962 and Grand Prix de la Presse at [[Montreux]] in 1963.<ref name=screenonline>[http://www.screenonline.org.uk/people/id/1057666/index.html screenonline] [[British Film Institute]] Bentine, Michael (1922–1996)</ref> A prominent feature of the series was the imaginary [[flea circus]] where plays were enacted on tiny sets using nothing but special effects to show the movement of things too small to see and sounds with Bentine's commentary. One, titled ''The Beast of the Black Bog Tarn'', was set in a (miniature) haunted house.

He was the subject of ''[[This Is Your Life (British TV series)|This Is Your Life]]'' in April 1963 when he was surprised by [[Eamonn Andrews]] at the [[BBC Television Theatre]].

In 1969–70 he was presenter of ''The Golden Silents'' on BBC TV, which attempted authentic showings of [[silent film]]s, without the commentaries with which they were usually shown on television before then.

From 1974 to 1980 he wrote, designed, narrated and presented the children's television programme ''[[Michael Bentine's Potty Time]]'' and made one-off comedy specials.

From January to May 1984 Bentine put out 11 half-hour episodes, in two series, of ''The Michael Bentine Show''<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00bv2gw/episodes/guide|title=The Michael Bentine Show – Episode guide – BBC Radio 4 Extra|publisher=BBC|access-date=11 June 2018}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.radiolistings.co.uk/programmes/m/mi/michael_bentine_show__the.html|title=Michael Bentine Show, The|website=RadioListings |access-date=11 June 2018}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.thegbcc.info/Misc/w-cy/Bentine_Michael.html|title=GBCC, Bentine, Michael|website=Global British Comedy Collaborative |access-date=11 June 2018}}</ref> on Radio 4. These have subsequently been repeated, several times, on the BBC's archive radio station BBC7 (now [[BBC Radio 4 Extra]]).

He was the writer of 16 best-selling novels, comedies and non-fiction books. Four of his books, ''[[The Long Banana Skin]]'' (1975), ''The Door Marked Summer'' (1981), ''Doors of the Mind'' and ''The Reluctant Jester'' (1992) are autobiographical.

===Other interests===
In 1968, travelling on the [[British Hovercraft Corporation]] (BHC) [[SR.N6]], ''[[United Kingdom aircraft registration|GH–2012]]'', Bentine took part in the first [[hovercraft]] expedition up the [[River Amazon]].<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1968/1968%20-%201043.html |title=Archived copy |access-date=1 December 2013 |archive-date=3 December 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131203013321/http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1968/1968%20-%201043.html |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1968/1968%20-%201078.html |title=Archived copy |access-date=1 December 2013 |archive-date=3 December 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131203013147/http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1968/1968%20-%201078.html |url-status=dead }}</ref>

In the [[1995 New Year Honours]], Bentine received a [[Order of the British Empire|CBE]] from [[Queen Elizabeth II]] "for services to entertainment".  In 1971, Bentine received the Order of Merit of [[Peru]] following his fund-raising work for the 1970 [[1970 Ancash earthquake|Great Peruvian earthquake]].{{dubious|ODNB has for "his work in organizing relief after Peru's devastating floods in 1970"|date=January 2022}}

Bentine was a crack pistol shot and helped to start the idea of a [[counter-terrorism|counter-terrorist]] wing within 22 [[Special Air Service|SAS]] Regiment.<ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/uk/2000/iranian_embassy_siege/717047.stm Bentine's advice to counter terrorist units inside the SAS]: article at [[BBC.co.uk]] website.</ref> In doing so, he became the first non-SAS person to fire a gun inside the [[Killing House|close-quarters battle training house]] at [[Hereford]].{{citation needed|date=May 2020}}

His interests included [[parapsychology]]. This was as a result of his and his family's extensive research into the paranormal, which resulted in his writing ''The Door Marked Summer'' and ''Doors of the Mind''. He was, for the final years of his life, president of the [[Association for the Scientific Study of Anomalous Phenomena]].

On 14 December 1977, he appeared with [[Arthur C. Clarke]] on [[Patrick Moore]]'s BBC ''[[The Sky at Night]]'' programme. The broadcast was entitled "Suns, Spaceships and Bug-Eyed Monsters" – a light-hearted look at how science fiction had become science fact, as well as how ideas of space travel had become reality through the 20th century. In the opening of the programme, Moore introduces Bentine with Bentine confirming that he was the possessor of a "Reader's Digest Degree". This remark was typical of Bentine's comic approach to most things in life that concealed his knowledge of science. Bentine appeared in a subsequent broadcast on a similar theme with Moore in 1980. Following the death of Arthur C. Clarke, ''[[BBC Sky at Night]]'' magazine released a copy of the 1977 archive programme on the cover of their May 2008 edition.