Composer and songwriter Steve Brown, who has died of pulmonary fibrosis at the age of 69, had a career like no other. As a musical theater writer, he co-created Harca, Harca, Harca (1998), about football snooker champion Viv Nicholson; This film prompted Brown’s cherished fan mail to be called “the first good British musical” by Stephen Sondheim.
As a comedian, he has worked closely with Rory Bremner, Harry Hill and Steve Coogan on TV shows and on tour; most notably, he played bandleader Glenn Ponder in Alan Partridge’s talk show Knowing Me, Knowing You (1994). Brown also produced the acclaimed debut albums of singer-songwriters Rumer and Laura Mvula. The latter was nominated for a Mercury Prize in 2013; it was a layer of musical prestige that you could consider beyond the guy who also wrote the Wonky Donkey jingle for Ant and Dec’s SM:TV.
But Brown did not distinguish between his work for stage and screen, comedy and music, or children’s television. “He elevated all the songs we did together to a level that didn’t need to be there for the joke to happen,” Coogan said. He would say, ‘Let’s make good music too.’ From where? Because we can. Because he could.”
Brown’s collaboration with Coogan spanned 30 years after they met on the satirical puppet show Spitting Image, for which Brown wrote the songs. This led to a fondly remembered moment in Knowing Me, Knowing You, when a grumpy Partridge fires Brown’s character live on air (“You’re fired, I’m firing you. In fact… it’s already happened, you’re a fired man”); a duet between Coogan (as the Tony Ferrino character) and Björk for Comic Relief in 1997, about the relationship between a common man and his babysitter (“The memory still lingers / You cook the children’s fish fingers”); and a song played in Coogan’s touring stage show pokes fun at the comedian’s angry tabloid reputation: Everyone’s a Little Cunt Sometimes.
A “really kind guy with really good values,” in Coogan’s words, Brown was highly respected by many who worked with him; especially since he wasn’t looking for (or couldn’t find) the center of attention himself. Hill called him “Comedy’s best kept secret”, but Brown has had admirable brushes, winning a 2021 edition of Pointless Celebrities (with Barbara Dickson) and starring as Jon Culshaw’s Liam in the television version of Dead Ringers He appeared briefly as Noel Gallagher in . .
Brown, who was Hill’s second violinist on television appearances and on tour, was the comedian’s equal partner and close friend in his theater work. The 2014 X Factor musical I Can’t Sing, produced by Simon Cowell, was critically acclaimed and unsuccessful at the box office. Tony, their show about the New Labor years in 2022! (Tony Blair Rock Opera), did useful work at the Park theater in north London and on tour.
Brown was born in south-east London, the third child of Margie (née Sewell) and Len Brown. Brown, who taught himself to play guitar and piano as a child, left Bromley boys’ primary school at the age of 16 and played in various bands in south London pubs, where his near contemporary David Bowie was raised.
He found his break by writing music for West End and radio comedy, and when the wave of alternative comedy reached its peak in the 1980s, Brown surfed it in the Perrier-winning sketch troupe Writer’s Inc, alongside Smack the Pony co-creator Victoria Pile and others. and on Radio 4’s late-night comedy show In One Ear.
Spitting Image work followed, in which Brown joined his first wife, the impressionist Jan Ravens (to whom he was married from 1983 to 1993), and he was at Coogan’s side when the Alan Partridge character took flight in the 1990s. Success in its own right came with Waste, Waste, Waste (co-written with Justin Greene), which won the Evening Standard award for best musical in 1999 in its first West End production starring Dickson at the Piccadilly theatre. Describing it as “the most magnificent new musical I can remember seeing”, the Financial Times reviewer wrote that it “fully deserves to join Blood Brothers as ‘your’ working class fixture among West End musicals”.
Brown struggled to repeat this early success. Due to rights issues, the musical adaptation of It’s a Wonderful Life never made it past its initial run at the New Wolsey theater in Ipswich. The two comic musicals Brown produced with Hill were a source of joy and professional satisfaction for both; but they did not develop commercially. “My wife,” Hill said, “she refers to us as the Flop Twins.”
Before his death, Brown was making plans with Coogan for an Alan Partridge musical and a stage adaptation of Coogan’s 2013 film Philomena. (A revival of Waste, Waste, Waste – as yet unannounced – is in production for Christmas 2024.)
But Brown was enjoying his TV work, composing scores for Lenny Henry, the sitcom Not Going Out and Hill’s TV Burp, among many others, and took great pride in nurturing the careers of Mvula and Rumer, whose debut album Seasons of My Soul he wrote. One reviewer commented that “every song sounds like a standard”. Ravens was also proud of the careers of his sons Alfie and Lenny, who followed their father into comedy and music respectively, benefiting from his encouragement and insight. Brown later married actor Deborah Cornelius in 2010. His family remembers a man with an insatiable appetite for learning but also for mischief and play, who valued his achievements but believed he still had much to achieve.
“So what is life then? / What does it mean, what is it about?” Brown once wanted Coogan’s Portuguese lounge singer alter ego, Tony Ferrino, on a song similar to My Way. “Is there a God above? / Why is he there? What is he doing? / Dont ask me. I’m not sure.” According to Coogan: “When I turned around on stage and looked at Steve, he was always smiling and laughing, even though he had written most of it and had heard it thousands of times before.”
Brown is survived by Deborah, Alfie and Lenny, his step-daughter Manon and his siblings Christopher and Susanne.
• Steven James Brown, composer and songwriter, born October 25, 1954; Died February 2, 2024