Heartbreaking: Huge BBC star d!es after devastating c@ncer battle
Huge BBC star who was axed from hit show d!es aged 77
The BBC sitcom writer was the brains behind the hit series The Thick of It and Help.
Bafta-winning BBC star Chris Langham has d!ed at the age of 77. His de@th was just announced today. In his obituary in The Times, it states that he d!ed on June 24, 2026, after a battle with pancreatic c@ncer. The writer, actor and comedian was best known for playing the cabinet minister Hugh Abbott in the hit BBC sitcom, The Thick Of It, alongside Peter Capaldi, Chris Addison and Rebecca Front. In 2006, he took home a BAFTA Award for his sitcoms, which he devised and co-wrote with Paul Whitehouse.
His other successes include his roles in Not the Nine O’Clock News, Help, and Kiss Me Kate. But days after he picked up a British Comedy Award for his work, his career took a nosedive when it was reported he had been arrested for downloading indecent images of children on the internet.
BBC star Chris Langham has d!ed aged 77 (Image: PA)
The TV star was later charged with 15 counts of downloading indecent images of children, resulting in his film and television career over the last three decades being pulled from the airwaves. At his trial in 2007, he admitted to downloading the images, but pleaded not guilty, insisting he had no sexual interest in children and informed the court he had accessed the images as research for a “peeping tom” character named Pedro for an upcoming series of his BBC show, Help.
Langham was acquitted on further charges of having sex with an under-age girl but found guilty on all 15 counts of downloading indecent images of children. He was later sentenced to 10 months in prison and placed on the sex offenders register.
The TV star was born in 1949 to parents Michael Langham and actress Helen Burns. With his parents working in North America, Langham was sent back to the UK to board at St Paul’s School, where he went on to win a place to read English and Drama at Bristol University.
Unfortunately, the star dropped out of university, but he went on to get his big TV break in the mid-1970s, writing sketches for Spike Milligan’s surreal BBC sketch comedy series Q. He went on to become the sole British writer on The Muppet Show, where he spent five years scripting exchanges between Miss Piggy and the likes of Peter Sellers, Raquel Welch and Roger Moore.
He was found guilty of 15 counts of downloading indecent images of children (Image: PA)
He rose to fame on the BBC sitcom The Thick Of It (Image: BBC)
In 1979, he had a cameo appearance in Monty Python’s Life of Brian alongside his first wife, before launching Not The Nine O’Clock News later that year with the support of Rowan Atkinson, Mel Smith and Pamela Stephenson. However, Langham was fired after one series and replaced by Griff Rhys-Jones, which sent him into a spiral of depression, alcoholism and cocaine addiction.
His addictions cost him his first marriage and stalled his career, telling the Sunday Telegraph in 2005: “My career was being a drunk, and work was something I did if I had a spare five minutes. I was self-destructive. You don’t like yourself if you are an alcoholic, and other people don’t like you either, because your behaviour is appalling.”
Once he gave up his addictions, he threw himself into therapy, which became inspiration for the 2005 comedy series, Help. But it was his role as the Rt Hon Hugh Abbot – an insecure, self-pitying, vacillating and inept minister in The Thick of It, which became his masterpiece.
He is survived by his second wife and their children, Emily and James, and by three older children from his first marriage to actress Sue Jones-Davies.
