Ian MacNaughton
Edward Ian Macnaughton (30 December 1925 – 10 December 2002) was a Scottish actor-turned-television producer and director, best known for his work with the "Monty Python" team. MacNaughton was director and producer for all but four of the forty five episodes of "Monty Python's Flying Circus" from 1969 to 1974, director of the group's first feature film "And Now for Something Completely Different" in 1971 and director of their two German episodes, "Monty Python's Fliegender Zirkus" in 1971 and 1972. In 1973 the production team shared the BAFTA Award for Best Light Entertainment Programme for "Monty Python's Flying Circus".
Roger Wilmut
Wilmut's enthusiasm for the Goons led to the first of his books. In 1974, with the help of friends Tim Smith and Peter Copeland, he revised a list of the series' episodes supplied by the BBC, and his own earlier research, into a "much more complete typewritten list". He then sent it to Robson Books, who showed an interest. While writing the accompanying text he was "approached by the late Jimmy Grafton, who had been involved with the Goons in their early days, and had helped to get the show on the air. He suggested combining his memoirs with my book, and this is what happened, with the book being published in 1976 under the title "The Goon Show Companion"."
Wilmut was then signed by the agent Roger Hancock, who then commissioned him to "write a similar book about Tony Hancock", his elder brother. The result was 1978's "Tony Hancock – 'Artiste"', the book for which he conducted his first interviews. Whilst considering a book on "Monty Python's Flying Circus", Roger Hancock suggested that he cover "the entire generation of comedy which arose from Oxford and Cambridge Universities after 1961". The result was "From Fringe to Flying Circus". 
It wasn't until 1985 that Wilmut's next book appeared, a history of theatrical variety, titled "Kindly Leave The Stage". Over seventy people were interviewed for the project, with Wilmut remarking he thought he "ought to do the interviews as soon as possible in view of the age of the people involved."
In 1989 he produced "Didn't You Kill My Mother-in-Law?", a history of British alternative comedy. The book was originally the idea of Peter Rosengard, a life insurance salesman who had helped start this comedy movement by opening "The Comedy Store" in London in 1979. Like Jimmy Grafton with "The Goon Show Companion", the book was part memoir (this time Rosengard's), and part history of the subject by Wilmut.