‘Stuttering’ comic Collier dies in sleep at age of 87

Comic Norman Collier, a star of numerous TV light entertainment shows and famed for his faulty microphone routine, has died at the age of 87.

Collier became a major figure on the club circuit and on TV with his stuttering performances as he pretended to have a sound problem, as well as for another long-running gag where he strutted and clucked like a chicken.

The sandy-haired comic suffered from Parkinson’s disease for a number of years and died in a residential care home close to his home town of Hull.

Collier’s son-in-law, John Ainsley, said his father-in-law died peacefully in his sleep at a nursing home in Brough, East Yorkshire, on Thursday evening.

Impressionist Jon Culshaw was among those paying tribute to Collier yesterday, calling him a “wonderfully funny man”. ”People would be permanently laughing whenever they were around him,” he said.

Collier had been a gunner in the Second World War and made his comedy debut in 1948.