Michael Palin, Denis Lawson and Joanna Lumley at the celebration of Jack Rosenthal’s life

LAUGHTER mingled with sadness as friends and family of the late, prolific TV writer Jack Rosenthal gathered to celebrate his life on Thursday.

Jack Rosenthal with Maurenn Lipman

Mr Rosenthal, who died of cancer last year, scripted hundreds of episodes of Coronation Street, created the long-running ITV drama London’s Burning and wrote TV screenplays Bar Mitzvah Boy, The Evacuees, The Knowledge and P’tang, Yang, Kipperbang.

His final screenplay, published this week, tells his life story, from a Jewish childhood in Manchester to married life with the actress Maureen Lipman, who lives in Muswell Hill.

Friends including film-maker Lord Putnam, actors Bill Nighy, who lives in Camden Town, Amanda Holden, Joanna Lumley, Michael Palin, who lives in Gospel Oak, Dennis Lawson, who lives in Chalk Farm, Jane Asher, TV presenter Dennis Norden and writer Kathy Lette packed the Fine Art Society in Bond Street to pay their respects.

Hannah Gordon

Ms Lipman, who wrote the final section of the book after her husband’s death, said: “We’d been on at Jack to write his autobiography for a long time but he said he didn’t know how. In the end I said: why don’t you write it as a screenplay? He said no but he did it in the end.”

Bill Nighy and Amanda Holden

She also paid tribute to Jack’s best friend, Colin Schindler, who she said “always took us to the Royal Marsden Hospital to see Jack until we took to calling him Schindler’s Lift”.

She added: “Just before the end Colin said he was going to see Jack and tell him that he loved him. Later, I spoke to Jack on the phone and asked what happened and he said: ‘He told me he loved me.“ I asked: ‘Then what happened?’ and he said: ‘We didn’t say anything. We had sex and then he went home!’.”

Jack Rosenthal’s Autobiography in Six Acts is published by Robson Books at £17.99.