Barry Cryer: My life on I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue

I was on the very first series, in 1972. Clue had evolved from I’m Sorry, I’ll Read That Again which I’d worked on with Graeme Garden along with many others including John Cleese. The first series of Clue I actually chaired a couple of editions, and then I switched to be on the panel and Humphrey Lyttelton took over as chair. The funny thing is, the show wasn’t that highly regarded to start with. There was a pilot edition that went out on Boxing Day. The thinking was, “everyone will be drunk on Boxing Day, they won’t really be listening to it”. Amazing, looking back.

Tell us about Humphrey Lyttelton

When Clue started, some of the BBC suits thought of Humph as just a jazz presenter. They didn’t know how funny he was. He made chairing the show his own. He was just brilliant. He’d make out he was bored with the whole thing. I remember one round when we’d all sung a song or something and there was applause and then it went back to Humph and there was silence and then finally he said, “Right, well that’s 8 across, now 4 down”.

And Jack Dee?

We had a break after Humph. I think we thought we might never do the show again. But then the BBC decided they wanted us back. We needed a new chair. We tried out Stephen Fry, but he was too knowing. We tried Rob Brydon, who was great. But when we tried Jack Dee, we knew straightaway. We thought, “Oh boy. Sarcastic. Detached. He’s the one.” Jack said, “I can’t fill those shoes,” because he admired Humph so much. But of course he has filled them. I remember one of the first shows we ever did with Jack. It was at the Rose Theatre in Kingston-on-Thames. In the middle of the recording, a man in the audience said very loudly, “Not the same without Humphrey Lyttelton, is it?” Terrible silence. And then Jack Dee said, “Oh, dear Humph, I wonder where he is now. I envy him.” He got a huge round of applause. Quite rightly.

And Graeme Garden?

Graeme and I go back such a long way. We met on The Frost Report back in the Sixties. On Clue we’ve mostly been on the same team and we just have this chemistry. We invented Hamish and Dougal and we’d do the Sound Charades round in character. Graeme’s got Scottish blood, but I haven’t got a drop of Scottish blood. We were two sort of frauds. They were a bit stereotypical but we had a great time. “You’ll have had your tea,” was our catchphrase. We played Glasgow once, and I thought, “We’re going to get murdered in Glasgow!” They loved it! In the end we got our own little radio series, Hamish and Dougal.

And Tim Brooke-Taylor?

Dear Tim. He was one of the originals as well. And when you lose somebody that close to you, it becomes very real, you know? He was a good old friend. Graeme always said that Tim was the one the audience identified with, which was an interesting thought. The way he reacted to what me and Graeme were doing – it was like a member of the audience, in a very happy, positive way. In that sense he was the odd one out.

Give us a glimpse backstage

You don’t have a script but you get the rounds and the running order a few days in advance. It keeps you on your toes because you’ve got to make your own arrangements, and if you hear us laughing at each other’s jokes it’s genuine because we won’t have heard them before. For years we only recorded in London and it was our longtime producer Jon Naismith who insisted we went to other parts of the country. He’d charge a minimal charge for the audience to defray the cost of the theatre. The BBC said, “You can’t charge for a radio recording.” And he said, “We haven’t had a single complaint.” He was amazing, the way he dug his heels in, and the BBC backed off. We always get a tremendous welcome wherever we go.

What’s the best location that you visited?

For me it has to be the City Varieties in Leeds. Leeds is my home town and the City Varieties was where I’d done my very first professional job back in the 1950s. I’d started there as a stand-up. Except in those days we didn’t call it stand-up. We called it an act or a turn. It was just me telling jokes. Or I did a turn with Bernard Cribbins. I’d also done The Good Old Days in the same theatre. To come back with a radio show years later was quite a night for me. It was marvellous, the nostalgia.

Most memorable show

Well, there was going to Leeds. But in retrospect I suppose it was Humph’s last show, though we didn’t know it at the time. I think we were in Peterborough. We knew he was going into hospital the next morning, but he insisted on doing two recordings. I remember him at breakfast in the hotel. He had this bowl of prunes. He tasted one and said, how can you bugger up a prune? Apparently in hospital he was asked if he wanted to look at a screen to see his heart and he replied, “I never watch daytime time TV”. He was a great man.

And the secret of Mornington Crescent?

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Interview by Simon O’Hagan.