Sunday Express, December 7, 2008 Sunday

I'm sorry I've not got the key; Review TV & Radio - When radio panel show I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue goes on tour it attracts rock god audiences. David Stephenson finds out why

TWO of the finest comedy talents in the country sit before me.

To be honest, it's a little intimidating.

Between them, funnymen Barry Cryer and Graeme Garden have either contributed to or devised some of the best comedy shows we have known. Today, they're publicising the DVD of my favourite panel show, I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue.

A DVD of a radio show? Absolutely.

But this is no ordinary radio show.

Conceived in 1972 as an "antidote to panel games", this institution has become as much a stage performance as it has a radio recording. Indeed, the boys, who also include Tim Brooke-Taylor but sadly no longer its wonderful chairman Humphrey Lyttleton, toured the country's theatres like a stage play, turning away hundreds of fans along the way.

Indeed, fights have been known outside theatres, according to Cryer.

Yet fans of the radio show will not be disappointed here. "The only visual element, " says Cryer, "is that if you have a song to sing you go down front and you're
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in a spotlight, and there's a sound effects round where you go to a table." No CGI then.

Did the show have a different feel about it? "Yes, " says Cryer. "The size of the audiences. Three and a half thousand at Hammersmith Apollo. . ." Adds Garden: "It was like the Rolling Stones!" There is one other important difference to the stage version, says Garden. "On a recording we don't know what everyone else is going to say, but with the stage show we did. The whole point of the show is to make each other laugh. There are 2,500 people eavesdropping but that's neither here nor there. The DVD itself was filmed at the Lowry Centre, and it was a sort of 'best of ' line up, but not everyone has heard every show over the past 36 years."

And Mornington Crescent? "That's there, " says Cryer. "I heard an old version on BBC7 the other day.

In a lovely scratchy recording, featuring Adolf Hitler, Winston Churchill and Benito Mussolini. It was lovely." What about the round, "pick up song", which made former guest panellist Bill Oddie retch? "That's a great round, " says Garden. "If you come back on time, the audience cheer, if you come back out of time, they laugh." What happens when you don't get a laugh? Quips Cryer: "I don't have to deal with that. He does!" He adds: "You just cry quietly.

Anyway, the show's at its best when it's just falling apart.

"That's when the fun starts." Jokes Garden: "Or we do a John Barrowman! But no lewdness here.

We are as pure as the driven snow." They are surprisingly keen to talk about the Ross/Brand affair. Says Garden: "I think Jonathan pushes the envelope on his chat show anyway." Cryer: "He rips it up!" Continues Garden: "But because it was radio he probably thought it was almost private. No one would get to know about it. They got carried away. The producer, who's 25, was like a Wimbledon umpire with two multi-millionaires on either side of the net. He then had to make a let call, and he works for Russell Brand.

"What happened then was a combination of bad taste and bad language coming together with too much money. We carry on with our radio show like the BBC censor was still in force. He was the greatest friend to comedy. But now even cooks are swearing on television. In the days of The Goodies, you couldn't even say 'bloody'. Once you've said the F-word, where do you go from there?" Should Ross be allowed back?

Says Garden: "I don't know enough about it, but taking it back to The Goodies when it finished on ITV after just one series, maybe Jonathan is set to do something different." Adds Cryer: "I can't be objective about it, because I want it to come back just so I can watch the first show.

"Frank Skinner said recently that one night he took out all the rude words in his routine. He said to his amazement he did just as well. The reaction from the audience was just as good." When does the radio show return?

Says Garden: "June the something.

That's about right." But of course without Humph.

Says Cryer: "He did what he called 'blue-chip filth'.

"He was full of double entendres and stuff, and would look baffled and amazed as to why the audience was laughing.

"His whole air was, 'Let's get this over with'. He used to get laughs for silence. It was wonderful." Says Garden: "It was a sensible sounding voice in the middle of all the mayhem."

.I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue is available on DVD now.