Abigoliah: Welcome back to All British Comedy Explained, a podcast where you and me, dear listener, learn about British comedies from the days of yore, and the person teaching us is writer friend Tom Salinsky.
Tom: Hello there.
Abigoliah: By the way, I’m Abigoliah. I should have mentioned that.
Tom: Yeah. If this is your first time listening, she’s Abigoliah, I’m Tom.
Abigoliah: But this is the final show we’re gonna watch of the series. So if you’re joining in now, go back and check out what we’ve done.
Tom: Seven previous episodes, plus a Christmas special for you to listen to. Yeah – and interviews and everything. Yeah. All right, so…
Abigoliah: Tell me what we are watching.
Tom: Listening to.
Abigoliah: Listening to today.
Tom: So we had a little dalliance with radio with The Goon Show, which was not an unalloyed success.
Abigoliah: No.
Tom: But we’re coming back for more. We’re going to be listening to I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue.
Abigoliah: Okay, so tell me: is this a game show?
Tom: Sort of.
Abigoliah: Because your rule at the very beginning was… which what I like is you’re like, “I can break my rules if I want.” And you were like, “No game shows.” And then you’re like… “And in the first series, we’ll watch a game show.”
Tom: I mean, some game shows are about the game and some are about the comedy. I mean, do you ever remember seeing on TV or listening to on the radio You Bet Your Life?
Abigoliah: No.
Tom: This was what Groucho Marx did after he was done doing movies. And there was a radio producer who watched him and Bob Hope – this is a slightly apocryphal story – but he and Bob Hope were supposed to be doing a sketch on the radio, and they got their pages mixed up and dropped the script and started improvising. And the producer thought, Groucho is much funnier when he’s just riffing. And so they made him the host of a quiz show. The quiz was, like, five minutes out of half an hour, because the fun would be Groucho meeting this ordinary couple and talking to them and teasing them and making jokes.
Famously – this almost certainly never happened, by the way. And if it had happened, it would not have been broadcast. But it’s one of those jokes that has ascended to the level of legend. A woman is supposed to have come on who had something like 14 children. And when asked about this, her explanation was, “I like my husband.” And Groucho is supposed to have said, “I like my cigar too, but I take it out once in a while.”
Abigoliah: That is good. If it happened.
Tom: It didn’t happen. It almost certainly did not happen. If we were doing American comedy, I would probably choose You Bet Your Life because it is a comedy show much more than it is a quiz show. This is a kind of a weird one.
Abigoliah: Is this like… I mean, one British thing I have seen a lot of is the panel shows. So is this like a panel radio show?
Tom: It’s a precursor to those.
Abigoliah: Okay, so let’s go back to the very beginning.
Tom: Let’s go back…
Abigoliah: Very good place to start.
Tom: To 1972.
Abigoliah: 72.
Tom: This is the year that the Watergate scandal broke.
Abigoliah: Oh, big year.
Tom: Alex Comfort’s bestseller The Joy of Sex hits bookshelves for the first time. The French Connection wins the Oscar for Best Picture. And it’s the year I was born.
Abigoliah: A golden year!
Tom: All right, but our story starts once again with Cambridge Footlights.
Abigoliah: Go figure.
Tom: So you might remember the Footlights revue Cambridge Circus, which launched John Cleese and sent him on the road to Monty Python, as well as Cleese and Graham Chapman. The cast included David Hatch, Jo Kendall, Tim Brooke–Taylor and Bill Oddie. Do those last two names mean anything to you?
Abigoliah: No, not at all.
Tom: We’ll come back to them. So this revue show – this sketch show – was very successful. So successful that a recording of the whole show was made for BBC radio, and that went well enough that a series was commissioned essentially from the same team. And it was given the title I’m Sorry, I’ll Read That Again, after the apology made when a newsreader or somebody makes a verbal slip. And it’s roughly the same team. Graham Chapman is replaced by a medical graduate called Graeme Garden. And it’s very, very popular. It features a wide array of catchphrases and recurring characters, very typical of radio comedy of this era. It starts in 1964 and it racks up over 100 episodes.
Abigoliah: In that year?
Tom: No, no, no, no – over the subsequent years…
Abigoliah: Okay, I was gonna say.
Tom: It started in ’64, it ran for 100 episodes, and it finished in the early ’70s.
Abigoliah: And this is when it’s called I’m Sorry, I’ll Read That Again?
Tom: Exactly. The reason it finished is largely that by now, several of its stars and writers were in heavy demand for television, which, as Graeme Garden points out, pays better – although it’s not actually harder to do. So it was tricky for him, for example, to commit to cranking out scripts for the radio when he could do the same for television sitcoms like Doctor in the House and get paid much more. Okay, and the same went double or treble for John Cleese, who is now writing and starring on At Last the 1948 Show and was about to start work on Monty Python. Yeah – so Graeme Garden started wondering, is there some way of using this comedy team in ways which aren’t quite so labour–intensive?
Tom: So also popular on BBC radio were panel shows, including Just a Minute, hosted by Nicholas Parsons, My Word!, starring Frank Muir and Denis Norden, and even a radio version of 20 Questions. That was what passed for entertainment in 1971.
Abigoliah: Back when anything you could get made – like, anything.
Tom: Graeme Garden thought that this structure might work rather well, and he pitched the idea to John Cleese, Bill Oddie, Jo Kendall and the others. Now, usually a show like Just a Minute exists to provide a format, and then within that you hope that people will be amusing. But in this case, what he wanted to do was set the team the task of being silly.
Abigoliah: Okay, so more Taskmaster.
Tom: A little bit like Taskmaster, actually.
Abigoliah: Yeah. And less like QI, where it’s like, “I’m going to present you with a question,” and you just… because all those panel shows, even though we’re like, “20 Questions”, that’s ridiculous. Like, I remember hearing Jimmy Carr say they’re all based on those old parlour games. Yeah – like, that’s what they are. You’re just watching famous people play a parlour game.
Tom: On television in the ’80s when I was growing up, Give Us a Clue was a ratings winner. I mean, it wasn’t a huge primetime smash, but it was on a lot. And it was charades. It was celebrities playing charades for half an hour.
Abigoliah: Over lockdown, me and my partner got into the Netflix series The Floor Is Lava.
Tom: Oh, yes.
Abigoliah: Which is a kids’ game you used to play around your house, by the way. Watch it, don’t watch it – but if you do watch it, you have to find the episode where it’s the three flight attendants. It’s two female flight attendants and one male flight attendant, and it is the greatest bit of game show television – of that sort of, like, challenge – oh, you gotta watch it.
Tom: So they needed somebody to act as chairman, and rather oddly, they landed on jazz trumpeter and broadcaster Humphrey Lyttelton.
Abigoliah: Wait – he’s a jazz trumpeter and a broadcaster?
Tom: A broadcaster. So he would do jazz programmes on Radio 2.
Abigoliah: Okay.
Tom: Like “The Best of Jazz”.
Abigoliah: When you said broadcaster, in my head I’m picturing the news and I’m like, these are two very different things. But okay – so he’s a jazz trumpeter. What’s his name again?
Tom: Humphrey Lyttelton.
Abigoliah: What a name.
Tom: And perhaps they were thinking of the way that dignified and avuncular Kenneth Horne anchored the crazy characters in two early radio comedy shows, Beyond Our Ken and Round the Horne. Round the Horne is where we encountered Julian and Sandy very briefly.
Abigoliah: Mm-hm.
Tom: Whatever the reason, it was an inspired choice. I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue, as it was retitled, began in April 1972 with panellists Graeme Garden, Jo Kendall, Tim Brooke–Taylor and Bill Oddie. And it’s clear they’re all rather nervous.
Abigoliah: Really?
Tom: Nobody knows if this is going to work or not, but they recorded – say it with me – 13 shows. And there’s a few little changes. Jo Kendall seems replaced by John Cleese. But it’s kind of this team from I’m Sorry, I’ll Read That Again now doing this ridiculous panel show.
Abigoliah: Can we just pause for a moment and say: as much as I’m like, “Only 13 shows in a season,” the fact that they got 13 shows… As we were discussing off mic, I just did a friend’s BBC Radio 4 pilot. She pitched a series. Now, because of money and whatnot, you get one show – and if that goes well… the fact you get 13? That’s a luxury, man. That is a luxury that you don’t get these days.
Tom: Comedy writer Barry Cryer was also sometimes in the chair instead of Humphrey Lyttelton. And some of the games they played in that first season are still being played today, because, as I said when I introduced this, this show is still on the air. And for that reason, by the way, this is going to be a slightly longer introduction, with rather less to say afterwards. Okay. Because I kind of want to tell you the whole story of the whole show.
Abigoliah: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Tom: But famous games include One Song to the Tune of Another.
Abigoliah: So I’m guessing you take the lyrics of one song and do them to the tune of another. It’s very self–explanatory.
Tom: Late Arrivals at the Ball, which is just a kind of joke–generation mechanism, and various others. So the show starts to take off. It gets kind of passed around from different in–house producers. I remember talking to you about Week Ending, and I said the same thing would happen: it would be your turn to produce Week Ending if you were a BBC in–house producer. Kind of the same with I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue, but the line–up settled down quite quickly. John Cleese and Jo Kendall didn’t return after the first year.
Abigoliah: Because they got too famous.
Tom: Jo Kendall? No – because she was a woman. Oh, of course. John Cleese: much too famous, and never liked improvising anyway. Always much preferred having a script. Barry Cryer, who’d been the stand–in chairman, became a regular panellist. Bill Oddie bowed out after the second year and he was replaced by cartoonist and satirist Willie Rushton. And again, somebody who is all over BBC television and ITV, sometimes throughout my childhood, of whom you’ve never heard. But that classic line–up of Graeme Garden, Barry Cryer, Tim Brooke–Taylor and Willie Rushton was maintained, with only occasional variations, for the next 22 years.
Abigoliah: All men.
Tom: Yeah.
Abigoliah: Yeah, yeah. Okay. From the ’70s to the ’90s when it’s like, “Wait a minute…”
Tom: Other guest panellists: Denise Coffey from Do Not Adjust Your Set – an actual woman – and then some up–and–comers like Stephen Fry, who made his first appearance in 1987. Paul Merton, who made his first appearance in 1992.
Abigoliah: Whatever happened to that guy? Now he hosts… now he hosts the shows. Not this one, though. He doesn’t host this one, does he? No. Just keep talking. I’m listening.
Tom: But after 20–odd years, the programme is feeling quite old and tired. One producer felt differently: Jon Naismith. He was just another BBC staff producer, but he thought there’s some magic here. It was a good show, but he thought he could make it better. And he got very familiar with it, because he’d already listened to 150 past episodes to compile a best–of edition.
Abigoliah: Oh, so he knew… he knew his stuff.
Tom: So he wanted to make some changes. One change he made was to get it out of the relatively small Paris Theatre on Regent Street – where most BBC radio comedies were being recorded. He began booking the show into big regional theatres.
Abigoliah: That’s fu.
Tom: And it also provided fodder for the chairman’s scripts because jokes about the local area could be included.
Abigoliah: The BBC becomes more inclusive because it’s not all–
Tom: In the regions.
Abigoliah: London stuff. It’s like, “Oh, the BBC went to Salford.”
Tom: Speaking of the chairman’s script: Naismith next hired veteran comedy writer Ian Pattinson to be Humphrey Lyttelton’s regular gagman, and he delighted in peppering the shows with filthy double entendres, made all the funnier when read out in Humphrey’s dry, academic tones. So, for example: I was saying that Give Us a Clue, the TV charades, was famous. One of the games they play on I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue is Sound Charades, which as Humphrey dryly points out is a version of the hilarious game show Give Us a Clue, where the panellists are not allowed to speak. Our version deviates from that in two ways… But he was always making jokes about it. For example: Lionel Blair was one of the regular panellists on Give Us a Clue, and, sample joke: “The master of the game was, of course, Lionel Blair. His colleagues could only stare in amazement as he pulled off 12 Angry Men in only 30 seconds,” and so on. And then a third change was forced on Jon Naismith, which was that Willie Rushton died of a heart attack, aged 59.
Abigoliah: Oh. That’s sad.
Tom: Well, now – while heartbreaking – the presence of an open seat did create more variety for the shows that followed.
Abigoliah: Freshen it up. Freshen it up.
Tom: So rather than installing a new regular panellist, a different guest comedian partnered Tim Brooke–Taylor every week – or every two weeks, because they would do two shows per evening. Now, regularly running two seasons of six every year, the total number of episodes went past 300.
Abigoliah: Wow.
Tom: And the fourth chair was filled by people like Sandi Toksvig, Phill Jupitus, Rob Brydon, Victoria Wood, Jeremy Hardy – who made over 50 appearances – and Tony Hawks, who made over 70.
Abigoliah: Now, in radio in the UK, is there such thing as syndication?
Tom: No, no. It’s just on the BBC, broadcast to the… to the… to the world. Yeah.
Abigoliah: And then it goes out, and then… okay.
Tom: The show is so popular it began touring without being recorded, which had two benefits. Benefit number one was the production team could charge higher ticket prices, because if you go to the Paris on Regent Street you don’t pay at all – you’re just the studio audience. They couldn’t afford to do that if they’re playing the Bath Pavilion. But the tickets were like £10. They basically were not allowed to make any money on it, but it was not being recorded – it’s not an official BBC show – so you can actually make some money and pay the panellists properly.
Abigoliah: And you can do stuff on the show that you couldn’t do on the BBC. You could be a little dirty or a little bit funnier.
Tom: You could do the same stuff every time.
Abigoliah: Oh, so it becomes a script after a while.
Tom: One of these tour shows was filmed in early 2008, and it’s the only complete visual recording of I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue. I did consider showing that to you, but for reasons we’ll come to, I didn’t end up going down that route.
Abigoliah: Okay. You wanted me to just stare at the ceiling and not know what to do with my hands.
Tom: Exactly.
Tom: Okay, great. That was my mission. From the beginning of this podcast, actually.
Abigoliah: By the way, if you guys don’t watch this podcast on YouTube, it is on YouTube. And I didn’t cut it into a reel because I don’t think it works out of context. But when we listened to The Goon Show, Tom always has a segment of me watching the show, and I am yawning. I am looking at the ceiling. I look like a bored kid in maths. So this time I brought a project to keep my hands busy.
Tom: So the programme has survived the loss of one of its most beloved panellists, Willie Rushton. It survived a series of indifferent producers. It survived the rise of the internet and the beginning of streaming.
Abigoliah: That’s pretty impressive.
Tom: But by the time the 50th series was being recorded, Humphrey Lyttelton was 86.
Abigoliah: Oh, wow.
Tom: The spring 2008 series was cancelled when he was hospitalised, and he died a few weeks after the announcement was made.
Abigoliah: Oh, that’s so tragic.
Tom: And he was kind of thought of as being irreplaceable. For a while, nobody knew if the show was ever going to come back, but it did finally come back in spring 2009, with three different people tried out as hosts.
Abigoliah: And they were?
Tom: Stephen Fry, who was a bit too jolly. Okay.
Abigoliah: Too much fun.
Tom: Rob Brydon, who didn’t have quite the necessary authority. And Jack Dee, who had first appeared in 2004.
Abigoliah: Authoritative and curmudgeonly. Jack Dee.
Tom: Exactly. He fit it perfectly. He has hosted every episode since, and he is now well on his way to 200 episodes himself. The pattern of Barry and Graeme on one team, and Tim and a guest comedian on the other team continued – but all three of them knocking on, too. The last episode with this classic line–up was the winter 2019 series.
Abigoliah: Wait – how old was Graham Chapman?
Abigoliah: You said Graham Chapman.
Tom: Garden.
Abigoliah: Sorry – Graeme. How old was Graeme Garden then?
Tom: We’ll come–
Abigoliah: To. How old were they all then? They must have been in their 60s… 60s, or…
Tom: 70s and 80s.
Abigoliah: 70s and 80s.
Tom: So after the winter 2019 season, Covid messed up the schedule.
Abigoliah: Sorry, I’m just picturing this now show that’s been… they replaced the host. So it’s a young Jack Dee among all of these pensioners.
Tom: Old men, yeah, yeah, yeah. Covid messed up the schedule and it claimed the life of Tim Brooke–Taylor, shortly followed by the death of writer Ian Pattinson. He was replaced by Fraser Steele and Steven Dick, who are still working on the show today.
Abigoliah: Usually we don’t talk about who’s died in these shows till the very end of our podcast, and with this one, it’s gone on so long, we have to talk about it.
Tom: Sorry.
Abigoliah: It’s okay. It’s fine.
Tom: We’re getting to the show soon, I promise you. Other regular guests around this time included Pippa Evans.
Abigoliah: Big fan.
Tom: Rory Bremner, John Finnemore, Marcus Brigstocke, Milton Jones and Lucy Porter. Barry Cryer’s last show was in December 2021, and he died a couple of months later. Graeme Garden’s last show was in the summer of 2022, but he is still alive as of this recording, and he does keep an eye on the programme that he co–created, sending in ideas for new rounds every so often.
Abigoliah: Oh, I love that. That’s so sweet.
Tom: And the show is still on the air. As we sit here in November 2025, the most recent episode to be broadcast – which is… there’s a season going out at the moment – it was recorded in the 2,300–seater Southampton Mayflower, and the guests were Rachel Parris, Marcus Brigstocke, Miles Jupp and Adrian Edmondson, all being given silly things to do by Jack Dee, with Jon Naismith producing, Fraser Steele and Steven Dick as programme consultants, all accompanied by Colin Sell on the piano, who’s been with the show since 1975.
Abigoliah: Okay, so then there’s just this very old man–
Tom: Playing the piano.
Abigoliah: I’m picturing, I’m picturing – I know it’s radio, but every pianist I know has horrible posture, so I’m picturing a man with a full–on widow’s hump still going at the piano.
Tom: So it’s the 84th season that’s going out at the moment.
Abigoliah: Jesus in heaven.
Tom: I can see no reason why the 85th season won’t go out next spring.
Abigoliah: I mean, you get that far–
Tom: You have–
Abigoliah: You have to go to 100.
Tom: Yeah. And like I said, two seasons a year now. So–
Abigoliah: And each season has how many episodes?
Tom: Six. So they do three tour dates. They record two episodes at each location, and that gives you a series of six.
Abigoliah: Okay.
Tom: All right.
Abigoliah: So, hot take: as you know, I listen to more podcasts than radio. I don’t like live podcast recordings.
Tom: Oh, really?
Abigoliah: Yeah, I don’t–
Tom: I am the–
Abigoliah: You do.
Tom: …prince of live podcast records.
Abigoliah: Well, I like here’s the thing. I like them like, I like The Guilty Feminist because it’s always live. So I’m adjusted to that. Right? But when a podcast is in studio and then they go out and they’re like, hey, we’re live at the London Podcast Festival.
Tom: This offer, I’ve got to do a live version of all British comedy. I should just say, no?
Abigoliah: No, no, we should definitely do it. Oh, I’ll make them. I won’t listen to it, but it will make. No, but what I think is interesting about live ones is sometimes the audio just isn’t that good.
Tom: Well, listen, my audio is pristine. It’s always good.
Abigoliah: I really feel like I’ve offended you going, I don’t like live podcasts. And you’re like, I’ve built a career on this.
Tom: We’ve got to the end of this first series of eight. Maybe we should just leave it.
Abigoliah: We should just quit now. All right.
Tom: Before we do that, here’s what I’ve curated for you. So we’re going to start by listening to series six, episode six from 1978. So that’s late enough that the show has found its feet, but it gives us that classic line–up, including Willie Rushton.
Abigoliah: Okay.
Tom: Then we’ll do series 42, episode two from 2003–
Abigoliah: Okay.
Tom: With Sandi Toksvig guesting.
Abigoliah: Okay. Is this Sandi early, or is she… she–
Tom: Sandi by then she’s Sandi. Okay. I remember doing a children’s television show in the ’80s called Number 73, and she was Sandi Toksvig then.
Abigoliah: Okay, cool, cool, cool.
Tom: And this is the show as I remember it. This is the show I kind of grew up with. So it’s touring the regions, it’s one guest panellist per episode, and this is kind of the show that I know and love. And if you have the energy, we’ll do the first episode of series 83, which was broadcast only a few months ago and has Jack Dee in the chair.
Abigoliah: I really do want to do it. It’s just a matter of… I have to be at the Comedy Store tonight, so we’ll–
Tom: See how we–
Abigoliah: Go. Yes.
Tom: And how much you’re enjoying it.
Abigoliah: I, I want to, I want to listen to all three. And just so people know, if you’re watching the YouTube, I did bring an embroidery project this time to keep my hands busy. So if you’re watching that, that’s what’s happening while we listen away.
Tom: So – anything else you want to say about what you’re expecting?
Abigoliah: Gosh, what am I expecting? I mean, I think I’m expecting a lot of guessing games. I guess what I kind of think I’m gonna be watching is, like… “shy”, but not… not informational, if that makes sense. So: I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue – what am I expecting? I got nothing. Okay. I wonder if–
Tom: You haven’t a clue.
Abigoliah: I have – I’m sorry, I haven’t a clue.
Tom: That was… that was an open goal. That was an open goal. Miss that.
Abigoliah: Oh God. Let’s just watch.
Tom: Let’s go listen to how the pros do it.
* * * * *
Tom: The embroidery worked.
Abigoliah: So not only did I laugh, but I did a whole stem. People on YouTube: I did a whole stem, and I did three… three leaves.
Tom: So how long is that going to take you?
Abigoliah: I’m really slow at this. Well – I one time I took a class – you’ll edit this out – I, over the summer, I treated myself to an embroidery class at the Royal School of Needlework, and I learned that I am painfully slow at embroidery. However, I do enjoy doing it. But yeah, it’ll take me ages. But it’s fun. But I’ve got–
Tom: Yeah. No, no – it’s very impressive.
Abigoliah: This is, yeah, a little project my mum gave me.
Tom: Okay, so I grew up listening to that show. As noted, it started the year I was born, so I had every opportunity. But I can remember, for example–
Abigoliah: This show is literally as old as you.
Tom: Yeah, yeah. I can remember being away with Deb somewhere and having cassette tapes of the Best of I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue, and one of Humphrey’s wrap–up lines made me laugh so hard I had to stop the car. Which was something like: “And now, with Goofy’s hand pointing at the twelve and Mickey’s hand pointing at the three, I realise my Rolex is a fake.”
Abigoliah: I like that.
Abigoliah: Okay. Here’s – I have several takeaways from watching I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue. It has solved a big mystery in my life. And now I have a new one, which is… On our second date, Tom and I were on the Northern line going back to Camden, and he was like, “Here’s the thing: there’s a big game to play – how to get to Mornington Crescent,” I think he said, on a Sunday afternoon or something from a different place. He said Waterloo – I can’t quite remember the conversation – and I was like, “Well, you just get on at Waterloo and you take the train, the Northern line, to Mornington Crescent.” And he goes, “On a Sunday? Taking the Northern line?” And so I’d go all these different routes and he’d be like, “No, that’s not it either.” And it was delightful. But I was so baffled by what was happening, and I thought he made this up. And through our relationship he’s like, “Very famous game. How do you get to Mornington Crescent?” And I’m like, “It’s not a game. You made it up.” It’s real. It’s in I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue. And now I’ve heard it. Freaking 11 years of my life I’ve been, “What is this?” It was so charming. It’s a real thing, but I don’t–
Tom: The rules are so self–evident, I don’t think there’s any point going through them. All listeners will know.
Abigoliah: I don’t understand the rules.
Tom: The rules are so self–evident– All listeners will know.
Abigoliah: I don’t…
Tom: It’s a game we all grow up playing…
Abigoliah: Is it the last letter of the thing someone said before you?
Tom: Don’t overthink it.
Abigoliah: Is it the last letter of the thing someone said before you?
Tom: It’s a comedy show.
Abigoliah: I don’t care. I don’t understand: how do you get to Mornington… because at one point they’re in Barnet and it’s like, well, you just take the train down. But they went other places. How do you get to Mornington Crescent? How do you get to– I need to know. I didn’t think it was real and it’s real and I–
Tom: Only semi–real.
Abigoliah: I can walk there.
Tom: So Mornington Crescent was not invented by Tom Watts. It predates him by some time.
Abigoliah: From 1971, apparently.
Tom: 1978. Series six was the first time it was played.
Abigoliah: How do you get to Mornington Crescent?
Tom: The joke of Mornington Crescent is the rules are incredibly complicated and also non–existent.
Abigoliah: So they’re just saying stuff?
Tom: But the joke is to try and make it sound as if there’s a very complicated strategic game going on. So people will be like, “But if you go there, that’s on a diagonal,” and this is all nonsense. But the audience by now is so in on the game that they can go “ooh” at a particularly good move. Yeah. And because they are part of the joke as well.
Abigoliah: Fuck this. I’m Sorry, I Haven’t A Clue goes in the bargain bin. 11 years and there’s… and it is nothing. It is nothing. Mornington Crescent can suck my dick.
Tom: Mornington Crescent is, of course, around the corner from both you and me.
Abigoliah: Yes, so we can walk there.
Tom: There is a blue plaque on the wall commemorating Humphrey Lyttelton.
Abigoliah: Oh.
Tom: And the pub opposite is called–
Abigoliah: The Koko?
Tom: The Lyttelton Arms.
Abigoliah: Oh.
Tom: In Humphrey Lyttelton’s honour.
Abigoliah: Oh. That’s sweet. I’m like, there’s a Costa, there’s the famous Koko Club and–
Tom: The Lyttelton Arms.
Abigoliah: Turns out I don’t know how to get to Mornington Crescent.
Tom: So Mornington Crescent and One Song to the Tune of Another are definitely the most popular games. So in the modern series, they tend to play each of them only twice each over the course of six episodes.
Abigoliah: Okay, so it’s never twice–
Tom: Never both in the same episode. Okay, so I had a choice with the more modern one: do I give you a third dose of Mornington Crescent, or do I do a second dose of One Song to the Tune of Another? And I couldn’t resist Pippa Evans doing the Hokey Cokey.
Abigoliah: I mean, I’m glad we picked the Hokey Cokey because Pippa is such a talent. And listening to her sing the Hokey Cokey beautifully – something I’ve never heard anyone do. And also, when Mornington Crescent didn’t come up the third time, because I was like, “Okay, I think I got the rules this third time, I’ll get it,” now that I know there are no rules… Oh, I am, I’m riled up. I’m riled up about Mornington Crescent. Okay, so–
Tom: In Edinburgh one year they played the Edinburgh variation, which is Morningside Crescent.
Abigoliah: Clever. Clever. So my takeaways are… it’s basically parlour games mixed with improv games.
Tom: Yeah – like kind of joke–generation games.
Abigoliah: Is it a board game?
Tom: There is no board game of I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue, that I’m aware of. There are various, like, spin–offs. There is a little book of Mornington Crescent. There’s a companion book and things like that. No board game that I’m aware of.
Abigoliah: Because I think it would make a– because it’s… because it is parlour games of, like, draw a card and this is the game we’re playing this time.
Tom: Anyway, I think one of the things, though, is they do make it look easy. And some of those joke–generation games, actually, you have to be pretty sharp. Basically, you have to be a professional comedian or comedy writer.
Abigoliah: Yeah. And like we said: when I was like, “How much of this is improvised?” Usually, not ever having been on this set, I don’t know how they do this, but usually for panel shows you get the questions ahead of time, so you have time to write something. You don’t do– like, not super far ahead of time.
Tom: It’s not like– remember, maybe it was Phill Jupitus, someone like that– somebody saying… when they were doing it as the one guest and it was the three old–timers, yeah. With those games, like the– there was one at the end, the Drunkard’s Ball or the Vegetarian’s Film Club: they would have little slips of paper with some of their ideas on them, and they would say to the new boy, “Do you want a couple of mine?” to kind of help out.
Abigoliah: That’s so sweet.
Tom: And some of them are very– I mean, I remember Stephen Fry in the ’90s playing the dictionary definition game and I think opening with: “Countryside: to kill Piers Morgan.”
Abigoliah: Woooowww….
Tom: That went out on Radio 4 in the 1990s.
Abigoliah: Yeah. I mean, here’s the thing: with games like that, you’re never going to be as good as a professional comedian. However, I think it would be fun to play.
Tom: Yeah. I mean, listen, there’s nothing stopping you.
Abigoliah: Yeah, yeah. I mean, they’re parlour games, so it doesn’t need to be a board game. And I guess the BBC doesn’t like franchise into– well, there’s The Traitors.
Tom: Yeah, they do sometimes.
Abigoliah: But I thought it was great. The only thing that I was like, “This isn’t funny, this is just cute,” is the whistle/kazoo one?
Tom: Yeah. It’s funny. Swanee Kazoo is a very popular game which I’ve never entirely seen the point of. Even Pick–Up Song, which is not a joke–generation mechanism in any sense, it’s still funny, usually because they cast it very well. They make somebody sing something which is very inappropriate, very difficult for them to do, or just they’re bad casting, and so that’s funny. Obviously nobody cares whether they come back on time or not. Yeah. But yeah, I’ve never really seen the point of– I was grateful that this was quite a short rendition.
Abigoliah: Yeah. I mean, it’s just two people. It probably would be funnier live. And what I really think is, like, it’s fun to play a slide whistle and a kazoo – like, it’d be… it’s more fun to do than I think it would be to watch or listen to. But that was by the by.
Abigoliah: It’s also just kind of like, “And now we end on music.” You know my goal – I have a new life goal – is, by the– so we’re recording this, listeners, at the end of 2025: by the end of 2026, I want to have either written or been on I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue. How hard is that to do?
Tom: I mean, not impossible. Some of the people who are on it now are your contemporaries. There are no fixed panellists any more. The only regulars now are Colin Sell and Jack Dee. So all four chairs are open, but they only record 12 shows a year.
Abigoliah: Yeah.
Tom: And they record them in batches of two, so you’ve got six opportunities in 2026 to be on that show. Okay. But I’m gonna see if we can get an interview with Jon Naismith. Yeah. So that will be your opportunity to make your pitch, because some of the people appearing on the show are your contemporaries.
And one of the weird things about I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue in particular is what we have seen a little bit of, and what we will probably see more of as we go on, is radio as this proving ground. So The Day Today started on radio as On the Hour. Once it was a success on radio and didn’t cost too much money, then they would pay more money to have it on television. So it used to be the case that the young comedians got their start on radio, but now you kind of have to be 45 to be allowed anywhere near I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue. Yeah. The fact is that some of these people, like Gary Delaney and Pippa Evans, probably weren’t born when it started is irrelevant because it’s been on the air for 50–plus years.
Abigoliah: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s a joyful show. It’s very fun. It’s just silly, and like, I enjoyed just kind of listening to it while I was doing my little embroidery. It’s something I’ll listen to again, and I, like, want to be on it. And unlike everything else that we’ve watched so far, I could be on it.
Tom: Yes. You can’t be on Not Only But Also, no matter how hard you try– no, no, for all sorts of reasons.
Abigoliah: Yeah, they won’t let me. But yeah, I thought it was great. What else did I write? Oh: “the anecdote to panel shows”.
Tom: Antidote.
Abigoliah: Antidote?
Tom: Yes. The cure.
Abigoliah: The cure. But it is a panel show.
Tom: Yes.
Abigoliah: So that’s a joke?
Tom: Yes.
Abigoliah: Right, I got it.
Tom: There are lots of other running jokes as well. Obviously, Samantha doesn’t exist.
Abigoliah: Okay.
Tom: They did get one angry letter once – somebody wrote in saying, “This terrible show, it’s all men, and the only woman on the stage isn’t even allowed to speak.”
Abigoliah: Because it’s the pianist.
Tom: No – Samantha, the lovely Samantha the scorer, doesn’t exist. Occasionally she is replaced by the very rippling Sven. And then other running jokes as well: introducing Mornington Crescent – the programme has always been inundated by a letter from a Mrs Trellis of North Wales, who usually misidentifies the chairman.
And then – I don’t think you heard this – but often with One Song to the Tune of Another, the chairman’s introduction will be some incredibly laborious explanation of a game which, as you immediately identified, is explained entirely by its title. And very often this will lead up to a dig at Colin Sell. So I think I can remember Humphrey Lyttelton saying: you could imagine that the words of a song are like shop–window dummies and the tune is like the clothes. And just like with a shop–window dummy, you can take the clothes off and put them on different dummies. You can even take the heads and the limbs off the dummies and rearrange them in a different order. But what, I hear you say, would be the point of a dummy with two left hands? At the piano, Colin Sell.
I could just sit here and quote favourite lines from 50 years of I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue.
Abigoliah: As we’ve gotten through this, I did threaten once to make a supercut of you doing impressions of just this season. Do you – have you memorised every show that we’ve seen thus far?
Tom: I mean, not word for word. Some I know better than others.
Abigoliah: I mean, your ability to be like, “In 1972, Barry Cryer said on the fifth episode of the 70th season…” Like– it’s just kind of easy listening. And what’s nice about – and the fact that it’s still going on: it would be a fun thing to listen to on the way home, on a long drive – of just like, “Oh, I’ll just listen to this fun little show for a little while and make myself laugh.” And because it’s not a narrative, if you do space out for a bit, you’re back in and you get it. I, I really enjoyed it. I absolutely loved it. And I will be on it by the end of 2026. That’s my goal. We’ll still be doing this podcast – goal one, let’s say that’s goal one – and goal two: on this podcast, I get to announce that I’ve worked on I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue, either as a writer or a performer.
Tom: Now, there’s very little to say about what happened next, because I’ve basically told you everything. I’ll just tie up a few loose ends. Graeme Garden, Tim Brooke–Taylor and Bill Oddie – who was the panellist for the first two years – are also known as The Goodies.
Abigoliah: Okay.
Tom: So this was a wacky sitcom about three people who will do any job, any time, anywhere, which ran from 1970 to 1982 – so quite a long time. Barry Cryer wrote on just about every sketch comedy available. He wrote for Kenny Everett, Mike Yarwood, Morecambe and Wise when Eddie Braben was not available, Frankie Howerd, The Two Ronnies, Jasper Carrott – many, many more.
He and Graeme Garden also spun off their bickering Scottish characters Hamish and Dougal. There’s a little dig about Hamish and Dougal, which was kind of under the laugh – you probably didn’t hear it – but when they do Sound Charades, they very often play Hamish and Dougal, and the catchphrase always is: “Ah, Hamish, you’ll have had your tea,” which is a dig at the supposed fiscal responsibility of the Scots.
Abigoliah: Ahh…
Tom: “I don’t have to provide you with anything because you’ve already eaten, haven’t you, Hamish? You’ll have had your tea.” And in fact, that was what their brief radio series was called, featuring those characters. Bill Oddie turned to making nature programmes such as Springwatch and Birding with Bill Oddie. But as you identified, probably the main legacy of this show is the rise of TV panel shows in the ’90s, starting with Have I Got News for You.
Abigoliah: Which is… Wait, is that–
Tom: Have I Got News for You is really a TV version of the radio show The News Quiz.
Abigoliah: Right.
Tom: That started in 1977 and it’s still on the air now with Andy Zaltzman hosting. So Just a Minute, which started with Nicholas Parsons in 1967, now continues with Sue Perkins. Radio panel shows run a long time.
Abigoliah: Hey, this is what’s great about the BBC is it’s community–funded, meaning the whole country. And it doesn’t matter if they listen: they’ve got our… how much? How much is our TV licence?
Tom: A hundred pounds a year?
Abigoliah: Yeah. £100 a year. They can run something for as long as they want.
Tom: Yes. Ish.
Abigoliah: But I think that’s what I love about the UK is its tradition of radio. And even though I don’t engage with it that often, I just think it’s really special that it still gets funded, and that it’s still a beloved art form in the country, and people can cut their teeth. Because even now, like, I know people who get their first writing job on The News Quiz. And if you do The News Quiz well, and then they get to be on The News Quiz – and if you do The News Quiz well, you get to be on Have I Got News for You. Like, there was a pipeline from The News Quiz to Mock the Week at one point. I think it’s special that BBC radio still exists, and they give unknown comics chances to write radio plays and do their own panel shows. So you have stuff that has been running since the ’70s, but you also have stuff like– I was saying a friend just did a pilot– yeah. And it’s cheaper than television. And I think radio is a beautiful thing.
Tom: So you’ll be delighted to know our next season is all radio comedy.
Abigoliah: Yay! Wait – is it really?
Tom: Okay. No, I wouldn’t do that to you.
Abigoliah: Sorry. Let me go back. I don’t love it that much.
Tom: All right, let’s bring on the Shelf of Fame. Okay, so currently we have Victoria Wood holding strong at number one. We have The Day Today, Not Only But Also, The Office and The Young Ones. So we’ve only filled up half the shelf. Yeah. Are you going to put I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue on the Shelf of Fame?
Abigoliah: Not until they put me on the show. No, I mean–
Tom: Fair, fair.
Abigoliah: No, I am going to put it, because it made me laugh so hard, what a lovely afternoon sitting with you on the sofa, doing my embroidery, listening to some good comedy. I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue is actually going to go… oh no. Yes, it is. No. Yes, I think so. I’m gonna put I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue. I’m going to make a decision: it is going to go at number four.
Tom: Pushing down The Office and The Young Ones.
Abigoliah: I’m sorry. Yeah, it’s going to– so I’m Sorry is going to go at number four, and then The Office will be number five and The Young Ones will be number six. Now, as we’ve discussed – I think off air, I don’t think we’ve said it on air – we are going to have one more episode this series of All British Comedy Explained: the wrap–up, where we do some reflection. So in the reflection, I reserve the right to maybe switch things around a bit.
Tom: Fair.
Abigoliah: Because I’ve been going off and listening and doing some reading – my own homework – so…
Tom: Well, I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue is quite widely available. You can find the most recent series is usually on BBC Sounds for about a year. There are often some random episodes from the Willie Rushton years, or even earlier. Compilations are available on audio, and you can also find episodes floating around on YouTube. The whole archive of 500–plus shows is available online if you know where to look.
Abigoliah: And where do you look? I know you have it on a hard drive.
Tom: I look on my hard drive, so I don’t quite know what I’m going to do with over 500 editions of I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue, but should I ever feel the need to listen to one, that is now something I can do extremely easily.
Abigoliah: You know what? You could sell them on the black market. People get into I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue from our podcast, and then… and then it’d be like, “Dude, Tom hook me up with that sweet, sweet I’m Sorry….”
Tom: You always give away a free sample.
Abigoliah: Yeah, just a little bit, but not too much.
Tom: All right. Yeah. So that about wraps it up for this first season. Those were the eight landmark shows that I picked out. Arguably I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue is the least landmark-y. You certainly can’t say there was British comedy before it and British comedy after it, because we’re still living in it. But it is, I think, interesting, first of all, to see how it develops over that time and how that reflects other things that are going on in British comedy. But also it’s an example of kind of the more things change, the more they stay the same. What was exactly the same in the first episode we listened to and the last, and also what’s changed. And the fact, as you say, that this is a show that you can be on. And so many things like Mrs Trellis, Mornington Crescent, One Song to the Tune of Another are kind of part of the national conversation, albeit maybe a little bit less than they used to be when the show was absolutely at its peak. I really thought this was what I wanted to share with you.
Abigoliah: Well, I’m glad you did, and this has been a really fun journey, this first series – season, series. So I’m really glad we’re doing this, Tom.
Tom: I’m having such a lovely time.
Abigoliah: Yeah, me too. Let’s do it again next year.
Tom: Excellent.
Abigoliah: Awesome. As always, guys: if you haven’t hit subscribe on your podcatcher app, please do. If you’d like to watch All British Comedy Explained, we are also on YouTube. We also have a TikTok and Instagram. We have a Substack where we’re writing little essays – you can check that out. Leave us a review. Thank you so much. And until next time, I’m Abigoliah.
Tom: And I’m Tom. Cheerio.
Abigoliah: Bye–bye.