In memory of comedian and writer Barry Cryer

Speaker 30:00

Hello, I'm Kirstie Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen eighty seven, and the presenter was Michael Parkinson.

Presenter0:30

Our castaway is a specialist in the difficult business of creating laughter. In a career spanning more than 30 years, he's worked with Les Dawson, Ronnie Corbett, Malcolm ⁇ Wise, Bruce Forsyth, Tommy Cooper, Kenny Everett, Dave Allen, Bob Hope, Jack Benny, Billy Connolly, and many, many more. Indeed, it's almost easy to list the comedians he's not written for. As to some of his job, he once said, quite simply, I'm a hack. He is Barry Cryer. Now, hack, of course, has got a rather derogatory sense to it, Barry. I take it you didn't mean it that way when you described yourself to me. It's an honourable word. No, I belong to somebody defined it rather nicely. I belong to the world of We Don't Want It Good, We Want It Mandy.

In memory of comedian1:01

Uh

Speaker 41:01

Mm-hmm.

In memory of comedian1:01

No, no, no.

Presenter1:10

I'm I'm like a journalist. Hack is an original Grub Street sort of Fleet Street word, isn't it? That's right. It's hacking away. It it's uh working to the

In memory of comedian1:15

That's right.

Presenter1:19

Last phone call. Sammy Khan said, which comes first the words of the music. The last phone call. You know, you're working to order most of the time, so I'm very proud of the word hack. I like it. It's good. So you'd be a tradesman, a journeyman, or whatever. Well, you've been doing this and practicing this very difficult trade now for very successful for 30 years now. I wonder when you got to your desert island, therefore, would you be so conditioned that you'd write jokes for the rest of your life with nobody there, or just for yourself? There might be a day or two of withdrawal symptoms, but. No, I don't think I'd write jokes. A, I never.

In memory of comedian1:30

Please

Presenter1:49

Right alone now or was with a partner and B the sheer

Presenter1:52

I I enjoy the work, but the sheer weight taken off the shoulders. No, I'd probably sit there writing the pretentious poem and finishing the novel that was started fifteen years ago and things like that. And having collaborators so long in your life, therefore having also having had a partner, would you be therefore be very lonely, do you think, on the island? Very lonely indeed. Yes. Hence the choice of my luxury item, which we will get to later in the programme. What about music? I mean, how much of a solace would it be to you? What would it remind you of? I'm a peopleaholic. It would remind me of people mainly, and eras in my life connected with those people. Friends, really, friends and family. Music I love.

Presenter2:28

But my choice of record is often more rhythmic than melodic. I love uh rhythm uh and it it's a background to me music. I'm not a keen music student, but I love it around atmospherically and that would be the great solace on the desert island, just creating an atmosphere. What about the first choice of record then? The first choice of record is uh

Presenter2:48

features a very dear friend of mine. It's Badpenny Blues by Humphrey Lyttelton. We've been doing a show called I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue for fifteen years on Radio Four, and that's solidly mounted on on friendship. And I first met Humphrey when I was at Leeds University in nineteen hundred and typing era, and he was a great idol of mine, and I used to sit at his feet. And just now and again when we're having a drink together, we've been friends for years now, I just look at him sometimes and think, It's him but you know, it'd ruin it if you started that because he's the most hardened.

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uh unassuming man but he's wonderful wit and uh a great friend and badpenny blues would sum up this whole

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Era of people I like and have worked with, exemplified by the great little.

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Bad penny blues Humphrey Lyttelton

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Very crazy, let's go back to the to the very beginning. Uh born in Yorkshire? Yes, sir. Was it in Leeds, in fact? It was in Leeds. It was in Leeds. And what kind of background was it? Showbiz background at all? Not remotely, no. My uh dad died when I was about four. He was an accountant.

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It was a new

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And uh my mother brought up myself and my brother.

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single-handed, as they say, and uh

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I shouldn't say made a very good job of it because that sounds like self-prayed. I mean, she was marvellous, but she had to cope. My brother went away.

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Joined the Merchant Navy, came back to Leeds immediate post-war years, immediately took off for London again to be a civil servant. So I was brought up virtually as an only child. No remote show business background.

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What about school? I mean, what were you like at school? Were you a funny boy in the playground? I was Bilco at school. I think that's the nearest comparison. I remember selling the short cut for the cross country rum in a sealed envelope.

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I think it was for twopence. And of course I got taken by one of my peers who bought one, copied it and sold it for a penny, so I was out of business. So I was really ashamed looking back. I was always looking for a shortcut in every sense of the word, an angle. My last school report, marvellous master called Pip Kelsey, who I revered, he wrote, He must learn that glibness is no substitute for knowledge. I always remember that. And I think that's carved in my head somewhere. And I thought, I'll make a living out of glibness one day. I'll show you that.

Speaker 46:01

I think that's

Speaker 46:05

They are not.

Presenter6:08

So, I mean, in a sense, you are you are set upon a kind of entrepreneurial course, I suppose. Uh, given that kind of background, you're going to end up with some businessman or something. Well,

In memory of comedian6:15

Yeah.

Presenter6:16

Had the the dice fallen another way? I don't know. I was yes, I was a hustler. I suppose I was a hustler. I've always regarded myself as very shy and self-effacing, which my wife will tell you is not so. Um I I'm always looking for the angle and I'm very good at delegating and I think I'm good at

Presenter6:32

rowing people in and getting a group together and uh put that that's very satisfying, getting the elements together. But you must have been bright at school, I mean, for all uh for all the school requirements. Live, Michael. You got to university, didn't you? You're quick-witted as opposed to intelligent. I think there's a difference. Yes, I was the blue eyes who went to Leeds Grammar School.

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Couldn't live with bright

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And then uh got an exhibition, not a scholarship, but I got into Leeds University and they found me out very quickly because I was using the Oxford Companion to English Literature and doing using the cross references and assembling an essay, you know. Uh I soon drifted into singing

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Leas

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with the university jazz band and being in student shows. And these universities separated by university road, if you remember, that still is to this day, I think. Mainly the union activities are one side of the road and the academic activities are the other. And I was known for rarely crossing the road. It was terribly irresponsible and I don't know what my dear mother thought. She never, there were no recriminations or anything, but my first year results were absolutely disastrous. English literature course it was. What about another choice of record? Another choice of record. Well I'd want to laugh on the desert island and the choice is so rich. So many comedians, so many marvellous writers are on record. But I had to get down to basics and think what would make me laugh most and what has joyous laughter on it all the way through. And it's Gerard Hofnung at the Oxford Union, the tale of the, well I won't say, let's hear a bit of it.

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And I had to give information to the tourists who found themselves in this country for the first time and tell them what to do. You know, uh you will oblige your chambermaid by hanging your mattress out of the window every morning

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All London Brussels display a blue lamb

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Ignore all left and right signs. These are merely political slogans.

Speaker 48:25

Uh

Speaker 48:32

Yeah.

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Zebra parking places provided everywhere.

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Have you tried the famous echo in the reading room of the British Museum?

Speaker 48:47

Uh

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We've talked about in the introduction all the people that you've you've worked for. Impossible question to ask you, but I mean I mean who have been the funniest? Tommy Cooper, obviously. Why Cooper?

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Because you can't define why he was funny. I mean, Tom looked marvellous. I always said he was like sort of Mount Rushmore on legs. You know that nobody looked like that in real

Presenter9:12

The Great Priestley said once that uh they're like Martians comics. A lot of comics are. I mean, um Doddy looks amazing, doesn't he? And Les Dawson, you know, I was didn't always look like this, I was hit by a lift, you know.

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In Lesbia.

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They looked like visitors from outer space who descended amongst us and made us laugh and then.

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Sadly in Tom's case and they go away again, but they don't go away because people still talk about Tommy and he's there on uh tape and everything to be seen. You couldn't really analyse it. It was the innocent, wasn't it? Really? Sort of knowing innocent.

Presenter9:45

I mean, when you write for somebody like Cooper, I mean, how difficult is it because he's certainly was an individual and eccentric person, wasn't it? Yes, indeed.

Speaker 39:45

Help!

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Posted.

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Harry, yeah.

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Well yes

Presenter9:55

God bless him. He wasn't the greatest reader of a script. He could get hold of the idea and the fun of it, but it wasn't his game actually reading. The first time I ever wrote for him, I wrote the opening of a show, and I'd always noticed he said things twice a lot. So I wrote Good Evening, Comma, Good Evening Full Stop. And we all sat around a table and Tom picked this piece of paper up and started reading. He said, Good evening, good evening. What's this?

Presenter10:17

And I said, Well, you say everything twice. He said, You write it once, I'll say it twice, you'll get the best of the bargain.

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We once had a sketch set in a tiger skate and he said, I can't say tiger.

Presenter10:28

And he pursued this matter for about a quarter of an hour. I can't say charger. It's the art, yeah. Charger, charger I can't say it, and kept illustrating this by saying tiger, driving us all bad. So the producer finally said, Enough is enough, it's a lion's cage and he was happy that.

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One thing we're sure about all of them, they're not like us really.

Presenter10:48

The sh the world of gospel singing I find so exhilarating. I can see myself hand clapping and floating a foot above the sand on the island. And it was very hard to pick one of these, but I picked the Queen, the dowager of gospel, Mahalia Jackson and Didn't It Rain?

Speaker 411:06

Rain and Judah, we talk about rain, oh my Lord, did not, didn't it, did never Oh my Lord, didn't it rain? Oh, no, you fool of sin. God got the key and you can't get in

Presenter11:37

Jackson, Didn't It Rain? That was recorded at the nineteen fifty eight Newport Jazz Festival. Merry Craig, what about your own performing? I mean, we we left you. We left it at at university and uh this this is a a failed intellectual.

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What a ba-

Presenter11:51

I mean, you and you started uh on stage, didn't you? You started performing before you actually started writing on the stage. Yes, indeed. So how did that come about? Well, that came about, um, kicked out of university. It's like a bad film script because uh Stanley Joseph, who's a friend to this day,

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The essence

Speaker 411:56

Uh

In memory of comedian11:56

Yeah.

Speaker 411:57

Duh.

Presenter12:05

manager of the City Varieties Theatre in Leeds, where they used to do the good old days and so on. Always used to come and see the student show at the old Empire Theatre, and if you liked an act in the student show he'd offer you a week's work, and he offered me a week's work.

Presenter12:17

in the University of Vacation while I was going through this trauma of working out what I was going to do. And I did a week there as a professional. Very different world from showing off to your family and friends for charity. And uh that was a real school all in one week. And there was a an agent from London in

Presenter12:32

Uh this agent said, Did I want to turn professional? And I had the classic weekend of agonizing and I thought, Well, I'd been offered a couple of retakes. I could have crawled back in maybe. The tail between my legs, but I went into the Magic World of Show business straight afterwards and was

Presenter12:46

Had about six weeks' work on what we call the number threes in those days. Was that? Regent Rotherham, the Royal Bilston.

In memory of comedian12:50

Moza.

Presenter12:54

Luton. Oh, wonderful experience. And I was out of work again, so I went back to Leeds.

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and finished up as a stage hand at The Empire where I'd done the student show.

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Then I met David Nixon.

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who was starring the pantomime then, and he advised me to uh

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cut loose competing and go to London and I I went came to London with a seventeen day rail return ticket. I don't know what I thought I was going to do in seventeen days. And the day before it expired I got an audition at the Windmill. Oh, the famous Windmill. Yes, which was six shows a day, six days a week, thirty six shows a week. And I auditioned at half past ten in the morning

In memory of comedian13:21

Yeah.

Presenter13:28

And um the great

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Van Damme, who ran the theatre, said, Would you like to work here? And I said yes, not realising he meant that day. And I was on the stage at quarter past twelve in my own clothes and borrowed makeup, doing this awful act I did for my audition. What spot did you have on the bill? Oh, I can't remember, Michael. I can't remember. Because they didn't come to see you, that was the great tradition. Indeed, what a great school. They came to see the girls. So you learn to die gracefully six times a day. That was another great learning process. And I was there for about seven months. I don't know how many hundred shows that is. And that was an amazing experience, that. Because when you went outside, if you got lucky and played bigger theatres, you were quite thrown by the laughter. You didn't know what to do with it. You'd been used to this reverent silence and punctuated by the odd faint chuckle from some eccentric horse.

Presenter14:17

Another choice of record. Another choice of record. Now this is where my family at home will boo and jeer and say, here's his token classic. But it is a cliche and a great one. It's Mars from Hulse Planet Suite because

In memory of comedian14:18

Another t

In memory of comedian14:19

Yeah.

Presenter14:28

That was the signature tune of a version of War of the Worlds I remember hearing as a boy on the radio on the days when radio was absolute king, and it it's stuck with me ever since. And that will conjure up a whole era of the

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of growing up and the joy

Presenter14:42

of radio, taking this vast uh console organ of a radio set up to the bedroom, giving yourself a sort of juvenile hernia so you could listen in bed to things like War of the Worlds. And this Mars from the Planet suite conjures up everything of that era.

Presenter16:00

It was Mars from the Planet Suite by Gustav Holst.

Presenter16:03

Extraordinary, of course. I mean, like you, I mean, I was part of that radio generation. It was very, very impressive and formative, isn't it, in in the days that we grew up. Somebody once said that radio at its peak was bigger than television will ever be, which is food for thought. It's like when

In memory of comedian16:15

It's like

Presenter16:17

Tommy Handley died during the war, people five deep on the pavement like a state funeral because the radio figures were

Presenter16:23

We're giants to people at the moment. I always think radio sounds if it's talking to you.

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And television looks if it's trying to please everybody. You know what I mean? And radio doesn't demand you look at it, you can carry it about and it's a

In memory of comedian16:30

And right

Presenter16:34

It's a companion and it's a great spawner of imagination. It's all up to you. Like we're saying about painting a mental picture with jokes and routines. Radio is a wonderful medium. It it that you do half the work. You paint the picture in your head and I think it's wonderful. Do do you prefer writing for for radio or for uh I very rarely write for radio. I would uh I would love to write more for radio. It's harder work because you can't.

In memory of comedian16:53

I very rarely write.

Presenter16:59

Cut to a piece of film or? What about appearing though? I mean you do a lot of radio. Do you do you like it than better than television?

In memory of comedian17:02

Yeah.

Presenter17:07

Yes, I think um it's a very clean, straightforward uh idiom like we're sitting here today and this um

Presenter17:14

Five of us doing this this show. It's lovely. There's no cameras moving about. There's no makeup. There's no costumes and

Presenter17:20

We've got no uh script to worry about, we're just chatting. It's a very intimate, straightforward medium which has been mastered over so many years.

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by the people here that you know you're in good hands and you you can

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Get on with it. There's there's very little extraneous stuff to get in the way. Another choice of record, please mate. Another choice of record. We're back to uh rhythm again very much indeed. Marvellous man, um country and western singer, also a very good actor, been in Burt Reynolds films and things. Very funny man.

In memory of comedian17:37

But now that

Presenter17:48

Good villainous actor, he's everything. And this to me his name is Jerry Reid and this to me is the definitive version of Guitar Man.

Presenter18:01

Well, I quit my job down at the Chikawas and left my mama a goodbye note. By sundown, I'd left Kingston with my guitar up under my coat. I hitchhiked all the way down to Memphis, got a room at the YMCA. For the next three weeks, I went a haunting them nightclubs, looking for a place to play. Well, I thought my picking would set them on fire, but nobody wanted to hire a guitar man.

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That was guitar man, you can't say guitar man,'cause guitar man.

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Jerry Reid.

Presenter18:32

Varycrya, let's go back to that th those windmill days. You left the windmill and in fact you went on the West End stage, didn't you? Did a musical call. So called Espresso Bungo, named after Espresso Coffee, but nobody could pronounce that name.

Speaker 418:37

Yes.

Speaker 418:40

Yeah.

Presenter18:44

Uh written by Wolf Mankowitz and Monty Norman and David Henneke. It was a savaging the pop world of its day.

Presenter18:51

And it was a marvellous piece of work. But if it was revived, it would have to be done as a period piece because it was very much of the late fifties. And Paul Schofield, who'd never been in a musical, was the lead. We were all in awe of him.

Presenter19:04

And he was marvellous. He his singing was something to marvel at because he had very good pitch and no sense of timing. He could get one and a half bars ahead of the band and Bert Rhodes, musical director, used to cut the band and keep the piano going until they found Paul again.

Presenter19:20

Mama's singing voice he didn't know he had, I don't think, but that was

Presenter19:24

That was good training too, because you were in a West End musical. Millie Martin was in that. And a girl who had twelve lines, I think, and twelve laughs, called Susan Hampshire, who'd never appeared in the West End before. Quite a cast, yes. Very good cast, Charles Gray. What about your own singing act? Because you had a recording career this time, didn't you? Uh brief, brief, yes. Uh

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Many miles

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There you go.

In memory of comedian19:37

Yeah.

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Please.

Presenter19:42

Three records with an option which was uh dropped with a dull thud. But the um

Presenter19:47

Oh, the historic occasion was, I think it was due to some contractual position. A man called Sheb Woolley, who was one of the baddies in High Noon, one of the guys who was waiting to kill Gary Cooper, waiting for Frank Miller at the station, wrote a song with the deathless title Purple People Eater, which is a mammoth seller in America. So I did a modest cover version of it. But mine was issued in Scandinavia. This is as I remember the details. And it was number one in Finland for about three weeks. Michael, it's number one in Finland. And I will not take it to the desert island. Wild horses would not take it.

In memory of comedian20:15

Do not

Presenter20:19

Do you know you're you're it's the first this, you're the first man I've ever interviewed who had a number one in Finland. There aren't many it was about, there aren't many it was about. No, not lately anyway. Not lately, you know.

In memory of comedian20:30

Not later.

Presenter20:32

Would you like to choose another record? We'd like to choose another record. Let's hear somebody who could really rock and roll. To me I'm sorry if this is sacrilege to any listeners. To me, this is The King. This is Little Richard singing The Girl Can't Help It, the title song of the film of the same name. And rock and roll was the university

Presenter20:49

era and coming into the business I'm in now, marvelous period of my life. And if I was asked to sum it up, I would say Girl Can't Help It by Little Richard.

Speaker 421:01

If she wants five, the men won't get grown If she waits and I, the best lines turn the toe If she got a lot of what they call the mold The girl can't help it, she was born to free And she's got figure makes

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But Richard and the girl can't help it.

Presenter21:33

Very crazy, I suppose if if I looking back on your career, as I've I've I've done, uh the two names stand out to be significant in your life, Danny LaRue and and David Frost. Could you explain the sort of significance of Danny first of all? Yes, I'd written um

In memory of comedian21:45

Yeah.

Presenter21:46

One, two things for a review at the Fortune Theatre. Danny came in uh to see the show and asked who had written them and uh an old friend of mine, Ted Dix, uh composer, and myself were asked to write a show for his uh nightclub.

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He's at a nightclub called Winston's, then, before he had his own, and that led to an association of

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thirteen years. He's a friend to this day, but I actually worked with him writing the shows and being in them and his televisions and things for about thirteen years. And it it it all links up because when Danny got his own club in the uh sixties

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David Frost came in and asked who'd written it and uh

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I then started working with David, and that was a great cachet, because if you were a frost writer, then a lot of doors opened. I was very lucky. So there was a direct link. Those two.

In memory of comedian22:24

That's it.

Presenter22:32

Man, that's where I met Ronnie Corbett in the nightclub shows with Danny. He was a marvellous partner for Danny. And then, of course, the association continued with David, with Ronnie Corbett, who was joined by Ronnie Barker. John Cleese was in the show of The Frost Report, and that was, of course, the birth of the two Ronnies. It was an extraordinary period, that wasn't it? I mean, those shows that David did. I mean, for instance, I mean, who were the writers with you? You see? The writers with me, with me, sounds very grand. I mean, I was one of this amazing stable. David Knobbs, now a famous novelist, who I'm writing with again soon and very happy about it. David Knobbs was a writer, Dick Vosborough, Marty Feldman.

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John Cleese, Graham Chapman from Python, uh oh, uh Terry Jones, Michael Palin. I mean, the line up went on and on and Tony Jay was involved in the shows and uh

In memory of comedian23:13

When it's hard to ask it

Presenter23:18

It's marvellous, isn't it, when those those those happy accidents and there are accidents occur where a group of people come together. Somebody has to form the focal point and it was David quite a bit. I think David's uh David's always been a great entrepreneur, a gatherer together of people. For instance, Graham Chapman, whose background was Cambridge, Cambridge footlights and everything, David put he and I and Eric Idle, who was

In memory of comedian23:18

It's m

In memory of comedian23:23

Yeah.

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Quite in day

Presenter23:37

He put us together to write a situation comedy for Ronnie Corbett with Rosemary Leach as his wife, which we did for quite a while. Eric went off to do a thing called Please Do Not Adjust Your Set. And Graham and I subsequently wrote a lot of situation comedies. Now we were disparate backgrounds. But David could see, I don't know what he could see, some common sense of humour or something. And that was a very happy era working with Graham. How do you work with a collaborator? I mean, I would find it very difficult to write with somebody. I think writing is specifically about sitting down by yourself with a typewriter and putting your own thoughts on paper. That that chills me now, Michael. I hate writing on my own because I've had too much happy partnership. I think Frank Muir said it was like a marriage with none of the advantages. I mean it's just you can try and write with somebody you admire a lot and it doesn't work at all because they have a different

Speaker 424:03

Do you will?

In memory of comedian24:04

Uh

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Because they have

Presenter24:27

Modus operandi or whatever. There's usually a walker. There's a somebody who walks around the room. Graeme Chapman used to walk around the room playing with his sideburns and smoking his pipe.

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And um

Presenter24:37

No, Neil Shand and I have worked together a lot. I think we're both sitters. This is a first.

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David Knobbs used to prowl about a lot and I used to sit there and sort of

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Glorified temp really, you know, right? Taking dictation. So there'd be one still center and the other one. Yes, that's right. If two of you were walking about, I mean, it would all get out of hand. You wouldn't get a traffic pattern, you'd be crashing into each other and

In memory of comedian24:53

Yes, that's right.

In memory of comedian24:55

Yeah.

Presenter24:59

Let's own our choice of record. Now, as you can see, I'm going to be hopping about and halfway up the palm tree most of the time. There's only one really restful record in my selection. This isn't it. This is a record that gives me a free song every time I hear it start. It also exemplifies an era in my life. I subsequently met Alan Price and Chas Chandler, but this is the Animals and House of the Rising Sun.

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There is a house in New Orleans.

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They call the rice in sun

Speaker 425:29

Alright.

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Uh

Speaker 425:34

Ready?

Speaker 425:35

Better rule it!

Speaker 425:37

Then you're

Speaker 425:40

It got

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Uh

Speaker 425:41

I know

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Uh

Presenter25:51

Hose House of the Rising Sun and the Animals.

Presenter25:55

What about the the the career now? I mean you you split between uh I supp you're predominantly a writer, but I mean you you perform an awful lot as well. But uh how do you see it? I mean do you would you prefer to to perform more than write or or vice versa? I've got no career sense. I'm just being very lucky with what happens. If you press me to an answer, yes, I would rather perform, I'm a ham. I don't think there's anything like particularly live, being disloyal to radio and television and everything, there's nothing like standing on wood.

Presenter26:21

With a real audience in front of you, which I still do. I do good old days without cameras now at the City Varieties in Leeds, where I started.

In memory of comedian26:22

Yeah.

Presenter26:28

That to a packed house is such a joy. So, yes, basically a performer. It helps with the writing too, if you've done a bit of performing, because you maybe you've got a bit of an insight into how performers' minds work and what they might not like to do and what they'd like to do. Looking back over this long career, the 30 years, I mean, being involved in. It's true, it's certainly true. I mean, being involved in making people laugh or assisting other people to make people laugh. How has it changed the job? Has it become more complicated, more difficult? Or is it true that the jokes remain the same? The jokes and the form that old thing about there are only five or six jokes in the world, completely untrue, but there are probably only five or six formulae, all.

In memory of comedian26:51

So

Presenter27:06

Good stories and jokes and routines answer to a particular formulae. What's changed, I think, is the uh subject matter. There aren't the taboos there were in the old days, you were much more restricted. And now I think people will will view what you do objectively in the treatment of it and how you've done it. There are the the taboo subjects are very few now, so that's it's actually widened in that sense.

Presenter27:28

What about the people coming through? I mean, you've again, as I said, worked with all the great established names in in comedy over the past thirty years. There's a kind of a new m move now defined as being alternative comedians. I'm not quite sure. Doesn't mean anything. They hate it too, quite rightly. But all right, let's say the the younger group coming through. I mean, do you see any hope for the future in them? Oh, very much so, yeah. They act uh more.

In memory of comedian27:38

I'm not quite sure.

Speaker 427:40

Yeah.

Speaker 427:41

Quite rightly.

Speaker 427:47

So yeah, they have.

Presenter27:49

Victoria Wood, for instance, with the great Julie Walters is a typical example, writer, performer. It's very acting comedy now that Rick Males and Ade Edmondson's and Alexi Sales. Ben Elton to me is a throwback. I mean that's a compliment. I told him. He reminds me of comics of the past like Arthur English and Max Miller. This ability to dominate an audience with the sheer power of the presence. Oh, there's a lot of talent about it, some marvellous people.

In memory of comedian28:18

Oh the

Presenter28:20

Man called Norman Lovett.

Presenter28:22

I think he's great. I mean, he talks about having conversations with cockroaches and being living alone in a bed sitter and coming home late just to annoy himself, cooking the dinner and then throwing it against the wall and having a row with himself. I mean, it's it's great stuff. Oh no, there's no shortage of talent about it.

Presenter28:37

And what about again, impossible question, but you look back all this over thirty years, what's the line? Is there one line or one joke that you wish you'd you'd written or indeed you you did? I mean, is there one thing that's kind of sums up being funny, the business of being funny to you?

Presenter28:50

Well, there's a man out being more current again because my memory's going these days. Um who are you again? Oh, Michael, that's. Um

Presenter28:58

There's a man around at the moment who we've seen and heard quite a bit of in England this year called Stephen Wright, an American who works in a very deadpan uh monotone sort of way. And every line he says is a gem, I think. He says things like, You can have everything, I mean, where would you put it? And I mean that, the the economy of that and this guy had false teeth with braces and

Presenter29:19

I've got a map of America at home. Actual size, it says one mile equals one mile. I spent last summer folding it. And that to me is that he's given me a lot of pleasure recently.

Presenter29:30

Final choice of record. Final choice of record. We're going to relax finally, Michael. This is when the sun's going down and I'm having a drink out of half a coconut, whatever.

Presenter29:39

managed to find. I think this is the most beautiful arrangement. I don't know who did this arrangement. You might be able to tell me. It's it's wonderful, of an old standard. The song is I Get Along Without You Very Well and the singer is Carly Simon.

Speaker 429:53

I'd get along without you.

Speaker 429:57

Very well

Speaker 430:00

Of course I do.

Speaker 430:05

Except when soft rains fall.

Speaker 430:10

And drip from leaves, then I recall

Speaker 430:15

Thrill of being sheltered in your arms

Presenter30:23

I get along without you very well, Carlis Simon.

Presenter30:26

Barry, you're now on your desert island with your records. You have to imagine that a tidal wave comes along, seven are swept away, you're left with one. Which one would you care to preserve? I think the Hofnang, in spite of all that exciting music and uh atmospheric music, I think I'd want to laugh. I think the uh

Presenter30:41

Madness might be ever present. I think I'd like dear Gerard Hofnang on the Desert Island. And what about the book? Assume you've got the Bible, the complete works of Shakespeare.

Presenter30:50

And where to eat in deal.

In memory of comedian30:52

Um

Presenter30:53

Can I have a complete JB Priestley in a crate? I mean, I'd like everything. I think I've got nearly everything at home, if I can have that. Was he a hero? Oh, yes, very much. And I did meet him. I was uh goaded by Graham Chapman one day. I said, I'm sick of you talking about Priestley. Why don't you ring him up? And I said, You don't ring a man like that up. But we did. And he invited us down for tea. We did get to know him, and we s my wife and I still see Jaquetta, his wife, and uh his books are like a great big armchair you get into rather than reading a book. Now I think that would be the greatest.

In memory of comedian30:58

Yeah.

Presenter31:24

Desert Island reading. And what about the luxury object inanimate? The luxury object inanimate would be is this object plural? It would be a a tape recorder with a cassette in it. And the cassette would be of my home

Presenter31:37

Uh with our four children, four cats, four dogs, uh the terrapins have gone, sadly, you probably heard about that. Bugsy the rabbit, who doesn't make much noise, the phone ringing and my wife shouting, Dinner's ready with various adjectives littered in, because that's what I've miss most. It might be too poignant, but I think I would like a tape of this Charing Cross station that I call home.

Presenter31:58

Barakra, thank you very much indeed. Thank you, Mark.

Speaker 332:07

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive.

Speaker 332:11

For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk/slash radio four