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The Doings of Hamish and Dougal: You'll Have Had Your Tea?
Graeme Garden and Barry Cryer play two elderly Scotsmen in the BBC Radio hit comedy I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue. Their book is a compendium of the show’s best scripts about the doings of Hamish and Dougal, their housekeeper Mrs Naughtie and the local Laird.
224 pages, Hardcover
First published August 28, 2005
About the author
Barry Cryer
101 books1 followerCryer was born in Leeds, West Riding of Yorkshire, England. Educated at Leeds Grammar School, he studied English literature at the University of Leeds.
After appearing in University revue, Cryer was offered a week's work at the Leeds City Varieties theatre, home of The Good Old Days, which became the longest-running television entertainment show in the world. Cryer left university after learning his first-year results and travelled to London. After impressing impresario Vivian Van Damm, Cryer began as the bottom billing act at the Windmill Theatre in London, a theatre which showed comedy acts in between nude tableau shows.
However, Cryer suffered severely from eczema and, after several periods in hospital, was released from his contract by Van Damm. Concluding that a performing career was not a wholly sustainable income choice because of his skin condition, Cryer chose to focus mainly on writing – something he could do even when suffering eczema attacks, which he did for the next eight years.
Cryer always preferred to write in partnership, so that should he dry up he was never left to deliver material. His regular partner during the 1970s was John Junkin, and with Junkin performing as Eric Morecambe and Cryer most often the role of Ernie Wise, the pair wrote some of The Morecambe and Wise Show in its BBC period (the 1972 and 1976 Christmas shows) when regular writer Eddie Braben was unavailable. Cryer still enjoyed performing, appearing with Tim Brooke-Taylor and Junkin in the BBC radio series Hello, Cheeky!, in which the three performers bounced jokes off each other. He also appeared in the comedy television series The Steam Video Company and provided the voice of the judge in the 1975 animated comedy musical Dick Deadeye, or Duty Done. He hosted the ITV comedy panel game Jokers Wild (1969–74) and had a role in All You Need Is Cash, a 1978 spoof documentary about the Beatles parody band the Rutles, as well as a cameo as a police inspector in Kenny Everett's 1984 horror spoof Bloodbath at the House of Death.
With new comedians coming forward who wrote their own material, and age progressing and still wanting to perform, Cryer refocused his career to include more performance, touring with Willie Rushton in Two Old Farts in the Night and, after Rushton's death, That Reminds Me. After a brief early stint as chairman, Cryer was one of the panellists on the BBC radio comedy programme I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, which began in 1972. He also wrote and starred in You'll Have Had Your Tea with Graeme Garden.
He wrote an autobiography, You Won't Believe This But..., as well as a book of miscellaneous anecdotes, Pigs Can Fly. In 2005 he toured the UK with Barry Cryer: The First Farewell Tour, and in 2008 he toured with Barry Cryer: Still Alive. He remained a popular after-dinner speaker.
He died at Northwick Park Hospital in Harrow on 25 January 2022, at the age of 86.
abridged from Wikipedia
After appearing in University revue, Cryer was offered a week's work at the Leeds City Varieties theatre, home of The Good Old Days, which became the longest-running television entertainment show in the world. Cryer left university after learning his first-year results and travelled to London. After impressing impresario Vivian Van Damm, Cryer began as the bottom billing act at the Windmill Theatre in London, a theatre which showed comedy acts in between nude tableau shows.
However, Cryer suffered severely from eczema and, after several periods in hospital, was released from his contract by Van Damm. Concluding that a performing career was not a wholly sustainable income choice because of his skin condition, Cryer chose to focus mainly on writing – something he could do even when suffering eczema attacks, which he did for the next eight years.
Cryer always preferred to write in partnership, so that should he dry up he was never left to deliver material. His regular partner during the 1970s was John Junkin, and with Junkin performing as Eric Morecambe and Cryer most often the role of Ernie Wise, the pair wrote some of The Morecambe and Wise Show in its BBC period (the 1972 and 1976 Christmas shows) when regular writer Eddie Braben was unavailable. Cryer still enjoyed performing, appearing with Tim Brooke-Taylor and Junkin in the BBC radio series Hello, Cheeky!, in which the three performers bounced jokes off each other. He also appeared in the comedy television series The Steam Video Company and provided the voice of the judge in the 1975 animated comedy musical Dick Deadeye, or Duty Done. He hosted the ITV comedy panel game Jokers Wild (1969–74) and had a role in All You Need Is Cash, a 1978 spoof documentary about the Beatles parody band the Rutles, as well as a cameo as a police inspector in Kenny Everett's 1984 horror spoof Bloodbath at the House of Death.
With new comedians coming forward who wrote their own material, and age progressing and still wanting to perform, Cryer refocused his career to include more performance, touring with Willie Rushton in Two Old Farts in the Night and, after Rushton's death, That Reminds Me. After a brief early stint as chairman, Cryer was one of the panellists on the BBC radio comedy programme I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, which began in 1972. He also wrote and starred in You'll Have Had Your Tea with Graeme Garden.
He wrote an autobiography, You Won't Believe This But..., as well as a book of miscellaneous anecdotes, Pigs Can Fly. In 2005 he toured the UK with Barry Cryer: The First Farewell Tour, and in 2008 he toured with Barry Cryer: Still Alive. He remained a popular after-dinner speaker.
He died at Northwick Park Hospital in Harrow on 25 January 2022, at the age of 86.
abridged from Wikipedia
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
April 1, 2022
I’ve had these on audiobook for years and many an odd job, painting, woodwork, cookery, has been slightly marred by a sudden burst of unexpected laughter as I’m hit by a joke that I’d missed the time before. More jokes per second than any equivalent radio programme except I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue.
Has the bonus of a bravura (if definitely odd) performance by Alison Steadman and a wonderfully played right-wing, over-privileged and not too bright Laird brought to life by Jeremy Hardy. A cast from comedy and drama heaven and scripts that stay funny time after time.
The book is perfect for the smallest room where you can enjoy a few extra jokes per episode (lost in the editing process) while listening to your LP of famous lavatory flushes.
Has the bonus of a bravura (if definitely odd) performance by Alison Steadman and a wonderfully played right-wing, over-privileged and not too bright Laird brought to life by Jeremy Hardy. A cast from comedy and drama heaven and scripts that stay funny time after time.
The book is perfect for the smallest room where you can enjoy a few extra jokes per episode (lost in the editing process) while listening to your LP of famous lavatory flushes.
September 24, 2011
Hilarious collection of scripts from the cult Radio 4 series, itself a spin-off from "I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue". Here Hamish, Dougal, the Laird and Mrs Naughtie have become fully realised comedy characters. Hamish and Dougal are gillies for the Laird, a rich eccentric man who can be villainous or surprisingly friendly. Mrs Naughtie is their housekeeper and occasional lover of all of them. Like its parent series, the show gets away with outrageous filthy material because the performers are respectable veterans.
Now in this book I can relieve the byplay and ingenious radio jokes.
The photo captions are clever too. You'll enjoy this book more if you've heard the series, then you can imagine the voices and the pauses. Contains all three series and the Christmas and Burns Night specials.
Now in this book I can relieve the byplay and ingenious radio jokes.
The photo captions are clever too. You'll enjoy this book more if you've heard the series, then you can imagine the voices and the pauses. Contains all three series and the Christmas and Burns Night specials.
April 11, 2014
If you like puns and radio comedy, you'll love this. Amazingly, the sound gags still work on the printed page if you 'listen' to the scripts as you read them. One for the bathroom, as long as you have the paperback version.
January 1, 2016
This book is the collection of all the scripts for a BBC radio show and it certainly has laugh out loud moments - a whole load of double entendres and some parts you have to read twice to understand the joke - but it's in there! I've read it in short bursts so each show script can be savoured.
Read
August 11, 2010Witty and funny. Never heard any of these on the radio previously but could imagine myself laughing out loud if I had done.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews