Catching up with Uncle Baz

May 1 2008 by David Whetstone, The Journal

Barry Cryer, or ‘Uncle Baz’ talks to David Whetstone about his life among the greats of comedy.

JUST one week ago, I concluded an interview with Barry Cryer by asking him about the peerless Humphrey Lyttelton, his chairman on the long-running BBC Radio 4 comedy panel game, I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue.

“Humph”, a legend in the world of jazz and famous as the dry deliverer of outrageous innuendos on air, died the very next day. Barry must have been devastated, as many Radio 4 listeners were.

“He’s an amazing man,” Barry had said.

“We’re having a rest now but he’s great, 86 going on 87 and the coolest man I know. When a producer brings a trumpet on at the end of the show, the audience stands up. He’s a big cult figure.”

Humph started playing the trumpet as a teenager and rose to the top in the jazz world. No doubt he will get a mention when Barry, the long-serving I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue panellist, entertains at the Customs House, South Shields, next week.

He calls his show Barry Cryer – Still Alive, for which we must be thankful. Radio comedy can ill afford to lose another droll and popular voice.

Barry, who is 73, has no shortage of material for a solo show, having worked, as writer and performer, with many comedy greats, including Stanley Baxter, Morecambe and Wise, Tommy Cooper, Les Dawson, Dick Emery and Kenny Everett.

But it all began in Leeds, where he was born and where he went to university to study English literature with no clear idea of what he would do later.

He succumbed to the bar and chased the girls and appeared in a student revue where someone with influence saw evidence of raw talent and offered him a week at the Leeds City Varieties theatre.

Moving to London, he earned a bottom of the billing slot at the famous Windmill Theatre run by impresario Vivian Van Damm: “We used to call him VD.”

The big attraction at the Windmill were the nude tableaux, girls who took their clothes off and posed artfully because it was against the law for them to move. Comedians like Barry – and many others, including Tony Hancock, Bruce Forsyth and Harry Seccombe – were there to fill in the gaps in the programme.

“They didn’t come to see us and we knew that,” recalled Barry. “We used to call them the raincoats. But it was a great school because there were six shows a day, 36 shows a week.” He remembers that he auditioned at 10.30am and was on stage two hours later. His dad, an accountant, had died when he was young, leaving his mum to bring up two boys.

“When I told her I was appearing at the theatre in London, she just said, ‘That’s nice’. There was never a word of recrimination.”

Barry said the “old man” [Van Damm] just loved comics, even if the audiences were indifferent to all but the seas of motionless flesh.

He looks back a little nostalgically on those days. “Soho was my village and I still love it. But I suppose in those days I didn’t know any better.”

I had read that Barry suffered from eczema which prompted him to turn to writing. He explained that the old stage makeup he had to wear in those days would set hard on the face “like concrete”. He got very low but at about that time met his wife and things started to improve.

“I’ve been dogged by good luck all my life,” he said wryly, adding that he fell into writing comedy by accident.

Drag artiste Danny La Rue saw a sketch he had written, invited him for a drink and asked him to write his nightclub shows.

It was an entree into a world frequented by David Frost and other influential 1960s figures who helped to open doors for him.

He well remembers the professionalism of Morecambe and Wise, for whom he wrote sketches, and says it really was true that Ern minded the money while Eric looked after the routines. “Eric was very demanding, but quite rightly. If you got something past Eric and it went in the show, you were really pleased. If he knocked something down, he was very constructive.

“I had known them before their really big fame but it was a delicate relationship.

“Eric once turned something down that I’d written in front of a room of people and I was really sulky and upset. I went into the bar to console myself. Eric came in and asked what the matter was and I explained that he had just embarrassed me. He said, ‘That was there, this is here. What will you have to drink’?

“He never mixed friendship and business. I was still his friend.” He remembers madcap Kenny Everett equally fondly. “He wasn’t really a comedian but he was up for anything. he was an absolute gem to work with. We laughed all the time.”

But it’s unlikely Barry will talk only about the old days. “I hate people who knock anything new. There are some great comics out there today. I go up to the Edinburgh Fringe every year. They call me Uncle Baz up there. I think Ross Noble is just superb. He’ll have something in his head to fall back on, but most of the time he’s just feeding off the audience.”

Barry says a lot of the young comedians urge him to tell jokes. “They don’t really tell jokes in their routines, but they love to hear them.”

Barry is delighted to be returning to the Customs House, which he swears is one of his favourite venues. He’s on there next Thursday at 7.30pm. If you want to buy tickets, tel: (0191) 454-1234.