BARRY CRYER admits he drove past The Comedy Bunker in The Fairway, Ruislip for years wondering what the venue was like. After his first show there earlier this year, he was more than happy to perform there again.
“It’s a great venue,” he said. “It wasn’t what I was expecting. It’s much bigger and a great place to perform.”
Cryer will take to the stage, as he did last time, with partner in comedy Ronnie Golden. The pair met 13 years ago at The Hackney Empire and just clicked.
“We were sat having a drink together and I just thought, it’s right in front of me,” he said. “I asked him if he wanted to do a show together and he said yes.
“He’s a brilliant musician, he plays every instrument known to man, and he’s very funny.”
Their show features Cryer’s formidable collection of one-liners and tall stories alongside Golden’s amazingly versatile musicianship and awesome array of musical impressions.
Comic songs have been penned to the most unlikeliest of themes – assisted suicide, mobile phone frustrations, Freedom Passes and even former Labour leader John Prescott.
The show, complete with new material, is a preview of the performance the pair will be taking to Edinburgh Festival Fringe this summer.
Cryer has been soaking up the Edinburgh atmosphere for many years and he is fondly referred to by some of the younger comics there as Uncle Baz.
But his status as a comedy legend is not lost on the festival, where there is room for everyone.
“I’m the only one that does jokes,” he said. “I’m not like the younger ones who do a lot of observational comedy. There’s not many there like me, so I’ve got my own niche.”
Cryer certainly belongs in a category of his own. Born in Leeds in 1935, he went to Leeds Grammar School and then Leeds University where, while appearing in a university revue, he was offered a week’s work at the famous City Varieties theatre in the town.
While appearing there, he was seen by a London agent and offered work in variety. He appeared all over the country and then auditioned for the Windmill Theatre in London, a legendary school for comedians, whose graduates include Harry Secombe, Peter Sellars, Jimmy Edwards and Alfred Marks.
He passed the audition and started work at the theatre 90 minutes later. Top of the bill was Bruce Forsyth, who became a firm friend.
Cryer later met David Frost, who invited him to join the writing roster on the BBC programme, The Frost Report – an amazing group of writers that included what was to become the personnel of Monty Python’s Flying Circus.
He moved with Frost to ITV and wrote and appeared in The Frost Programme and Frost on Sunday, until he returned to the BBC as one of the original writers of The Two Ronnies.
Cryer also wrote extensively with Python Graham Chapman, including collaboration on a sitcom series for Ronnie Corbett and episodes of Doctor in the House.
Following his Frost years, he went on to write for practically every top comedian in the country, including Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise, Bruce Forsyth, Tommy Cooper, Stanley Baxter, Dick Emery, Dave Allen, Frankie Howerd, Les Dawson, the Carry On team on television, Ronnie Barker, Ronnie Corbett, Mike Yarwood, Billy Connelly, Russ Abbot, Bobby Davro, Jasper Carrot and many more.
His comic connections span generations. One of the writers he worked with was Ray Cameron, father of hit comedian Michael McIntyre, who Cryer has known since he was a child.
“I have got an inflated reputation,” he said modestly. “People say I wrote for all these big names but it was ‘we wrote’ – I was one of a team of great writers.”
A comedian who he has fond memories of is Kenny Everett, whose wildly funny television shows kept audiences in stitches during the 1980s. Everett’s influence is still felt by today’s youth, who think he was very funny, he says.
Another successful entry on Barry’s CV is I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue – the self-styled antidote to panel games – which launched on Radio 4 in 1972 and features numerous accomplished comedians.
Cryer has toured the country with the show, as well as recording for broadcast. Live performances bring in crowds young and old and continue to sell out.
“If it was just our generation, they would be all dying off now, but it’s people of all ages,” he said. “We don’t analyse it, we just do it to entertain people. It is something I hugely enjoy being part of.”
Cryer, who is currently working with his son Bob on penning his fourth book, has no plans to stop being funny.
“We don’t retire – the phone just stops ringing,” he said.
l Barry Cryer and Ronnie Golden appear at the Comedy Bunker, Ruislip on Friday, July 27. Tickets are £14 from www.comedybunker.co.uk.
