I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue: the official limerick collection

by Tim Brooke-Taylor, Barry Cryer, Graeme Garden

To mark the 25th anniversary of the birth of the antidote to the panel game, we present the pick of the limerick round. 1997/98 sees the anniversary of the legendary show I'm Sorry I Haven't a clue, the most listened to comedy programme on British radio. To celebrate this achievement we propose to publish a collection of the finest limericks from the 30 odd series. ISIHAC is an institution with regular panellists Tim Brooke Taylor, Graeme Garden, Barry Cryer and until last year Willie Rushton, overseen by jazz supremo Humphrey Lyttelton. Listener figures are now over 2 million each week and is now aired also on radio 2 the only radio comedy show to do so. Tickets are so keenly sought after shows are now held in thousand seat theatres around the country. By playing up the fogeyish qualities of the show in recent years it has attracted a substantial youth following. Guests such as Paul Merton, Stephen Fry and Jeremy Harding have also helped to bring in new ears.

Genres: Nonfiction, Humor

128 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1980

About the author

Timothy Julian Brooke-Taylor OBE was an English comic actor. He became active in performing in comedy sketches while at Cambridge University, and became President of the Footlights club, touring internationally with the Footnights revue in 1964. Becoming wider known to the public for his work on BBC Radio with I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again, he moved into television with At Last the 1948 Show working together with old Cambridge friends John Cleese and Graham Chapman. He is most well known as one member of The Goodies, starring in the TV series throughout the 1970s and picking up international recognition in Australia and New Zealand. He has also appeared as an actor in various sitcoms, and has been a panellist on I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue for nearly 40 years.

Brooke-Taylor studied at Pembroke College at the University of Cambridge. There he read Economics and Politics before changing to read Law, and mixed with other budding comedians, including John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Bill Oddie and Jonathan Lynn in the prestigious Cambridge University Footlights Club (of which Brooke-Taylor became President in 1963). The Footlights Club revue, A Clump of Plinths was so successful during its Edinburgh Festival Fringe run, that the show was renamed as Cambridge Circus and the revue transferred to the West End in London, and then later taken to both New Zealand and to Broadway in the United States in September 1964.

Brooke-Taylor moved swiftly into BBC Radio with the fast-paced comedy show I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again in which he performed and co-wrote. Other members of I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again were John Cleese, Bill Oddie, Graeme Garden, David Hatch and Jo Kendall. In 1967, Brooke-Taylor became a writer/performer on the television comedy series At Last the 1948 Show, with John Cleese, Graham Chapman and Marty Feldman. The famous "Four Yorkshiremen" sketch was co-written by the four writers/performers of the series. In 1968–1969, Brooke-Taylor was also a cast member and writer on the television comedy series Marty starring Marty Feldman, with John Junkin and Roland MacLeod.

At around the same time, Brooke-Taylor made two series of Broaden Your Mind with Graeme Garden (and Bill Oddie joining the series for the second season). Describing itself as "An Encyclopedia of the Air", this series was a string of comedy sketches (often lifted from I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again), linked (loosely) by a weekly running theme. Its success led to the commissioning of The Goodies, also with Bill Oddie and Graeme Garden. First transmitted on BBC2 in November 1970, The Goodies was a huge television success, running for over a decade on both BBC TV and (in its final year) UK commercial channel London Weekend Television, spawning many spin-off books and successful records.

Brooke-Taylor was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2011 Birthday Honours.

Reviews

[Rose]

The authors of these fabulous limericks describe themselves:

The teams are renowned for their wit,
They're convinced that the show is a hit.
They say: "Week after week
We hit a new peak!"
But the audience knows that it's rubbish.

A selection of my favourites:

There's a lady who writes Mills and Boon,
By the light of the silvery moon.
She loves all the stories,
And votes for the Tories,
They're coming to get her quite soon.

In the shower I bumped into the Pope.
He said: "I have given up hope."
Then he lay in the aisle
With a far-away smile,
While we hit him with soap-on-a-rope.

(I used to have a Pope Soap On A Rope. What a concept.)

A little known fact about Plato:
He invented the concept of NATO,
The Swiss Army Knife,
The Inflatable Wife,
And the Trouserless Jacket Potato.

One lunchtime while quaffing some ale,
George Bush's heart started to fail.
And things got much worse
When a well-meaning nurse
Said: "Don't worry, I've sent for Dan Quayle."

A Frenchman who ate too much Brie
Shrugged his shoulders and said: "C'est la vie!
That's enough of that stuff
'Cos an oeuf is an oeuf.
I shall 'ave one on toast for my tea."

At afternoon tea with John Peel
I enquired if his accent was real.
He said: "Out of the house
I'm incredibly Scouse,
But at home it depends how I feel."

[Victoria · Rating 5 out of 5]

The poems are great, but better in sound form. I got this book for the cartoons!

[Isabell · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Limerick round of I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue has always been a favourite of mine - improvised rhymes by quick-witted comedy gods, gotta love it. Even though I've heard all of the limericks at least once before, reading them made me laugh out loud on several occasions. They are grouped under different headlines, and you can tell when some clearly are from the same round - the same punch lines or rhymes are used again, but not without losing the humour.

To illustrate several of the limericks, the book also contains drawings by Humphrey Lyttelton, Willie Rushton and Graeme Garden (there's also one by a young Tom Garden, son of Graeme, now a talented creator of concept art). If you're a fan of ISIHAC, and especially if you like limericks, this is a great read.