Farewell, funnymen

The problem with having heroes of humour who are in their 80s is that you keep losing them. The great demolition raconteur Blaster Bates passed away in 2006 and was included in Radio 4's Last Word - although the earthy nature of his tales meant that he received precious little airtime when he was alive. Never mind, the album sales made up for that - and continue to do so with CD reissues.

This time last year, Humphrey Lyttelton died. Before his operation, he told Barry Cryer 'If all goes well, this year's drama is next year's anecdote', a brilliant, inspiring saying which will itself be quoted for many years to come. (Incidentally, I think the BBC's idea of having former I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue panellists Stephen Fry, Jack Dee and Rob Brydon taking it in turns to host the new shows is an inventive attempt at filling the gap left by Chairman Humph; it reduces the risk of regular listeners taking a dislike to one new permanent presenter but avoids having a long succession of hit-or-miss guest hosts, a practice which has sometimes affected the quality of Have I Got News For You. We will soon discover whether this experiment has worked).

In March, the death of the witty broadcaster Geoffrey Smith was marked by a feature on Gardener's Question Time.


I started regularly listening to Radio 4 when I was nine (any child who tunes in at an even younger age is probably like Stewie on Family Guy) so I listened to those guys for a long time but I'm now off to find some younger heroes because, as I said, the older ones have this infuriating habit of leaving just when you thought they could go on forever.

(Republished from the Radio Magazine Issue 889, 29 April 2009)