How many of the performers here are sadly no longer with us. Humphrey Lyttleton, Willie Rushton, Tim Brooke-Taylor and now Barry Cryer. How sad. I'm glad their memories are preserved and still making me laugh.
Interesting to see how the game evolved over the years, it definitely improved. Now we have a history lesson about the venue, Coline Sell is the antihero who never says anything, we have the employment of the "lazer display board", a letter from Mrs Trellis and Samantha/Sven have a starring role. Humph and later Dee no longer cares who is winning and wants to get the show over as quickly as possible.
It's interesting to hear an earlier episode again. The atmosphere is less riotous, and they make more of the pretence that it's actually a competition. No less funny, just different.
It wasn't a cult in those days, I grew up listening as a kid to this era of shows. It was just another radio comedy show. The whole Mornington Crescent gag was still played as a joke against the audience, many people listening thought there were real rules they were playing to. Now the audience is in on the joke, in those days they weren't as much, and that was its allure, you had to discover its charms for yourself, and once you 'got it' you felt you were in the club.
@@ianleshall4985It's self explanatory if you have a London Underground map, especially when following a _Frogart's-Rule_ game, as they were playing here.
@MichaelKingsfordGray Wow. For someone apparently listening to a radio comedy programme, you seem to lack a sense of humour. Up your arse you hairy slag...how's that for childish?
There's an interesting name in the last round, one of the late arrivers to the Cricketers Ball, Bo Thamsbottlesgone. Given this is 1981, which was the year of Ian Botham's Ashes heroics, one can only assume that this episode was recorded prior to the 3rd Test at Headingley......by the time it was broadcast in October no-one in the country would have been making jokes about how his bottle had gone!
William would usually get bored and say Mornington Crescent in a very affirmative manner, humph usually concurred ( also tired of that round). Leaving Barry to call for “Adjudication Humph “. Nice to hear a good early one. Thanks
Brilliant ,but later episode were funnier , and some of the jokes they got away with about Samantha and Lionel Blair, would turn the air blue ,hilarious , Humph and Willie and now Jeremy all gone , sadly, .
Graeme has not been too well of late and so has missed some recordings. He was back on the radio this week on The Unbelievable Truth, another panel game that he invented.
Yeah, Ian Rivlin clearly you had a sense of humour bypass at some stage in your life. This is an iconic radio series get a life.... oh and a sense of humour if you have the time
Some very odd tube stations mentioned Jermyn street doesn't have a tube Brentford High Street doesn't have a tube ... Do some rules allow for made up tube stations ?
Alex Cutler I've watched ISIHAC loads of times and there have been many hilarious sketches. (especially when Humphrey Littleton was the compere) but this one was, to me, drab and poorly thought out. Don't "see the Emperor's new clothes" if they don't exist. Most of Monty Python was brilliant, some was pathetically bad. I don't have such religious zeal for a comedy team that I'll support them if they turn out a load of rubbish.
Ian - I think the reason it might not seem so funny as later editions is because at this time in the 70s and 80s it was recorded at the BBC Paris Studio, Lower Regent Street, and treated as just another radio panel game. Often the recordings were made at lunchtimes on weekdays, and as two episodes were recorded at the same session, everyone had their eye on the clock, for people needing to get back to work. Later shows of course were recorded on location at real theatres and became real evening theatrical shows. In fact, if you read a book published after his death called "Last Chorus", which includes Humph's diaries from 1974 to 1981, Humph himself says sometime in the mid 70s that the show is stale and he thinks it won't get another series. I suppose going round the country and getting a more relaxed evening audience was a boost for him and the rest of the team. Also, of course, ISIHAC like all other shows would get away with more in the 2000s (double entendres) than they would in the 70s/80s. After the freedom of the 1960s (Round the Horne etc) things got a bit more strict in the 70s. In fact Round the Horne's replacement "Stop Messing About" was cancelled after 2 series because the then controller of Radio 2, Robin Scott, thought the show was "smutty" - in fact it was RTH in all but name, minus Kenneth Horne.
@@alangiles2763 Make no mistake. I've sometimes laughed until I - literally - cried with ISIHAC but this one left me absolutely cold. I take your point about the location though. Like all comedy, sometimes it clicks and sometimes it doesn't. It's very personal and this episode was, IMO a dud. That's OK, generally, I always looked forward to ISIHAC. "Week Ending" was sometimes brilliant - other times it was embarrassingly bad. I can't understand why some of the comments were so vitriolic. It's like someone saying they "didn't like the tomato soup" and the other diners got really offended. (Which reminds me of the Monty Python sketch with the dirty fork.....)
@@NoosaHeads People get rather carried away on what they see as an "attack", but I do get the point - I love most of the Carry On films, but there are one or two (Jack and Emanuelle) I wouldn't want to see again even if I were paid to!
It's perfectly fine to not find this funny - I have friends who cannot understand why this is funny. But to me this is perfection of silliness - a comedy of complicity - as you the audience are drawn into the social context of the comedy. And one of it's funniest aspects is that not only does the show feature games where the whole point is that you don't get it, but that the show becomes even fonder for us the more we hear that others do not "get it" or "find it at all funny". Truly the antidote to all panel games...
@@schubertuk I've watched ISIHAC loads of times and there have been many hilarious sketches. (especially when Humphrey Littleton was the compere) but this one was - to me - drab and poorly thought out. Don't "see the Emperor's new clothes" if they don't exist. Most of Monty Python was brilliant, some was pathetic. I don't have such religious zeal for a comedy team that I'll support them if they turn out a load of rubbish.
It’s from forty years ago. I started listening to isihac when it was only a few years old in 1976?this is how it was then. More gaps , looser, no links but humph threw his Bon mots in from round to round. But still enjoyable, no? It became more polished, the audience weren’t just old ladies and tramps in the Paris theatre. It changed. Glad you like the later ones at least
RIP Barry Cryer and many thanks for the years of laughter you have given us.
How many of the performers here are sadly no longer with us. Humphrey Lyttleton,
Willie Rushton, Tim Brooke-Taylor and now Barry Cryer. How sad. I'm glad their memories are preserved and still making me laugh.
Also Jeremy Hardy and Denise Coffey.
Interesting to see how the game evolved over the years, it definitely improved. Now we have a history lesson about the venue, Coline Sell is the antihero who never says anything, we have the employment of the "lazer display board", a letter from Mrs Trellis and Samantha/Sven have a starring role. Humph and later Dee no longer cares who is winning and wants to get the show over as quickly as possible.
RIP Willie Rushton, a very funny man
It's interesting to hear an earlier episode again. The atmosphere is less riotous, and they make more of the pretence that it's actually a competition.
No less funny, just different.
It wasn't a cult in those days, I grew up listening as a kid to this era of shows. It was just another radio comedy show. The whole Mornington Crescent gag was still played as a joke against the audience, many people listening thought there were real rules they were playing to. Now the audience is in on the joke, in those days they weren't as much, and that was its allure, you had to discover its charms for yourself, and once you 'got it' you felt you were in the club.
That was a nailbiting round of Mornington Crescent. Absolute classic.
Humph didn’t announce that they were using the reverse-Orpington/Buttes rule though. He should have made that clear.
I loved the show but I just can't understand the rules of Mornington Crescent. If you do please tell me.
@@ianleshall4985It's self explanatory if you have a London Underground map, especially when following a _Frogart's-Rule_ game, as they were playing here.
We also lost another Tim-Brooke Taylor passed away from the coronavirus April 12, 2020
With, not from.
@MichaelKingsfordGray
Wow. For someone apparently listening to a radio comedy programme, you seem to lack a sense of humour. Up your arse you hairy slag...how's that for childish?
@@himagain803yes. But the gullible only hear ‘Covid’ and ignore the fact they may have had another terminal illness.
There's an interesting name in the last round, one of the late arrivers to the Cricketers Ball, Bo Thamsbottlesgone. Given this is 1981, which was the year of Ian Botham's Ashes heroics, one can only assume that this episode was recorded prior to the 3rd Test at Headingley......by the time it was broadcast in October no-one in the country would have been making jokes about how his bottle had gone!
Radio 4 is a perfect alternative route
William would usually get bored and say Mornington Crescent in a very affirmative manner, humph usually concurred ( also tired of that round). Leaving Barry to call for “Adjudication Humph “. Nice to hear a good early one. Thanks
Brilliant ,but later episode were funnier , and some of the jokes they got away with about Samantha and Lionel Blair, would turn the air blue ,hilarious , Humph and Willie and now Jeremy all gone , sadly, .
@TheRedDevil Yes, so sad! He was so funny to listen to. RIP TBT
1981 and already jokes about Rupert Murdoch
The guy who did the travel report at beginning. Did he not do wogan s breakfast show
Spot on. That's John 'Boggy' Marsh who was a Radio 4 announcer before moving over to Radio 2.
He was the announcer for the Hitch Hikers Guide.....
Wonder what happened to them?
Still a fantastically funny and highly enjoyable show but what has happened to Graham Garden?
Graeme has not been too well of late and so has missed some recordings. He was back on the radio this week on The Unbelievable Truth, another panel game that he invented.
Thank you for that information, I had suspected as much. He is an original wit and very much under rated in my view.
Always liked Willie Rushton's distinctive voice.
Yeah, Ian Rivlin clearly you had a sense of humour bypass at some stage in your life. This is an iconic radio series get a life.... oh and a sense of humour if you have the time
Were you a lonely child, who was bullied at school, by any chance? (and do you still live in your parents basement? - bet you do!)
Some very odd tube stations mentioned
Jermyn street doesn't have a tube
Brentford High Street doesn't have a tube ...
Do some rules allow for made up tube stations ?
I think they were playing the pre-Thameslink rules.
Later episodes are a lot funnier.
Could be a lot to do with Mr Naismith
@@danwoodhouse9290 yes, until JN and Iain Pattinson got hold of it in the early 90s it was a bit pedestrian
Oddly restrained - slow and smutless, compared to what it became. Topical references aside, this could be from the early 60s.
Alex Cutler I've watched ISIHAC loads of times and there have been many hilarious sketches. (especially when Humphrey Littleton was the compere) but this one was, to me, drab and poorly thought out. Don't "see the Emperor's new clothes" if they don't exist. Most of Monty Python was brilliant, some was pathetically bad. I don't have such religious zeal for a comedy team that I'll support them if they turn out a load of rubbish.
Ian - I think the reason it might not seem so funny as later editions is because at this time in the 70s and 80s it was recorded at the BBC Paris Studio, Lower Regent Street, and treated as just another radio panel game. Often the recordings were made at lunchtimes on weekdays, and as two episodes were recorded at the same session, everyone had their eye on the clock, for people needing to get back to work. Later shows of course were recorded on location at real theatres and became real evening theatrical shows. In fact, if you read a book published after his death called "Last Chorus", which includes Humph's diaries from 1974 to 1981, Humph himself says sometime in the mid 70s that the show is stale and he thinks it won't get another series. I suppose going round the country and getting a more relaxed evening audience was a boost for him and the rest of the team. Also, of course, ISIHAC like all other shows would get away with more in the 2000s (double entendres) than they would in the 70s/80s. After the freedom of the 1960s (Round the Horne etc) things got a bit more strict in the 70s. In fact Round the Horne's replacement "Stop Messing About" was cancelled after 2 series because the then controller of Radio 2, Robin Scott, thought the show was "smutty" - in fact it was RTH in all but name, minus Kenneth Horne.
@@alangiles2763 Make no mistake. I've sometimes laughed until I - literally - cried with ISIHAC but this one left me absolutely cold. I take your point about the location though. Like all comedy, sometimes it clicks and sometimes it doesn't. It's very personal and this episode was, IMO a dud. That's OK, generally, I always looked forward to ISIHAC. "Week Ending" was sometimes brilliant - other times it was embarrassingly bad.
I can't understand why some of the comments were so vitriolic. It's like someone saying they "didn't like the tomato soup" and the other diners got really offended. (Which reminds me of the Monty Python sketch with the dirty fork.....)
@@NoosaHeads People get rather carried away on what they see as an "attack", but I do get the point - I love most of the Carry On films, but there are one or two (Jack and Emanuelle) I wouldn't want to see again even if I were paid to!
This very early episode is not very funny at all. It did improve as the years went by, notably of course due to the scripts of Ian Pattinson!
Just not funny....
I'd be interested to know what you DO find funny
It's perfectly fine to not find this funny - I have friends who cannot understand why this is funny. But to me this is perfection of silliness - a comedy of complicity - as you the audience are drawn into the social context of the comedy. And one of it's funniest aspects is that not only does the show feature games where the whole point is that you don't get it, but that the show becomes even fonder for us the more we hear that others do not "get it" or "find it at all funny". Truly the antidote to all panel games...
@@schubertuk I've watched ISIHAC loads of times and there have been many hilarious sketches. (especially when Humphrey Littleton was the compere) but this one was - to me - drab and poorly thought out. Don't "see the Emperor's new clothes" if they don't exist. Most of Monty Python was brilliant, some was pathetic. I don't have such religious zeal for a comedy team that I'll support them if they turn out a load of rubbish.
It’s from forty years ago. I started listening to isihac when it was only a few years old in 1976?this is how it was then. More gaps , looser, no links but humph threw his Bon mots in from round to round. But still enjoyable, no? It became more polished, the audience weren’t just old ladies and tramps in the Paris theatre. It changed. Glad you like the later ones at least
@MichaelKingsfordGray Illiterate Cretin. Big band in the sixties.