Barry Cryer

**Barry Charles Cryer** OBE (23 March 1935 – 25 January 2022) was an English writer, comedian, and actor. As well as performing on stage, radio and television, Cryer wrote for many performers including Dave Allen, Stanley Baxter, Jack Benny, Rory Bremner, George Burns, Jasper Carrott, Tommy Cooper, Ronnie Corbett, Les Dawson, Dick Emery, Kenny Everett, Bruce Forsyth, David Frost, Bob Hope, Frankie Howerd, Richard Pryor, Spike Milligan, Mike Yarwood, *The Two Ronnies* and Morecambe and Wise.

## Early life

Cryer was born in Leeds, West Riding of Yorkshire, England, to John Cryer, an accountant, who died when Barry was five, and his wife, Jean. After an education at Leeds Grammar School, he began studying English literature at the University of Leeds. He later described himself as a university dropout: "I was supposed to be studying English Literature at Leeds, but I was in the bar and chasing girls and my first-year results showed it. So I'm 'BA Eng. Lit. failed' of Leeds."

## Career

Cryer was a writer for Leeds-based Proscenium Players, the first Jewish amateur stage group, which was founded in 1948. After appearing in the university revue, Cryer was offered a week's work at the Leeds City Varieties theatre, home of *The Good Old Days*, which became the longest-running television entertainment show in the world. Cryer left university after learning his first-year results and travelled to London. After impressing impresario Vivian Van Damm, Cryer began as the bottom billing act at the Windmill Theatre in London, a theatre which showed comedy acts in between nude tableau shows. Cryer suffered severely from eczema and was hospitalised 12 times in eight years. He was released from his contract by Van Damm and concluded that a performing career was not a wholly sustainable income choice because of his skin condition, so he chose to focus on writing.

Cryer joined the cast of *Expresso Bongo* (1957) with Susan Hampshire, Millicent Martin and Paul Scofield, during which he recorded the song "The Purple People Eater", best known in the version by Sheb Wooley. For contractual reasons, Wooley's version was never released in Scandinavia, Cryer's was, and reached number one in Finland. Cryer's first writing credits were four sketches for *The Jimmy Logan Show*, co-written with Douglas Camfield. Cryer became head writer with an occasional stage role for Danny La Rue's London nightclub, where he was spotted by David Frost. This led to a writing role on the variety special *A Degree of Frost*, which led to Cryer joining the writing team, which also included John Cleese, Graham Chapman and Marty Feldman, on *The Frost Report* from 1966–67. Frost used Cryer on a number of subsequent shows, which established Cryer as a comedy writer in the 1970s. Cryer is seen serving the wine in the original performance of the Four Yorkshiremen sketch on *At Last the 1948 Show*, first broadcast in 1967.[*better source needed*] His most comfortable partnership was with Chapman, in pre-Monty Python days. They wrote about 50 television shows together, including *Doctor in the House* (ITV, 1969–70), and several for Ronnie Corbett: *No – That's Me Over Here!* (ITV, 1968–70), *Now Look Here* (BBC, 1971-73) and *The Prince of Denmark* (BBC, 1974). With other writers he contributed to *The Ronnie Corbett Show* (BBC, 1987) and *Ronnie Corbett in Bed* (BBC, 1971), and was also part of *The Two Ronnies* (1971–87) team.

Cryer always preferred to write in partnership, so that should he dry up he was never left to deliver material. His regular partner during the 1970s was John Junkin, and with Junkin performing as Eric Morecambe and Cryer most often the role of Ernie Wise, the pair wrote some of *The Morecambe and Wise Show* in its BBC period (the 1972 and 1976 Christmas shows) when regular writer Eddie Braben was unavailable. Cryer still enjoyed performing, appearing with Tim Brooke-Taylor and Junkin in the BBC radio series *Hello, Cheeky!*, in which the three performers bounced jokes off each other. He also appeared in the comedy television series *The Steam Video Company* and provided the voice of the judge in the 1975 animated comedy musical *Dick Deadeye, or Duty Done*. He hosted the ITV comedy panel game *Jokers Wild* (1969–74) and had a role in *All You Need Is Cash*, a 1978 spoof documentary about the Beatles parody band the Rutles, as well as a cameo as a police inspector in Kenny Everett's 1984 horror spoof *Bloodbath at the House of Death*.

With new comedians coming forward who wrote their own material, and age progressing and still wanting to perform, Cryer refocused his career to include more performance, touring with Willie Rushton in *Two Old Farts in the Night* and, after Rushton's death, *That Reminds Me*. After a brief early stint as chairman, Cryer was one of the panellists on the BBC radio comedy programme *I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue*, which began in 1972. He also wrote and starred in *You'll Have Had Your Tea* with Graeme Garden.

He wrote an autobiography, *You Won't Believe This But...*, as well as a book of miscellaneous anecdotes, *Pigs Can Fly*. In 2005 he toured the UK with *Barry Cryer: The First Farewell Tour*, and in 2008 he toured with Colin Sell in *Barry Cryer: Still Alive*. He remained a popular after-dinner speaker.

He performed comic monologues and songs on *The Green Tie on the Little Yellow Dog*, which was recorded in 1982, and broadcast by Channel 4 in 1983.

In 1987 Cryer was the guest for Michael Parkinson on BBC Radio 4's *Desert Island Discs* where his musical choices included "Bad Penny Blues" by Humphrey Lyttelton and His Band, "The Girl Can't Help It" by Little Richard and "I Get Along Without You Very Well" by Carly Simon. He was the subject of *This Is Your Life* in June 1995 when he was surprised by Michael Aspel at Thames Television's Teddington Studios.

Since 2018, his clip show *Comedy Legends with Barry Cryer* has been broadcast by Sky Arts, a programme paying tribute to a number of comedians such as Tommy Cooper, Frankie Howerd and Bob Hope with "comedy experts" Tony Hawks, Steve Punt and critic Stephen Armstrong giving their opinions on the stars.

In 2021 Cryer was honoured with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the British Music Hall Society.

## Notes

1. ↑ Also appeared as the Police Inspector seen during the opening credit sequence