I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again was a long-running radio comedy programme that originally grew out of the Cambridge University revue Cambridge Circus. It had something of a cult following and was broadcast initially on the BBC Home Service (renamed BBC Radio Four in September 1967).

It was first broadcast on April 4 1964 and the eighth series was transmitted in November and December 1973. An hour-long 25th Anniversary show was broadcast in 1989. Humphrey Barclay was the producer until 1968 and from April that year the task was shared by David Hatch and Peter Titheradge .

The cast comprised:

• Bill Oddie (important spokesman on wildlife and ecological issues since c.1980)
• Tim Brooke-Taylor
• Graeme Garden (these three later became more famous as The Goodies on British television)
• John Cleese (became a lead Python and worked on serious business training films). He did his famous silly walk on the programme and it made terrible radio.
• David Hatch (who went on to executive roles within the BBC) and
• Jo Kendall (a radio actress in many straight dramas subsequently; also appeared in another popular radio comedy series The Burkiss Way)

Bill Oddie wrote and performed a daft but well-crafted song in the middle of most programmes. Tim perfected a high-pitched feminine voice for the ghastly Lady Constance de Coverlet, who would often arrive at the close of a lengthy adventure to a rapturous audience welcome. John and Jo developed poignant - almost romantic - dialogues as the respectable but dysfunctional couple "John and Mary", a forerunner of the relationship between Basil and Sybil later televised in Fawlty Towers. As with Round the Horne, the cast's adventures would sometimes be episodic with cliff-hanger endings each week as with the "Curse of the Flying Wombat". Christmas specials normally included a spoof of a traditional pantomime (or several combined). They had few qualms about the use of puns - old, strained or inventive - and included some jokes and catchphrases that would seem politically incorrect by the mid 1970s. Graeme's impressions of Eddie Waring (a rugby league commentator) and John's occasional but manic impressions of Patrick Moore (astronomer and broadcaster) built these people into eccentric celebrities in a way that the Mike Yarwood, Lenny Henry, Rory Bremner, Spitting Image and Dead Ringers programmes would do for other TV presenters with similar disrespect years later.

The show ended with an unchanging sign-off song which Bill Oddie performed as "Angus Prune". Spoof dramas were billed as Prune Playhouse and many parodies of commercial radio were badged as Radio Prune, but the name Angus Prune seemed as random and incidental as the name Monty Python, which appeared seven years later.

Although the BBC radio shows ITMA, Much Binding in the Marsh , Take it from Here and Beyond Our Ken had conditioned listeners to accepting a mix of music, sketches and jokes within a 30 minute show, and Round the Horne was currently doing this, ISIRTA (as it was known to its friends), accelerated the transitions and certainly seemed more improvised. It was one of those programmes where you were unlikely to get all the jokes on first hearing so would have to listen to the scheduled repeat (or an illegal tape recording) to discover what you had missed. It thus helped prepare the television audience for At Last the 1948 Show, the Q Series from Spike Milligan and Monty Python's Flying Circus.

It may also have influenced other fast-paced British radio programmes such as Radio Active , On the Hour, The Sunday Format, and The News Huddlines .

Some of the cast also appear in the radio comedy quiz show I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue, which was originally a spinoff from ISIRTA but has outlived it by decades.

Since December 2002, examples of ISIRTA can be heard on Fridays at 12.30 and 19.30 hours GMT on BBC 7 (available on the web, digital radio and digital television).

See also

• List of Comedic Catchphrases