I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue (often abbreviated to the initialism ISIHAC) is a radio comedy programme broadcast on BBC Radio 4 (from April 11 1972 to the present day). The show bills itself as "the antidote to panel games", in which a panel of comedians are "given silly things to do". The show has many influences, most notably I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again and Give Us A Clue.

Format

The show roughly follows standard panel game format. There is a chairman and a panel of four comedians. The show is structured as a sequence of rounds. In each round the panellists play a nominally-competitive game, a different game for each round. Between rounds the chairman chats, reads out letters (which are generally assumed to be fake), and generally provides some variety from the games.

In most games the panellists play as individuals, but for some games they are grouped into two teams of two. Most of the games involve interaction between the players, but the team games tend to consist of separate efforts.

Although most of the games have some rule to determine a winner, in fact the show is not competitive in the slightest degree. Although there is a scorer, there is no scoring; there is never any reference to the score during the show, and no winner is announced. Some games lack even the appearance of competitiveness.

Participants

The chairman is Humphrey Lyttelton, generally referred to as "Humph".

The regular panellists are:

• Graeme Garden
• Tim Brooke-Taylor
• Barry Cryer

Since the death of Willie Rushton, the fourth panel member is normally a fortnightly guest. Guest panellists have included:

• Bill Bailey
• Max Boyce
• Denise Coffey
• Kenny Everett
• Stephen Fry
• Andy Hamilton
• Mike Harding
• Jeremy Hardy
• Tony Hawks
• Harry Hill
• John Junkin
• Phill Jupitus
• Fred Macauley
• Paul Merton
• Neil Mullarkey
• Ross Noble
• Linda Smith
• Sandi Toksvig
• Bill Tidy

Colin Sell usually provides musical accompaniment to some of the games. Guest pianist, when Colin Sell has been double booked and the ISIHAC team have won the coin toss, has been former Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band member and Monty Python collaborator Neil Innes.

Raymond Baxter has occasionally been drafted to commentate on sessions of Mornington Crescent.

Humour

Many of the games are inherently humourous; see below for discussion. All games are played for laughs, even when theoretically capable of being taken seriously.

A frequent source of humour is the supposed presence of something, or someone, which is visually impressive but makes no sound, and therefore cannot be properly appreciated by the radio audience. For example, the regular scorer is "the lovely Samantha" (who never speaks a word), and the team have trialled many "advanced laser scoreboards" over recent decades. In fact these things are of course fictional (the "laser display screen" [sometimes described in more elaborate terms], used in rounds in which one team or both mustn't see what the audience sees, most frequently "Sound Charades" [see below], is in fact a man running onto the stage holding a large card with the words written on it [conveyed to listeners at home by the"'mystery voice"]; this explains the joke employed on at least two occasions of the display screen's being "so generously funded by our hosts"). The studio audience invariably plays along with the joke by providing gasps of wonder, applause, wolf-whistles, etc., at the appropriate moment.

Possibly the most well-developed instance of this form-versus-content humour was an occasion when Humph announced that they had a very distinguished actor as a guest, and he would be joining in the game of Mornington Crescent. The panellists first played a normal game of Mornington Crescent, ostensibly to give the guest a chance to acclimatise. With much gravitas the guest then approached the panel's table, taking his place such that he would be the last to make his first move. When the game started, the penultimate player, the last of the panellists, won on his first move, thus denying the distinguished guest the opportunity to make even a single move in the game. The chairman apologised, but explained that that was an unavoidable possibility in the game, and the guest gracefully left, without having ever uttered a word. The show was inundated with complaints at the treatment of Alec Guinness, despite the fact that the "distinguished actor" had never actually been named on the show.

The show is notable for including far more and far ruder innuendo and double entendre than the BBC would ever broadcast on television in a similar early evening timeslot. For example:

"She's become quite friendly with the two elderly archivists, Jack and Arthur. They've recently gone part time, so Samantha's come to a working arrangement. She does the paperwork, Arthur gets her forty-fives out, and Jack's off all afternoon."

(By way of explanation, "forty-fives" could be taken to refer to 45 rpm vinyl records or Samantha's ample 45-inch bosom; and "Jack's off" can be heard as "jacks off", a slang expression for masturbation).

Games

Pick Up Song

The panellists sing along to a well known song. The sound is turned off for a while, and the aim is to be as close as possible to the original when it's turned on again.

Mornington Crescent

Main article: Mornington Crescent

This is by far the best-known ISIHAC game. Ostensibly it is an obscure game of extreme complexity, involving the naming of London Underground stations in convoluted patterns not readily discernible by the observer. In fact the rules are completely fictitious, and the game is a parody of such obscure games. It is a very popular game for fans of the show to play themselves.

One Song To The Tune Of Another

Main article: One Song To The Tune Of Another

Panellists sing the lyrics of one song, to the tune of a completely different song. This is the epitome of inherently silly games, though to perform it without preparation can still involve a fair bit of skill. Additional humour derives from Humph's impenetrable attempts to explain how it is played.

Cheddar Gorge

Main article: Cheddar Gorge (game)

The panellists take turns to say a word each, the ostensible object being to avoid completing a sentence; whoever completes a sentence is eliminated. In practice, many potential sentence ends are forgiven, and the object is to construct as bizarre a monologue as possible.

Sound Charades

Main article: Sound Charades

In Sound Charades a team of two panellists is given the title of a book, film, or other artistic work, and they must communicate it to the other team. This is allegedly a variant of charades, in which a single player is given this task. However, whereas in charades the player is not permitted to speak and communicates by mime, in Sound Charades the title is communicated by acting out a very short improvised play. Usually the title to be communicated is a contorted pun on the central object in the play, which has (of course) not been explicitly named but only described indirectly. For example, the film Zulu has been acted out by a whispered question being answered with directions that pass several animal enclosures - the questioner has been given directions to the 'zoo loo'.

The game also provides Humph with the regular opportunity to make fun of Lionel Blair, long standing team captain on Give Us A Clue, the tv show from which Sound Charades was derived. These usually involve some sort of outrageous innuendo.

Limerick improvisation

The chairman supplies the first line of a limerick, and the four panellists each supply a line in turn to complete it. Usually four rounds are played, rotating the panellists so that they each get a turn supplying each possible line.

This is the most serious of the games, in the sense that its ostensible object (to create a funny poem on the spot) is precisely the actual object for which the panellists are aiming. The game is a test of comedic and improvisational skill, and is difficult to do well. Out of four rounds, the ISIHAC panellists typically produce one or two really good limericks, with the remainder still being creditable. A book containing a collection of the best limericks was published in 1999 as "I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue: The Official Limerick Collection".

Swanee-Kazoo

This is a musical game, and the game yielding by far the most bizarre sounds, thus making excellent radio. It is also an inherently extremely silly game.

As with most of the musical games, the panellists play in teams of two. One member of the team is issued with a swanee whistle, and the other a kazoo. Note that the latter instrument is easy to play well, but the former takes some skill to produce a melody. Using these instruments, they perform a well-known song, as a duet.

The humour principally derives from the sound of the instruments. Both the swanee whistle and the kazoo have quite a silly sound, and the juxtaposition of the two is quite incongruous due to the contrast between them. Furthermore, the swanee whistle is not usually considered a melody instrument, more usually being employed for special effects (such as the voices of the Clangers). Typically, the kazoo player can hold the melody, thus holding the performance together, while the swanee whistle produces a deranged version of the melody, only hitting the right note by accident.

Word for Word

This is based on word association, an investigative technique in psychology which can be used as a game. In the word association game, players in turn say whatever word comes into their mind first after hearing the previous word. "Word for Word" is a word disassociation game: players may say any word as long as it has no connection whatsoever to the previous word. This is surprisingly difficult to do. A competitive structure is provided by eliminating any player that utters a word connected to the preceding one; the last player left wins.

This game produces amazing strings of nonsense. Furthermore, as with the other elimination games, the elimination rule is not strictly followed. Fairly direct links between words are occasionally permitted, but words may be deemed connected based on bizarre and tortuous chains of association.

This game is particularly popular for fans to play in an idle moment. It may be initiated merely by saying an incongruous word in isolation.

Censored song

The panellists, in teams of two, are given a song to sing, and are invited to bowdlerise it by replacing objectionable words with the use of a buzzer. In fact they are given perfectly innocuous songs, and the objective is to make the song as suggestive as possible by the strategic censoring of innocent words.

Straight face

In this game, panellists in turn announce words, and the audience is used to judge whether the word is funny. If the audience laughs, "even the merest titter", then the player who provided the offending word is eliminated. Often, the chairman will ignore words that produce enormous laughs, but will eliminate players whose words produce a barely-audible laugh. The last player remaining wins.

It is possible to predict quite accurately which words will raise a laugh. Arguably this is because some words are inherently funny. Panellists actually take quite daring risks, skating the line between boring and funny words at the risk of elimination. This game can thus be played in a manner that involves considerable comedic skill, not only in judging inherent funniness but also in reading the audience and adjusting the timing and delivery of the word to get the intended effect. It can be viewed as stand-up comedy minus the jokes.

Celebrity What's My Line?

This is the epitome of modifying an existing game in a way that completely destroys its original intent. In this case, the original is What's My Line?, a game in which a panel guesses a guest's occupation by asking a series of yes/no questions. Having a celebrity guest immediately defeats the requirement that the occupation be unknown to the panellists. (For example, Dame Judi Dench, a famous actress and a fan of ISIHAC, has been a guest for this game.) The panellists nevertheless pretend not to know, and give the appearance of playing seriously. Apart from the silliness of pretending that a celebrity's occupation is unknown, humour comes from the bizarre lines of questioning from the panel.

What's My Line? traditionally begins with the guest performing a mime that illustrates their occupation, giving a cryptic clue to the panel. This feature is retained unmodified in Celebrity What's My Line?, appearing to a radio listener as a short silence punctuated by laughter from the studio audience.

Late arrivals at a society ball

The closing round is often "Late Arrivals at the such-and-such Ball" which descends directly from frequent incidental dialogue included in the earlier, scripted BBC Radio 4 series I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again. Late arrivals at the Drunkard's Ball could for example include Mr.and Mrs.Large-Whisky and their son Oliver Large-Whisky (a pun on "I'll have a large whisky"). One running joke is the appearance of Mr. and Mrs. Bennett-(Long phrase of exclamation relevant to the subject) and their son Gordon, the joke being that this is an easy cop-out. After the chairman has identified the ball, the panellists announce the late arrivals, in no particular order. Play is fast and fluid.

Historical headlines

The chairman identifies an historical event, such as the assassination of Julius Caesar, and invites the panellists to suggest the headlines that would be used by modern newspapers reporting on the event. Panellists make their suggestions in no particular order, leading to a fluid style of play.

This game presumably works as well as it does because of the United Kingdom's remarkable profusion of newspapers, representing every conceivable style and viewpoint. The round uses caricatures, and often stereotypes, of the papers' views, such as the Daily Express's perceived obsession with house prices, The Guardian's reputation for bad spelling, and the London Evening Standard concentrating on London-centric news (usually concerning a tube strike).

Themed film/book club

The chairman identifies a special interest group and invites the panellists to suggest films or books that would be of interest to this group. The titles suggested are mostly modifications of well-known film/book titles to create a themed pun, thus the builders' book club might feature "Grout Expectations", a pun on Great Expectations. Some of the suggestions are more elaborate, including puns on the author's name or explanations of their topicality. As with the other common final rounds, the suggestions are made in no particular order. For unknown reasons, this game usually features a reference to the film Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia.

Non-game segments

Although more free-form than the games, the parts of the show between the games include some standard features.

At the beginning of the show, the chairman always announces in which town the recording is taking place, and says something about the team's reaction to, or exploits in, the region. Apart from this there is frequently gossip about the crew (especially the fictional scorer Samantha). Usually Humph rambles for a few sentences, apparently fairly aimlessly, before finishing on a double entendre set up by the preceding story. For an example of this form, see the Humour section above.

Since May 11 1985 there has been a (fictional) scorer, usually "the lovely Samantha". Occasionally the Swedish stand-in scorer Sven, or another substitute, has made an appearance. Early in Samantha's career on ISIHAC a letter appeared in the Radio Times protesting at her sexist and humiliating treatment on the programme.

Mrs Trellis

A prolific correspondent to the chairman over the years has been the idiosyncratic (and allegedly fictional) Mrs Trellis of North Wales. Her incoherent letters are read out to much amusement. Many play on Mrs Trellis mistaking Humph for another Radio 4 presenter (such as Simon Hoggart). Another letter which sums up the spirit of the show admirably is:

A Mrs. Trellis of North Wales has written in to complain that the show has an enormous fistful of rampant innuendo rammed into every crack, but only a truly filthy-minded person would think such a thing.

History

The idea for ISIHAC came when the team of the long-running I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again decided that they could no longer find time to write scripts. Instead they devised a parody of panel games, ISIHAC. The original panellists were Jo Kendall , Graeme Garden, Bill Oddie, Tim Brooke-Taylor, and John Cleese (all part of the ISIRTA team). The job of host changed week to week between Humphrey Lyttelton and Barry Cryer in the first two series, before Humphrey Lyttelton hosted on a regular basis.

Some early episodes of the series were wiped in the late 1970s. Following the BBC's Treasure Hunt appeal for missing material several episodes were returned in the form of off-air recordings.

Notable special episodes were:

• Everyone's Guide to Mornington Crescent (19th June 1986) (Series 12)
• Celebrity Selections (11th January 1999) (Series 32)
• 30th Anniversary Special (13th April 2002) (Series 38)
• I'm Sorry I Haven't a Christmas Carol (25th December 2003) (Series 42)

A spin-off of the popular round "sound charades" is the scripted BBC Radio 4 show You'll Have Had Your Tea, with Barry Cryer and Graeme Garden starring as their often used characters, Hamish and Dougal.

External links

• The official BBC website
• The officially unofficial I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue web pages
• BBC7 website: listen to episodes in Real Audio or Windows Media Player