Your Memories
30.04.2008 : Deborah Latham wrote
Humph you were a wonderful entertainer. You have given both Iain and I lots of laughs and memorable evenings at the Cinnamon Club, Bridgewater Hall. For which we both thank you.
Only recently (shamed to say) started to listen to Sorry I haven't a Clue, the show at the Lowery Centre was so funny. Glad we saw it and so glad you played us a little tune
May you continue playing on your cloud.
God rest
01.05.2008 : Alan Brooker wrote
Lyttleton, as found in the Uxbridge English Dictionary, means urbane, witty, caustic, funny and sometimes bloody hilarious. I only knew this relic from a gentler more polite age through listening to ISIHAC, and was always so delightfully shocked at some of the sheer filth he could utter with that oh so innocent educated voice. Deepest sympathy to his family, the cast of ISIHAC and of course to Samantha, who I'm sure was continuing to be his Good Right Hand until the very end. God Bless Humph.
18.05.2008 : Donna Muldoon wrote
Laughter is the best medicine and listening again to 'clue will be one way of staying healthy.
I only have one question:
Who will help us to get to Mornington Crescent, Now?
26.05.2008 : Gus Horsepool wrote
I was 12 years old, primed to go to the London School of Music having had piano lessons for six months. Up to my voice breaking had been the Head chorister at a prestigious church, also sung in the Halle Orchestras choir; that was 1956. I heard Bad Penny Blues, and could not believe how excited I felt listening to it, I learned to play the tune by playing the record (78) over and over until I could play it perfectly, I performer at a school concert at a parents evening where I got a standing ovation for playing my boogie version of Bad Penny Blues. From then on I was hooked on the limelight and recognition. Shortly after, Bill Haley introduced me to Rock & Roll, no different to the boogie of Bad Penny. I said goodbye to the Royal School of Music idea, went on the road as a R&R singer and piano player, never looked back, and worked with many top entertainers….all thanks to Humph. I feel sad he is no longer around. I owe him a massive thank you.
Gus Horsepool
Leicester
12.06.2008 : Bob Parsons wrote
I suppose it had to happen but Humph was so enthusiastic and youthful that it was a great shock to hear he had died, even though he was very nearly 87. He is irreplaceable as chairman of "I'm Sorry...." and he had already stopped doing "Best of Jazz", but we do have a wonderful legacy of recordings made throughout his career as a great musician and free-thinking bandleader who always got the best out of everybody who played with him. I do hope there's a good tune going on up there, Humph!
Doyen of madcap radio comedy game and talented jazz musician
Musician and broadcaster Humphrey Lyttelton, who died on 25 April, 2008, was best known to listeners of Radio 4 for chairing the long-running game show I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue.
The self-styled “antidote to panel games” began in 1972 and was the brainchild of several satirical luminaries who concocted nonsensical games for regulars and guest comedians to take part in under Mr Lyttelton’s faux-reluctant guidance.
But despite his natural deadpan delivery, it was his previous career as a celebrated jazz musician that landed him the job – the show’s creators sensed that his ability to play the trumpet freestyle would help him cope with the chaos of the madcap radio show.
Humphrey Richard Adeane Lyttelton was born on 23 May, 1921, into an aristocratic family - his grandfather was the Lord Lyttelton, 8th Viscount Cobham - and he was schooled at Eton where his father was a housemaster.
He discovered jazz at an early age through the music of Louis Armstrong and Nat Gonella, taught himself trumpet and drums and formed his first combo at the age of 15. He served with the Grenadier Guards during the Second World War and then embarked on a career as a cartoonist.
However, by 1949 his jazz calling came to fruition - the Humphrey Lyttelton Band, formed the previous year, quickly became one of Europe's leading exponents of the New Orleans sound and EMI offered them a contract to record a string of sought-after records. His single Bad Penny Blues made British jazz history when it entered the top twenty in 1956.
Mr Lyttelton worked with many of the great jazz names of the era and even got to play on the same stage as his hero when Louis Armstrong did a series of London shows. By the start of the '60s his band had toured America and expanded their repertoire to include blues and pop numbers, angering some traditionalist fans but providing more mainstream appeal.
In 1967 he began hosting The Best of Jazz, a weekly Radio 2 show that would be his for the next 40 years. Nevertheless, he was something of an unlikely choice when I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again stars Tim Brooke-Taylor and Graeme Garden decided that an unscripted show would be a welcome relief from writing their chaotic comedy show, but their vision of a comedy equivalent of jazz earned him the seat. At first he shared hosting duties with Barry Cryer but after the first series he was given the role permanently with Cryer moving onto the panel.
Throughout his reign on I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, Mr Lyttelton (with help from "the lovely Samantha" who kept the non-existent scores) instigated and oversaw with feigned distaste a variety of bizarre rounds, including singing one song to the tune of another, composing improvised verse, reading scripts in an incongruous accent and, most famously, the game of wits with no rules, Mornington Crescent.
'Humph', as he came to be known, was distinctive for his dry and scornful tone. The scripts were written for him, but when he deviated he would usually bring the house down.
"They're like big concerts, recorded in very big theatres," he once said of the taping of I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue episodes. "It's hard to get tickets. Sometimes I can't get in."
He was rewarded with a Sony Gold Award for services to broadcasing in 1993 amd a lifetime achievement award in the Post Office British Jazz Awards in 2000, followed a year later by a similar accolade from the BBC Jazz Awards.
The BBC announced on 25 April that he had died peacefully aged 86 with his family by his bedside. He had been admitted into hospital earlier in the week for surgery to repair an aortic aneurysm. His illness had already seen the new series of I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue cancelled.
Mark Damazer, controller of Radio 4, paid tribute to Mr Lyttelton: "He was just a colossally good broadcaster and possessed of this fantastic sense of timing. It's a very, very sad day but we should celebrate and be very grateful for how much he did because he really was one of the giants over the last 40 years, really terrific."
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