Just smile when you remember them
HUMOUR has been an important part of our DNA since the Dawn of Man, which was at 5.43am on a damp Monday. Laughter’s a wonderful safety valve that helps us through challenging times and, sadly, we recently lost two veteran laughter creators.
Wyn Calvin, “The Welsh Prince of Laughter”, was 96, while writer and broadcaster Barry Cryer was 86.
You might think that living to those great ages isn’t bad, but I’m sure Barry would counter that by saying “97 and 87 would be a darn sight better!”
Apart from being a star of radio comedy, Wyn Calvin was one of the best panto dames in the business and donned dresses and wigs in theatres all over the UK for many years, and I hope the young comics he worked with observed and absorbed whatever it was that made Wyn connect with an audience.
He cracked this funny gag on a breakfast TV show a while back: “Cardiff City’s score last night was nil. And they were lucky to get that!”
Wyn never resorted to blue humour and it wasn’t just because in the days when he was a pantomime star it simply wouldn’t have been allowed by the producers.
He kept the jokes squeaky clean and family friendly because that’s what pantomimes should offer.
As an aside, and in complete contrast to Wyn’s attitude, I was told that a recent Birmingham pantomime contained a barrage of cringe-inducing single-entendre gags that might have been taken from the Chubby Brown Guide To Comedy!
Plenty of newspaper articles and obituaries have covered Barry Cryer’s career in detail, so in tribute to a genuinely funny man, here’s the first ever sketch he sold to television, for a Dick Emery show.
It made me laugh out loud and I hope it tickles your funny bone.
A married couple are sitting in their living room and there’s a knock on the door.
The woman gets up to answer it and a moment later comes back and says to her husband
“There’s a man at the door who says he fought with you in the war.”
The man gets up, goes to the door and who’s standing there? Adolf Hitler!
RIP Barry and Wyn.