The Unofficial Complete I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue Official Stage Tour Dates

My own souvenir programme from the 2020 Bristol show

These have been removed from the show's Wikipedia article by some tosser who reckons they're "not of encyclopaedic value", and I compiled them from 2020 onwards (plus I have some additional notes on the earlier years I found out whilst double-checking some things), so consider this my contribution towards preserving comedy history -- absolutely every date in the history of the ISIHAC stage tour.

"...Which is Definitely Going to Make the Edit"

The two episodes of I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue recorded at the Bath Forum that I was in the audience for were broadcast on 10 and 17 July, they're still up on BBC Sounds for a few weeks here, here's some stuff that didn't make the edit, and so on and so forth.

Keep it Light

I was in the audience for last night's recording of I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue at the Bath Forum, which saw Rory Bremner and Marcus Brigstocke locked in combat with Tony Hawks and Pippa Evans. I was going to wait until the two episodes aired (which will be on the 10th and 17th July) to try to do my thing of remembering as much about what didn't make the edit as I can, since ISIHAC is a difficult show to write spoiler-free notes on, but I do have one or two things that definitely won't make the edit or can be suitably vague about now.

One of the biggest laughs of the evening came when Jon Naismith was introducing the panel: whilst he was describing the first panellist Tony started to walk on and was halfway to his chair when he realised Jon was actually talking about Rory, and hurriedly ran back behind the curtain before Jon noticed him!

There was a tense moment at the top of the second show: Jack Dee got a few lines into his opening monologue when there was a power cut, which was followed by a uniquely funny yet worrying few minutes of ad-libbing (and Jon making some perhaps-only-semi-joking remarks about already having enough material for two episodes from the first one) from the darkened stage.

There was one new round which will be interesting to see if it makes the edit or not for reasons I can't really get into; I can't think of much else to say that doesn't cross the line into spoilers, the relatively new game of Songstoppers seems to be a permanent fixture now, and one of them brought the house down.

Oh: Watch out for a moment in Pick-Up Song that reduced everyone, including the rest of the panel, to literal tears of helpless laughter.

Get a Clue

The episode of I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue I was in the virtual audience for, with the panel of Tony Hawks, Marcus Brigstocke, Henning Wehn and Vicki Pepperdine, was broadcast on Radio 4 this evening, and is available to listen to for another 30 days here. Here's some notes, mostly on things that didn't make the edit, for the curious.

The Clue Bibliography

Radio 4 comedy shows, especially panel games, don't seem to get an awful lot of tie-in books. The one and only such release for Just a Minute was Welcome to Just a Minute!, Nicholas Parsons' remarkably thorough history of the show from 2014. The News Quiz appears to have had at least one in the 1980s which I might look into at some point (there are a few other books called "News Quiz Book", but the title's so generic they might be unrelated to the radio show). The Unbelievable Truth had a pretty good stab at one a few years back, but perhaps covered too similar territory to the numerous QI books.

One happy exception to this rule is I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, which has had no end of attempts (well, eight) to replicate some of its various rounds in print since 1980. Since there doesn't seem to be any kind of guide to them available anywhere, I thought I'd have a go. (Since it has to expressly tie into the show, I have excluded things such as memoirs or other books by the regular panellists, and I have also reluctantly left out Jem Roberts' fully authorised history of the series, which needless to say you should buy if you haven't already.)

Christmas Clue Cuts

Christmas Day 2003: I'm Sorry I Haven't a Christmas Carol makes its premiere on BBC Radio 4. It is quite a remarkable accomplishment by writers Graeme Garden and Iain Pattinson - using a comedy panel show as the template for an adaptation of A Christmas Carol, with chairman Humphrey Lyttelton cast as Ebenezer Scrumph, regular panellists Garden, Barry Cryer and Tim Brooke-Taylor as (amongst many other roles) the Ghosts of Christmas Pissed, Present and Queen Boadicea (The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come having been delayed due to unforeseen circumstances), and regular pianist Colin Sell as Colin Crotchit, with Stephen Fry as the narrator and other members of the show's extended family of semi-regular panellists making up the rest of the cast.

October 2004: I'm Sorry I Haven't a Christmas Carol is released on CD and audio cassette, as a specially extended edition boasting "over 20 minutes of never-before-heard material".

December 2019: Some idiot with an arbitrary target of keeping his blog updated once a week for as long as possible decides to write something on that extended edit.

I'm Sorry I Haven't a Witty Article Title Referring to the Radio Times

Well, having just covered a history of The News Quiz and Just a Minute in Radio Times listings, it seems only natural that we wrap up Radio 4 Comedy Panel Show Listings Month with I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue. (It's a real shame The Unbelievable Truth only arrived on the scene long after the custom of specially-written listings had stopped.)

Now That's What I Call One Song to the Tune of Another

Here’s one of the great baffling questions of radio comedy: Why has there never been an I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue compilation release, made up purely of the very best examples of One Song to the Tune of Another?

Just to prove such a release would work, I have come up with my own tracklist for it, consisting of my favourite examples from the show: