Barry Cryer

Bath Comedy Festival gets new sexy sponsor

Bath Comedy Festival and VisitBath have announced a sponsorship collaboration with Lovehoney, the UK's largest online sex toy retailer.

An Audience with Bob and Barry Cryer - review

Now aged 81, Barry Cryer has been a comedy writer and performer for over 60 years, and so has accrued an endless array of jokes and reminiscences that his anecdotes are said to hunt in packs. While billed as an evening to promote Cryer's forthcoming crowdfunded collection of parrot jokes (to be co-written with son Bob Cryer), in reality this is a gentle reflection on a life of incident and humour.

Barry Cryer: 'Tommy Cooper had a sadistic streak'

Tommy Cooper had a 'sadistic streak' which made him relish making people uncomfortable, Barry Cryer has revealed.

Huge hoo-ha over Barry Cryer's colostomy bag joke

On the Radio 4 show in January, panellists were asked to add a word to the title of a song to make it a lot less appealing. Barry Cryer suggested 'Papa's got a brand new colostomy bag'. The listener complained that the joke was an 'offensive and unacceptable portrayal of disability' and that mentioning the device for'a laugh from a negative stereotype was no longer acceptable'.

Review: Slap Up Feast of Fun

Last night's Slapstick Festival fundraiser was a rare treat for comedy fans, as Bristol packed the hall to enjoy performances from Rory Bremner, Tim Vine, Barry Cryer, Neil Innes and the legendary John Cleese.

The Defining the Norm Awards: the nominees

Comedian Will Franken honours the most conformist acts at the Edinburgh Fringe.

Who's representing your city at the Edinburgh Fringe? (Link expired)

Edinburgh is world famous for its annual Festival Fringe (5-29 Aug) which showcases performing arts from across the world, but focusses mainly on comedy.

10 Fringe comedians aged over 60

Edinburgh's often very focussed on the young and the new. But forget those whipper-snappers, complaining about the weight of turning 30, what about those with real experience of the world? Here's our round-up of just some of the over-60s hitting the festival. In ascending order of age.

The secret to Victoria Wood's popularity was that her humour allowed her to be "inoffensive and yet quite naughty." There may be comedians who were sharper or funnier, but they couldn't claim the huge affection Victoria Wood had. She was loved by so many because she'd never resort to shocks, sex or scandal to grab attention, finding the right tone by being a tiny bit "naughty" but never cruel.

Julie Walters, Barry Cryer, Celia Imrie, Alison Steadman, Michael Ball and others offer funny anecdotes and warm memories of her and if you begin to feel it's perhaps getting too sweet and sad, clips of Victoria Wood elbow their way in, being a little bit "naughty" to correct the balance. You can't be melancholy when she pops up on screen to discuss ageing women visiting the doctor, some with pelvic floors dangling and another holding her cervix in a margarine tub.

We also learn of Wood's Lancashire childhood and how she saw Joyce Grenfell's act as a girl, and became fascinated with the image of a lone woman on a stage who could make everyone laugh.