Bill Oddie

Bill Oddie remembers radio comedy that inspired Python

The broadcaster and birdwatcher looks back on I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again, his rowdy 1960s radio comedy featuring John Cleese, Graeme Garden and Tim Brooke-Taylor.

Bill Oddie: My family values

The broadcaster talks about his mother, who was in an asylum for much of his childhood, and realising that he too had bipolar disorder.

Archive, 11 July 1963: Cambridge Circus review

The latest revue from Cambridge University Footlights launches Bill Oddie, Tim Brooke-Taylor and John Cleese onto the comedy circuit.

I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again: A legacy of laughs?

I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again stamped all over that tradition by ensuring that the comedy didn't stop when the music started with Bill Oddie's string of send-up songs.

A profile of the Glaswegian entertainer and talented mimic who performed most of his sketches in the guise of celebrities of the day. Famously, Baxter would use clever editing to portray all the characters in a scene and was the first person to play the current Queen on TV. We hear how he started his career in Scottish variety theatre and the Army entertainment corps, before going on to draw huge audiences during the Seventies and Eighties for his TV specials - until the cost of his epic productions priced him off our screens. Fans and friends including Michael Grade, Barry Cryer, Bill Oddie and Gregor Fisher pay tribute.

Just because this is an end-of-series offcut doesn't mean it'll be sub-standard. In making the show the producers obviously record more dubious anecdotes than each episode has room for. Some end up on the cutting-room floor, to be swept up later, but from previous compilations, we know that's not necessarily because they're less funny. The issue tends to be that for whatever reason, their truth or otherwise is a little easier to guess, so they don't leave you with that distinctive Would I Lie to You? feeling of bewildered uncertainty about how strange things really are in fame-land. The liars and guessers involved tonight range from Bill Oddie to Louie Spence.

Tim Brooke-Taylor receives OBE

Tim Brooke-Taylor has received an OBE for his services to entertainment, following in the footsteps of fellow Goodies Bill Oddie and Graeme Garden.

To mark the 40th anniversary of The Goodies' television debut, Ross Noble chats to Bill Oddie, Tim Brooke-Taylor and Graeme Garden about giant cats, trandems and rampaging Dougals. Along the way we learn of the trio's superstar status in Australia and how Weymouth was able to double for the North Pole and the Moon, plus reminiscences of doing the funky gibbon on Top of the Pops. All three performers prove to be expansive interviewees, even going so far as to discuss any regrets about blacking up for certain sketches and how they felt about comedy competitors Monty Python's Flying Circus. Guest stars Patrick Moore and Michael Aspel also offer anecdotes, the former recalling his turn as a punk and the latter on being flattened by Kitten Kong.

Bill Oddie feared depression would kill him

Bill Oddie has told how he feared he would die while battling crippling depression for the past 12 months.

If Bill Oddie hosted a show called Telly Watch, he'd be cock-a-hoop at the rare sighting of the bellydancing British-Iranian comedian returning with a second series. A very excitable Bill would then note how Omid's padding out his nest with a skit on the London Olympics and a spoof musical called Credit Crunch: The Opera.