I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again

Cast

• Tim Brooke-Taylor. He wrote humorous books on various subjects, including cricket and golf. He was a member of the cast of the television comedy series At Last the 1948 Show with John Cleese, Graham Chapman and Marty Feldman, and later appeared in Feldman's television comedy series Marty. He acted in many other television sitcoms, and appeared in the 1970s BBC radio sketch show Hello, Cheeky! with John Junkin and Barry Cryer, later translated to ITV. He died in 2020, aged 79.
• John Cleese formed his own production company Video Arts in the 1970s to make business training films, which contained much Python-esque/Basil Fawlty-style humour, and also made films including A Fish Called Wanda and Fierce Creatures. On the 25th anniversary ISIRTA show he performed his famous silly walk and sang "The Ferret Song". He appeared in At Last the 1948 Show in 1967 with Tim Brooke-Taylor, Graham Chapman and Marty Feldman, and was co-writer with Graham Chapman of several episodes of the Doctor in the House television comedy series. In later series Cleese was often absent, due to his appearances in Monty Python; in the sleeve notes to the BBC's re-issues of the shows on cassette, his absences were explained as " ranting commitments elsewhere".
• Graeme Garden. A qualified medical doctor, Garden was co-writer with Bill Oddie of several episodes of the medical comedy Doctor in the House on ITV. He also appeared as Commander Forrest in the Yes Minister television episode "The Death List". He was a member of I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again from the start. At the same time, he was studying medicine in London. Because he did a midwifery medical course in Plymouth, he was unable to be a member of the cast of ISIRTA during the third series, due to the distance between London and Plymouth which made commuting to record the shows impossible. However, Graeme kept sending scripts for the radio show by mail - and rejoined the cast upon his return to his medical studies in London.
• David Hatch, as was common in BBC radio at that time, served both as the show's announcer and as a cast member. Hatch's announcements were frequently lampooned or interrupted by other cast members. In the 25th Anniversary special, Hatch invited the audience to join them again in 25 years time - ironically, by 2014 Hatch, who died in 2007, was the only cast member to have died.
• Jo Kendall. She also guest starred in The Goodies 1980 episode "Goodies and Politics".
• Bill Oddie. He has written many books, and has been an important spokesman on wildlife and ecological issues since the 1980s. Bill Oddie wrote and performed a daft but well-crafted song in the middle of most ISIRTA programmes. He was co-writer of several episodes of the Doctor in the House television comedy series.
• Humphrey Barclay was the producer of ISIRTA until 1968; from April that year the task was shared by David Hatch and Peter Titherage. In 1973, production was shared by David Hatch with John Cassels and with Bob Oliver Rodgers.
• Music for the links and songs was provided by Dave Lee and his band.

  Influence

Repeats and spinoffs

Catchphrases

• "I'm sorry, I'll read that again" - a frequent interruption to mock news broadcasts on the show – the line often reads "Here is the news. I'm sorry, I'll read that again: Here are the news."
• "Rhubarb tart?" A delicacy much loved by all the cast members and often used as a bribe during sketches. David Hatch famously leaves the University of the Air during a Julius Caesar spoof lecture after Bill Oddie's flip remarks, only to be coaxed back with offers of rhubarb tart. It is also Angus Prune's favourite dish. In the "Ali Baba" sketch in the 3rd series, Cleese appears as Omar Khayyam; he remarks to Ali Baba, played by Brooke-Taylor, "Surely you've heard of the Rhubarb Tart of Omar Khayyam?" There were also two "Rhubarb Tart" songs, one sung by Cleese, which he also sang in At Last the 1948 Show, and one sung by Oddie, which became "The Custard Pie Song" in the TV series The Goodies.
• The Tillingbourne Folk and Madrigal Society. A recurring parody of English a cappella folk music. The Society performed a range of songs from a medley of football chants through to the never-ending folk song "There was a Ship that put to Sea all in the Month of May." They also presented a version of "House of the Rising Sun," with Graeme Garden singing a fairly straight version of the song and the rest of the group providing highly mannered interjections, such as "tiddly-pom" and "whack-fol-riddle-me-o." Yet, despite the whimsy, it was clear that the cast members were very capable singers.
• "I'm the king rat!" Generally said very over-dramatically by John Cleese, on which the rest of the cast would reply, "Oh, no you're not!" This was later referenced in a Monty Python sketch at a "hospital for over-actors."
• "The Angus Prune Tune". Written by Bill Oddie with lyrics by Humphrey Barclay and performed by Bill Oddie, this was the sign-off song for the series. In a retrospective show called I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again, Again broadcast on BBC Radio 4Extra in March 2013 to celebrate 50 years of ISIRTA, Bill Oddie said that the lyrics had been written by Humphrey Barclay. The full text runs as follows:
• :My name is Angus Prune
• :and I always listen to I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again
• ::
• :My name is Angus Prune
• :and I never miss I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again
• ::
• :I sit in my bath
• :And I have a good laugh
• :Cause the sig tune is named after me
• ::
• :My name is Angus Prune
• :And this is my tune
• :It goes I-S-I-R-T-A
• :I'm Sorry I'll Read That AGAIN!'
• Beethoven's Fifth. The famous opening bars of this piece of music are constantly used in the series, usually in inappropriate settings; their first appearance was in the first sketch of the pilot programme in 1963, and during an Opportunity Knocks spoof in the 3rd series Bill Oddie tries to tap-dance to them in what sound like hob-nailed boots. David Hatch once introduced the cast: "...with another of their sallies forth – – or Beethoven's Fifth –" On another occasion, the pre-show teaser was Beethoven, played by Brooke-Taylor, trying to get Bill Oddie, playing a stereotypically Jewish-sounding music publisher, to market the tune. After hearing the tune, Oddie says: "That's a load of old rubbish!" and then twists the melody to form the opening sig. The closing bars of the final movement of the symphony were used to introduce a 'promenade concert' that featured "There was a Ship that put to Sea all in the Month of May" – Hatch says solemnly in his best BBC voice: "That was the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra under Wilhelm Furtwängler. Now, while they're getting up..."
• "The Ferret Song". John Cleese has an obsession with ferrets throughout the show, including his performance of "The Ferret Song". This song begins with the line "I've got a ferret sticking up my nose." The line is repeated, then: "How it got there I can't tell, but now it's there, it hurts like hell and, what is more, it radically affects my sense of smell," – and promptly gets even worse. The song, written by John Cleese and Graham Chapman, was included in The Fairly Incomplete and Rather Badly Illustrated Monty Python Song Book, accompanied by a picture of Cleese with a Terry Jones-shaped ferret up his nose.
• The Silly Roll Call. During many of the longer adventures, the cast engage in the Silly Roll Call, where a series of words are turned into people's names in the vein of an inverted knock-knock joke. The "Jack the Ripper" story involves criminals such as "Mr. and Mrs. Ree... and their son... Robby Ree... and his cousin from the Far East, Ahmed Robby Ree; Mr. and Mrs. Nee, their Swedish son Lars Nee.. and his sister Betty Lars Nee; and Mr. and Mrs. Sittingforimmoralpurposes...and their son...Solly Sittingforimmoralpurposes". In "Jorrocks", the Hunt Ball features appearances by "Lord and Lady V'syouyeahyeahyeah and their daughter Sheila V'syouyeahyeahyeah" as well as "Lord and Lady Umeeroffen and their son Duke Umeeroffen". Even the Ancient Greek world of Oedipus is not sacred – Socrates appears with Knobblyknees, Euripides with Iripadose, Antigone and Uncle-igone, and the treble of Aristophanes, Hoiteetoitees and Afternoonteas. The idea of the Silly Roll Call was revived in I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, the final game of the show often being some variant of the "Late Arrivals " where the same sort of "silly names" would be announced by each of the players in turn.
• The gibbon. Whenever a generic animal is required for a sketch, the team always used a gibbon. Every mention of the gibbon usually raises cheers from the audience. This is often expanded to ludicrous lengths, such as a "Gibbon-Fanciers' Club". Edward Gibbon's famous Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire is rendered as "Decline and Fall of the Roman Gibbon, by Edward Empire". Stanley Gibbons' Stamp Catalogue became known as Stanley Stamps' Gibbon Catalogue. Later, during The Goodies' heyday in the 1970s, Brooke-Taylor, Garden, and Oddie had a Top Ten hit with "Funky Gibbon", which reached #4, and they sang live on Top of the Pops, and the Amnesty International show A Poke in the Eye , and during The Goodies episode "The Goodies – Almost Live". In The Goodies episode "That Old Black Magic", Graeme Garden acts like an ape to the accompaniment of the Bill Oddie song "Stuff The Gibbon" — and in another Goodies episode, "Radio Goodies", the small boat above their pirate radio submarine is called "The Saucy Gibbon". A track on Soft Machine's Six album entitled "Stanley Stamp's Gibbon Album" is dedicated to Bill Oddie.
• The Terrapin, which appears occasionally. In one show, after a particularly macabre John Cleese monologue, Hatch sends him packing, whereupon the rest of the cast defect with Cleese and form Radio Terrapin in competition to Radio Prune. In another show, Bill performs "The Terrapin Song", and on another show, Hatch announces a terrapin joke, as follows: "Who was that Terrapin I saw you with last night?" "That was no terrapin, that was our old school mistress – she tortoise."
• Bill Oddie's accent. Having a Birmingham accent made Oddie the butt of many jokes, as well as leading him naturally towards many roles in sketches where someone was required to speak incomprehensibly. He got his own back in the "Lawrence Of Arabia On Ice" sketch, when he appeared as Nanook of the North, complete with a plethora of cod-Lancastrian patois This became the basis for an episode of The Goodies where "Ecky Thump" was a secret Lancastrian martial art, the episode parodying the then-popular TV show Kung Fu.
• The Old Jokes Home. The old jokes, of which there were many were sometimes sent to the Old Jokes Home.
• 'Spot'. References to "a spot of brandy", "my favourite spot", etc., were usually followed by a canine yelp from Bill Oddie, attributed to "Spot the Dog". Spot became an audience favourite, and made at least one appearance in each episode.
• OBE. Characters often have OBE added to the end of their name. It is also added to places, objects and names, as well as an interruption, e.g. in "The Angus Prune Song". The cast occasionally ask for one or decline one that's been offered. On one occasion, Hatch introduced the team as "Tim Brooke-Taylor, O.B.E., John Cleese, O.B.E., Graeme Garden, O.B.E., David Hatch, O.B.E., Jo Kendall, O.B.E., and Bill Oddie, O.D.D.I.E." On another occasion, in a send-up of the Honours List, Hatch announces that a particular person has been made an earl, and also has been awarded the OBE; he therefore becomes an earlobe.
• : David Hatch was appointed a CBE in 1994 and was knighted in 2003, Bill Oddie was awarded the OBE also in 2003, Tim Brooke-Taylor and Graeme Garden were appointed OBE in 2011, but John Cleese declined a CBE in 1996. Jo Kendall has not received any honour.

  Episode and sketch titles

Regular characters of the radio show

Prune Plays

''ISIRTA'' songs