Michael Palin has called for a plaque to go up to the late, great Barry Cryer at Mornington Crescent Tube Station. Barry Cryer explains how the game was invented, 50 years after the first episode of I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue
Mornington Crescent, the mysterious game in I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue, was born in Gerry’s Club, in a basement in Shaftesbury Avenue.
One evening, a group of writers were joined by a man who’d had a lot to drink. He kept on barging in on the conversation. When he went to the gents, one writer said, ‘Right, we’re playing a game – Tube stations. Mornington Crescent wins.’
When the man came back from the gents, he tried to join in but he was lost. They hammered him so much that he left. When he’d gone, one of the writers said, ‘Hang on – this is a good idea.’
I don’t know how the idea got to I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue. But it works because it’s extremely silly – grown men and women acting the fool.
On the show, we get advance notice of topics and rounds that are going to be played a few days before. But Mornington Crescent is all improvisation, with Jack Dee announcing the specific rules of that particular episode’s game just before we start.
The whole show is a great format, devised by Graeme Garden in 1972. I wasn’t in the original panel but I did stand in once as deputy chairman for Humphrey Lyttelton in that first series. Humph was an experienced broadcaster on jazz and music – the suits said he wasn’t right for a comedy show. But he evolved his style brilliantly for the show. He used to look bewildered – which you can’t see on the radio, of course. But it really worked. It was a treat.
