Humphrey Lyttelton

Published Tuesday 6 May 2008 at 13:55 by Patrick Newley

Few entertainers have been held in such affection by the British public as jazz legend and radio broadcaster Humphrey Lyttelton. As the presenter of BBC Radio 4’s comedy show I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue, he was famed for his deadpan delivery of the smuttiest of innuendos. Most featured the escapades of the show’s fictitious scorer, Samantha, who ‘sat on his right hand’: “In her spare time, Samantha likes nothing more than to peruse old records shops. She particularly enjoys a poke in the country section.”

Lyttelton was the surprise choice as chairman of I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue in 1972, which regularly featured panellists Barry Cryer, Tim Brooke-Taylor, Willie Rushton and Graeme Garden. The programme attracted audiences of two million each week. Asked to explain its success, Lytttelton said: “It’s chronically unpredictable. It doesn’t get stale because nobody knows what’s going to happen next, least of all us.”

Lyttelton was born on May 23, 1921, at Eton College, where his father was a housemaster and where he was subsequently educated. During the war, he served as an officer in the Grenadier Guards. On being demobbed, he studied for two years at Camberwell Art School.

He went on to become a Daily Mail cartoonist and a journalist, and wrote storylines for the popular Flook strip. He left in 1956.

He had formed his first jazz band in 1948 and in 1956 recorded his own Bad Penny Blues, which was the first British jazz record to get into the Top 20. The same year, his band supported Louis Armstrong in London. In the late fifties, Lyttelton caused turmoil among his fans by enlarging his band and his repertoire to include mainstream material.

His continued touring with his band until he was well into his eighties. He received lifetime achievement awards at the Post Office British Jazz Awards in 2000 and at the BBC Jazz Awards in 2001. He was also the recipient of the radio industry’s highest honour in 1993 - the Sony Gold Award. For many years he presented The Best of Jazz on BBC Radio 2.

A father of four, he married twice, first in 1948 and then again after a divorce in 1952.

Lyttelton wrote several books, including an autobiography, and more than 120 original compositions for his band. In 1994, he founded his own record label and called it Calligraph. Calligraphy was a hobby of his and he was president of the Society for Italic Handwriting.

He had recently been admitted to hospital for surgery to repair an aortic aneurysm, but died on April 25. Ill health had already prompted the cancellation of the spring series of I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue.

Radio 4 controller Mark Damazer described Lyttelton as “an extraordinary, modest man”. He said: “Humphrey Lyttelton was a great and towering figure in the history of Radio 4 comedy. Of course he was fabulously funny and sharp, but more than that, he was the definition of a certain sort of wit - self deprecating, mordant and linguistically brilliant. I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue has been the most successful Radio 4 comedy - and Humprhey its centrepiece.”

Jenny Abramsky, director of audio and music at the BBC, said: “Humphrey Lyttelton has been one of the wonders of radio broadcasting for years. He championed British jazz with his weekly programme on Radio 2. At the same time, his deadpan stewardship of I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue, the unique ringmaster of an anarchic world, ensured the programme became the jewel of radio comedy.”

Lyttleton was famous for ending I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue with a surreal sign-off line. He once said: “As the vanquished charwoman of time begins to Shake’n’Vac the shagpile of eternity, I notice that we have just run out of time.”