The I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue stage tour through January was a great success, with full houses nationwide, and was as ever enormous fun to play for. The teams comprised Tim Brooke-Taylor, Tony Hawks, Miles Jupp, Richard Osman, Rory Bremner, John Finnemore and Marcus Brigstocke, with Jack Dee chairing. I joined Barry Cryer for an hour’s show as part of the Bristol Slapstick Festival on Sunday 26th January; also that day Graeme Garden , Tim, Barry and I did a chat show hosted by Rob Brydon on the radio history of Clue.
Kennington Bioscope had a silent film night at the Cinema Museum on 12th February, for which I accompanied Thomas Heffron’s 1919 The Best Man, a light comedy with some fine moments, and featuring the versatile Lois Wilson and J. Warren Kerrigan, he who fell foul of his public in World War I by suggesting actors shouldn’t be lost to the war effort as they were too valuable.
On St Valentine’s Day I visited Denville Hall again, this time on my own, to play for a screening of Buster Keaton’sSteamboat Bill Jr, which the residents thoroughly enjoyed, being the appreciative and welcoming crowd they are.
Rehearsals began for this year’s Trial & Error charity show due to be performed in March in court no. 1 of the Old Bailey. Having got it rehearsed to as close to perfection as we could, it was then cancelled, along with many other gigs, due to the coronavirus.
Before the virus caused the shut-down of places of entertainment we managed to get one recording date (i.e., two shows) for the new series of Clue fulfilled, that being in Huddersfield on Sunday 15th March. We expected the venue (the town hall) to be rather empty due to the virus, but in fact it was nearly full, and the audience were very receptive. Graeme wrote a new round which involved me playing and singing with my head covered by a cardboard box (the round was entitled The Masked Singer). Despite being a uniquely visual round in terms of its comedy the audience made it work by laughing heartily, so hopefully it will be funny on the radio. I played and sang 8 bars of Tea For Two; before the recording one of our recording engineers, Jon Calver, video’d me singing and playing an entire chorus with boxed-in head…
Colin Sell 