Barry Cryer says he hasn't had a career in comedy... "it's just a series of incidents."
Those "incidents" have kept him in work for 50 years, making people laugh as a writer, and then as a performer, writes Su Carroll.
He has written jokes and routines for practically every top comedian in the country, including Morecambe and Wise, Bruce Forsyth, Tommy Cooper, Stanley Baxter, Dick Emery, Dave Allen, Frankie Howerd, Les Dawson, Ronnie Barker, Ronnie Corbett, Mike Yarwood, Billy Connelly, Russ Abbot, Bobby Davro, Jasper Carrot and many more.
As a performer he is, of course, very familiar to fans of radio's I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue, but has also popped up on Blankety Blank, Just A Minute and... well you get the idea. If it made you laugh, chances are Barry Cryer had a hand in it.
It all started at school in Leeds. "It was a cliche – make the bully laugh," he says. "He's a Lord now and often sends his regards to me."
A scholarship took him to Leeds University where he left with a BA Lit (failed), a situation that was remedied this week when he returned to Leeds Metropolitan University to pick up an honorary doctorate. He finds it hilarious that a failed scholar should be made a Doctor of Arts.
"I'm also very touched," he says. "I feel like I'm finishing my unfinished business. I'll probably say a few words. We have three sons – an MA and two BAs – I think I outrank them now."
Will he insist on being called Dr Cryer. "Only in the home," he laughs.
After flunking university – "due to my propensity for following girls around and being in the union bar" – he got a job as a stagehand at the Empire in Leeds and, because of university experience, was asked to produce a student show.
"Someone saw me telling jokes and I was pitchforked into showbusiness. I did have a half-baked idea of being a journalist... but no, it was showbusiness for me. And I've been dogged by good luck all my life!
"I only write for myself now. I have a reputation for 'writing for everybody', but I never wrote alone. I always worked with another writer.
"Then suddenly all the work dried up. There was a new breed of comedian that goes back as far as Monty Python who wrote their own stuff and it all went very quiet, so I started performing and life went full circle."
What makes him laugh now are comedians like Ross Noble, Rob Brydon and Bill Bailey (who was delighted when Barry said he reminded him of Victor Borge).