Worst night of comedy legend Barry Cryer’s long career was in Guernsey
COMEDIAN Barry Cryer, who died on Tuesday, aged 86, had the worst night of his seven-decade career in Guernsey, it was revealed in his obituary in The Times yesterday.
Mr Cryer, who appeared on stage, screen and radio and wrote jokes for many household names, made an after-dinner speaking appearance in the island at a corporate dinner, the newspaper said.
‘With spectacularly bad timing, the company had just announced a raft of cost-cutting redundancies,’ the obituary read.
‘By the time Cryer got up to speak, those who had been “let go” were angrily drunk and fist-fights broke out in the room. Then the booing started and eventually he fled the scene.
‘To make matters worse, the following morning he overslept and missed his flight. “I was a broken man,” he recalled.
‘My nerve was gone. I went home and told my wife – “I’ve lost it, I can’t do it any more”.’
At the time of writing, nobody locally seems to recall this unfortunate event, but the Guernsey Press files have this photograph of him appearing at St James in 2010, where the performance attracted peals of laughter, rather than boos.
