Hello, I'm Krestey Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive.

For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

The program was originally broadcast in 1997, and the presenter was Sue Lolly. My castaway this week is a comedian. He's been making the people of this country laugh ever since he came out of the services at the end of the war and joined Oldham Rep.

For 20 years his show was a centerpiece of British television, as with his screen partner Hattie Jakes

he epitomised the naive and bumbling Englishman.

He's a prolific script writer and has also directed a number of silent films.

Earlier this year you could have caught him in the West End

playing a classic comic role in Moliere's comedy, School for Wives.

A Night of Laughter is worth a year on the NHS, he says. He is Eric Sykes.

Do you mean a night of laughter for us or for you, Eric?

No, I think it starts with laughter for me because I think what makes me laugh makes a lot of people laugh.

But comedy is a serious business, isn't it, for those of you who make it it's actually no it's serious fun

That's been my philosophy you can't make a comedy when when people are not

when people don't like each other unless you've got a happy

company you're saying that's right or you know a happy team of people that's right

and we had the happiest with Hattie Jake's Richard Vottis, Derek Gieler.

We are like old times.

We were like a family.

Hatt was really like my sister or my identical twin as we had it because when we'd finished a series of six I

would go away and do other things like a tour with Jimmy Edwards of Big Bad

Mouse and Hat would do some of the carry-on films so when we met

again it was like coming home it was lovely.

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