The story behind Barry Cryer’s lucky career break as Leeds-born showbiz legend celebrated – The Yorkshire Post says

It was at London’s seedy Windmill Theatre – wartime slogan ‘We Never Closed’ – that he got his start, having dropped out of university in his native Leeds. An unknown Bruce Forysth was the star comic there, but it was the showgirls the punters in macintoshes had come to see.

It was an inauspicious beginning but it led Cryer straight to the big time – not just as a comic in his own right but as a scriptwriter for Morecambe and Wise, Tommy Cooper and the Two Ronnies. There was no-one in showbusiness he didn’t know or like, and the universal esteem in which he was held explains yesterday’s outpouring of grief from within the entertainment world.

It wasn’t just the old guard who were mourning him, for Cryer was a champion of young comics, too, and counted many as friends. Neither they nor we will see his like again.

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