Crowdfunder launching tomorrow

Barry Cryer’s son Bob is to launch a crowdfunding campaign to make a film about his dad.

The ‘labour of love’ revolves around what the late comic loved most – ridiculous jokes.

Bob said: ‘The film brings together some of the best-loved jokes Dad told over the years — the ones that have made us laugh for a long time, and made him laugh for even longer.’

The short, entitled simply Joke, will feature ten of Cryer’s gags, recreated by 'some of British comedy's finest performers’, with filming due to take place this autumn.

A video to promote the crowdfunder – which is seeking to raise £45,000 – features the likes of Jack Dee, Alison Steadman, Jack Docherty and Sanjeev Bhaskar.

Bhaskar is a patron of the Slapstick comedy festival in Bristol where Joke will have its premiere next February. He said Cryer ‘was brilliant and eminently successful at being himself, and that is a real boon’.

Addressing Bob, the Goodness Gracious Me star added: ‘I love the fact that the Slapstick festival celebrates comedy in all its forms from silent to talkie. And I know that they loved your dad very much, and I know that he loved them very much. So it seems fitting and wonderful that the film would premiere there.’

Bob said the project was ‘a real labour of love, and I’m thrilled to share it with you’, Barry’s fans.

He added: ‘Now all we need is you. With your help, we can pay for the actors, the crew, and the finished edit. Fund Joke, the film, today and you'll be creating something that will be in my father's image, something with warmth and wit, and of course, impeccable timing. 

‘It'll be fun, it'll be silly, guaranteed to make you feel good.’

Bob previously hosted the podcast Now Where Were We? with with his father, until his death in January 2022 at the age of 86. He also wrote the 2023 biography of his dad Same Time Tomorrow?

Published: 8 Jul 2025