Hamish and Dougal
 |
|
| Genre | Situation comedy |
|---|---|
| Running time | 15 minutes |
| Country |
 United Kingdom
|
| Language(s) | English |
| Home station | BBC Radio 4 |
| Starring |
Barry Cryer Graeme Garden Alison Steadman Jeremy Hardy |
| Created by |
Barry Cryer Graeme Garden |
| Written by |
Barry Cryer Graeme Garden |
| Produced by | Jon Naismith |
| Air dates | 24 December 2002 to 25 January 2007 |
| No. of series | 3 |
| No. of episodes | 18 |
| Audio format | Stereophonic sound |
| Opening theme | Horn Concerto No. 4 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, arranged and played as a Scottish Reel. |
| Website | BBC website |
Hamish and Dougal are two characters from the long-running BBC Radio 4 radio comedy panel game I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, played by Barry Cryer and Graeme Garden, who later went on to have their own Radio 4 series, You'll Have Had Your Tea: The Doings of Hamish and Dougal.
The fictional characters Hamish and Dougal originated in one of the rounds of I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue called Sound Charades. In this round the title of a book or film has to be conveyed from one team to the other by means of a story; the result of the story is usually a pun on the title in question. The panellists Cryer and Garden often tell their story as Hamish and Dougal, who are two elderly Scottish gentlemen. One of the characters was originally called Angus. The duo continued with the characters, according to Garden "mainly because (fellow panellist) Tim Brooke-Taylor hated them". A prototype Hamish & Dougal first appeared in a 1979 Christmas Special of 'Clue', doing 'Wee Freak Ings Of Orient Are', with John Junkin standing in for Barry Cryer. However, the characters didn't appear fully formed until the 1995 Christmas Special, when the duo gave the clue for 'The Queen's Peach'. Hamish and Dougal then became the focus of a spin-off show called You'll Have Had Your Tea: The Doings of Hamish and Dougal, abbreviated to Hamish and Dougal on the packaging of the official CD releases.
The spin-off show was named in reference to the fact that the characters' sketches on I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue began with a variant of the line "You'll have had your tea then, Hamish". This refers to an idiom used in Edinburgh, where a visitor who has dropped in at "tea" (a colloquial term for an evening meal) is informed that the host does not intend to feed them. The stereotype of Scottish people being careful with their money is regularly played on in the series.
Episodes were 15 minutes long and were extensions of the one-minute sketches. The series featured two other actors: regular I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue panelist Jeremy Hardy, and Alison Steadman. Steadman played Mrs Naughtie the housekeeper, while Hardy played the local laird. The announcer was BBC newsreader Brian Perkins. The music for the series was arranged by John Garden, son of Graeme (and live performer with the Scissor Sisters), and performed by a four-piece ceilidh band. The programmes were produced by Jon Naismith. Other actors have also featured in guest appearances, such as the 2004 Hogmanay special which featured guest appearances from I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue chairman Humphrey Lyttelton, as the Laird's butler Lyttelton,Today programme presenter Jim Naughtie (as Mrs Naughtie's long-lost son), Sandi Toksvig (as Sandi Wedge, a very tall golf champion) and Tim Brooke-Taylor and Colin Sell (as themselves).
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