Hamish and Dougal

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Hamish and Dougal are two characters from the long-running BBC Radio 4 "antidote to panel games", I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue. One of the rounds in this show is Sound Charades, where a 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.

Barry Cryer and Graeme Garden usually tell their story as two elderly Scottish gentlemen, Hamish and Dougal. It is in essence a minute-long improvised sketch where each performer knows the other well enough to be able to set up joint jokes seamlessly.

Each sketch is started with the line "You'll have had your tea", with which (un)welcome visitors who have a habit of dropping in at dinnertime are reputed to be greeted in Edinburgh, Scotland. (In the north of the United Kingdom, the evening meal, typically called dinner in the south, is usually called tea; this can sometimes lead to confusion.) This is done either to deter scroungers or because the person in question is quite tight-fisted himself.

In 2002, between the 24 December and 27 December, daily episodes of a sitcom You'll Have Had Your Tea were broadcast on BBC Radio 4. These were 15 minutes long and were extensions of the one minute sketches. The main differences were the presence of a script, written by Barry Cryer and Graeme Garden, and of two other actors, Alison Steadman and Jeremy Hardy. Alison Steadman played Mrs Naughtie (pronounced Nochty) the housekeeper, while Jeremy Hardy played the local laird. The programmes were produced by Jon Naismith.

In addition, the 2004 Hogmanay special featured guest appearances from Clue chairman Humphrey Lyttleton (as the Laird's butler Lyttleton), Today programme presenter Jim Naughtie (as Mrs Naughtie's long-lost son), Sandi Toksvig (as a very tall golf champion) and Tim Brooke-Taylor and Colin Sell (as themselves).

The scripts were written very carefully, with barely a single line devoid of a joke. Often the fact that it was broadcast on radio was taken advantage of, with sound effects deliberately giving the audience the wrong impression. An example of this is the laird asking Dougal whether he wanted a drink followed by a long drawn out sound of running water, then the laird saying "Ah that's better, now what would you like to drink?"

Sexual innuendo was also heavily relied upon, as it is in I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue. A wonderful example of this was the eternal buzzing of the pie grater Dougal bought for Mrs Naughtie. When someone comes to the door, you hear his strangulated cry as he finds a place about his person to hide it. (The joke is on the similarity between the phrase "pie grater" and the word "vibrator".)

Despite the risqué nature of a lot of the jokes (such as the dance of the seven voles: "Och, where's that little rascal got to"), it is a very gentle comedy, with the usual joyous disregard for storylines that often characterizes this type of material. Also two episodes finish with Jeremy Hardy singing very out of tune versions of Atomic Kitten hits.

The third series started transmission in August 2006.