大象传媒

Yes, yes we’ve all read those interviews with people who are 116 and attribute their longevity to never eating sausages or touching alcohol... But we want to know how to live WELL. How to be the type of senior citizen whose calendar age is immaterial because they’re brilliant people.

Step forward… the wonder that is Barry Cryer.

Uncle Baz is 80. 80?! And . Barry Cryer has written for, or met, everyone worth knowing. He's still devastatingly funny on - despite Jack Dee’s attempts to treat him like an escapee from an Eventide home ("your dressing gown’s come open again, Barry") and he is still kicking it at the Edinburgh Festival. Barry is the coolest grandad around, so we’ve created a guide to living life the Cryer way. Enjoy.

Speaking to Martin Walker on , Barry recalled his friend Sir David Frost interviewing one-time presidential hopeful, Michael Dukakis. It was a tricky interview as Dukakis wasn't exactly sparkling. "Part way through the interview he asked him – what makes you laugh? And there was complete silence, the man couldn’t think of an answer, and it was left like that on television. And that was just brilliant. One deadly question."

2. Bridge the generations

A fellow comedian once described Barry as "Kofi Annan from the United Nations. If there's a do with old school and new school comedians, old Baz hangs out with both of them. In the middle."

3. Relax

As a regular performer at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Barry's often amused by the young, earnest comedians rushing around clutching a bottle of water and their notes, trying to fit in six shows a day, while he props up the bar and relaxes. But then he’s earned it, having written for everyone from Richard Pryor to Kenny Everett and Morecambe and Wise.

4. Have a good partner by your side

Barry is a family man through and through. In a 2013 he talked about his wife Terry and said “We have been married 51 years, and we still argue all the time. Our secret is that we have never understood each other.”

5. Don’t over-think it

"I haven’t had a career, more a series of incidents," says Barry cheerfully. And what a career! "I try not to analyse things too much, because I like to think that every day is a new one. I get up in the morning with the attitude that when it’s over, I’ll go back to bed looking forward to the next day."

6. Be friendly and count your blessings

In a rare moment of introspection, Barry said in his book Pigs Might Fly, that "a life lived in isolation with only four walls for company, or even a pavement, is too tragic to contemplate. I thank God that I have rarely experienced it. Loneliness is an endemic plague that affects so many people. I try to remember each and every morning that I have a wonderful wife, four children, seven grandchildren and many friends. I think, how fortunate I am."

Humphrey Lyttleton, Barry’s great friend and incomparable host of I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue, reckoned that Barry would carry on for so long that he'd literally drop dead halfway through a joke. "Performers don’t retire, it’s just that the phone stops ringing," says Barry.

Barry, we don’t reckon yours will ever stop.

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