I was confused about the numbering of series. Broadcasts of Series 75 started but there was no trace of Series 74. I wrote to BBC Sounds about it:
"I am enquiring about I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue. Your web site states that the series that has just started is Series 75, but Series 74 does not seem to exist. I would therefore suggest that you change the current series to be Series 74. "
They replied with:
"Thanks for contacting BBC Sounds Support regarding I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue on BBC Radio 4. We understand you're enquiring about why there is no series 74 of the programme. We've investigated the issue and we can confirm that there is no series 74 due to the Coronavirus pandemic. That being said, we appreciate that you feel series 75 should now be changed to series 74. I've made your comments available to the BBC Sounds product team, including the Head of Sounds and BBC management via our audience feedback report."
The BBC didn't change the number of Series 75, but they added the following note to their web site about Series 74:
"Series 74, recorded during lockdown, plus two episodes originally planned for Series 73, which had to be postponed."
It seems that they recorded two episodes for Series 73 (including Tim Brooke-Taylor's last recording). The remaining four recordings were cancelled because of the pandemic. Much later they did four "lockdown" episodes with a virtual audience, and broadcast them together with the two Series 73 episodes. In my archive I have called this "Series 73/74" and I have numbered the episodes so that the first two are s73e01 and s73e02, and the remaining four episodes are s74e01 to s74e04. I think this is the most logical solution.
Ben Newsam, 9th January 2022