Yes, Yes, No, Yes...

"We used to go round to my mum's place in the evenings and we would write about three pages of Bob Hope type one liners, you know the sort of thing, “I wouldn't say my wife was fat, but….” And then we would take them round to Derek [Roy]'s flat. He would go through them one by one and say, Yes, Yes, No, Yes, No, No, then call his secretary in and say “Seven”. Out would come the cash box and we would get paid 35 bob. He'd say see you next week. Then Ray and I would walk down to the bus stop and I would hand Ray 17.6d (87.5p). We were professionals!"

Alan Simpson - Galton & Simpson interview with CulTV

Not concerned with succeeding...

"When I was living in New York and didn't have a penny to my name, I would walk around the streets and occasionally I would see an alcove or something. And I'd think, that'll be a good spot for me when I'm homeless."

Larry David on life before Seinfeld in interview with bestcomedyonline.com

"I think the only thing that really worked in my favour, is that right from the beginning I really didn't give a f*ck whether or not the show was a success. That's not to say I didn't want to do good work, but I wasn't about to let myself be judged by network standards. When you're not concerned with succeeding, you can work with complete freedom."

Larry David - interview with Laugh Factory Magazine

Do something fun...

“What we worry about is whether or not it’s funny, pure and simple, because if you start worrying about what kids are going to like, then that’s different business. Some other people are in that business but Eugene [Levy] and I try to make each other laugh and do something fun and, you know, hope it works out. I think if you sit at home and start thinking about that then we’re out of our realm.”

Christopher Guest - interview about The Mighty Wind with Inside Out Film

Another new wheeze...

"My pictures are made without script or written directions of any kind. We simply figure out enough story to build sets around, then we pull our gags and 'quick stuff' in the set as we happen on the ideas. After we feel that we've shot enough to make about six pictures, we assemble it, rip out whatever is left of the 'story'--and make one picture out of what's left.

"I dread the day when we won't find another new wheeze to wrap up, when all the gags will have been sprung, when we're stumped for something new. That's what a comedian has to guard against: running out.

"We just wrap up a little hokum. We build up a little story on some sure-fire idea, throw in a dozen gags, if we can think of 'em, and let 'er ride. The scenario we use is written on the correspondence end of a picture post card. If it's lost its no great matter."

Buster Keaton - Six interviews with Buster Keaton in Taylorology

I find too much sex...

"I find the constant rudery depressing, and I find the shit and fart jokes endless. I find too much sex, I find these things not put in a particularly funny context. I always say farting isn’t funny in itself, but it’s funny in a wedding reception, or a dinner party or in church. I watched an episode of The League of Gentlemen but I watched one that was particularly revolting, with exploding dogs and everything. I couldn’t quite take it. People tell me if I’d watched any other episode I’d have loved it.

"Comedy is very difficult to read on the page. I think it’s very difficult to judge a script. I can’t believe there aren’t the writers around, I think there are. Sometimes the wrong decisions are made."

David Nobbs - interview with The Idler

How to be a satirist...

"What we need is a comedy coalition to monitor our so-called "new politics". I'm optimistic. I still believe in the power of British satire to make us laugh while making the world a better place. The new government knows what it must do. Satirists need targets and there are already signs that the coalition recognises that it has a duty to provide them.

"At a time of rising unemployment it must ensure that there are job opportunities galore for novice satirists ... Another golden age beckons: for the sake of our children – and our children's children – let's make it happen!"

David Frost's Q&A on how to be a satirist in The Guardian

Mind you, take Frost's words of advice on writing satire with a pinch of salt - Peter Cook used to describe him as The Bubonic Plagiarist.

Morris dancing...

Down the cinema tonight to watch Four Lions. It's a comedy. I enjoyed it. When we were buying our tickets an eccentric man behind us in the queue took an interest in Sam's bag and the Jimi Hendrix artwork upon it. There was no suggestion that we may have been packing explosives. Instead, he gave sulky teenage son Sam some early Hendrix history, by way of an intense till-side lecture covering the Isley Brothers years. He followed this with some rather unnerving admiration for my large nachos. Thankfully he sat a few rows down from us so he didn't spoil the evening. Sam noticed as the end credits rolled that our new Hendrix expert friend had taken his shoes off to watch the film. Back to Morris, having read a host of reviews on my return, I'd say Tania Ahsan's take is amongst the most sensible reading.

Peter Kay funny...

It appears I've been wrong all along. Peter Kay isn't just some bloke that remembers biscuits and hates fancy foreign food like garlic bread. He is Hull's favourite funnyman. How do I know this? What's caused this drastic swerve in my beliefs? Because our local, dominant and, some would say, monopolistic internet service provider Karoo have conducted an extensive survey and Peter Kay - described by Karoo as not just any old funnyman* but a "Northern funny man" has come out on top (just like he did when he performed at the Blackpool Tower!). And for those, like I did initially, that may doubt the validity of this survey of Karoo's 'readers', the numbers polled are impressive - a whopping, massive, almost population of China-style 1,400 visitors to http://www.karoo.co.uk/ responded to the survey.

Kay, Karoo are proudly boasting, or the "Bolton-born superstar" as they snappily title him, picked up a whopping, massive, House of Commons-style majority with 33 per cent of the vote.

Competition came in the shape of alsorans Billy Connolly (14 per cent), Michael McIntyre (no stats available) and second-placed ultra-sweaty comic Lee Evans (20 per cent). Wise mathematicians - and even those that failed their maths GCSE - may have already worked out that those stats don't add up to the necessary 100 per cent. So I quizzed Karoo further regarding who else polled some votes - Jo Brand, Al Murray, Russell Howard, Jason Manford, Eddie Izzard, Omid Djalili, Steve Coogan and Other were all in the mix. Other, apparently, was a piece of online survey functionality that allowed Karoo's 'readers' to name the comedian, or comedienne, of their choice. Independently. Of their own free will. Could have been anyone. Stewart Lee, perhaps. Tim Vine even. Anyone you'd care to mention. Anyone that's made you laugh until your innards are flying out through your nose. And Peter Kay still came out on top.

So I was wrong all along and I am happy to change my opinion in the face of such overwhelming fact. Well done Peter Kay, Hull's favourite funnyman. Where next for Mr Kay who, Karoo explain, "has continued to entertain the British public with a couple of books and a variety of charitable pop music releases, including the infectious Amarillo"? Rotherham's fave stand-up? Pocklington's preferred author? The most chuckle-inducing satirical commentator of celebrity culture this or that side of Wetwang?

*Personally, whereas Karoo are resisting the change, I compound funnyman.

Read the utter shit survey by Karoo with certain facts missing here

Big what???

What a dreadful sit-com Big Top appears to be - certainly on the strength, or rather weakness, of its first episode which I endured for research purposes last night. If you avoided it (boy, am I envious!) the premise, as outlined by the British Comedy Guide, is thus: "Fraught with problems and dealing with a cacophony of egos, Ring Mistress Lizzie must struggle to keep Circus Maestro going... somehow!" Meanwhile, the BBC Press Office reckons that "Each week a story is unfolded, erected, performed and taken down just like the Big Top itself. Our circus is fraught with problems which the Ring Mistress Lizzie must overcome." Big Top is fraught with problems all right. It was a crash (crash being the operative word!) course in how not to write a sit-com, I thought. Although, who am I to think? How does a programme with so many stars attached to it get that far? Oh, I see. Strange that the writing is so secondary to lining up a cast that would satisfy the audience tuning in at peak time. Yet, such dross insults the audience's intelligence who are insulted enough as it is with all that low-level reality bunkum that floods the airwaves. At least X-Factor, I'm A Celeb... and Strictly... have some drama and occasional comedy amid the celebrity gurning. The circus used to come under fire for being cruel to animals. Big Top is similar, although it's the audience that's getting the nasty treatment. Big Top is, without a doubt, the least funny thing I've seen on the tellybox in many a year. And, as tedious as eastern European jugglers, clowns in cars that fall apart and trapeze artistes are, I'd rather go see a real circus any day. Or Terry & June and Duty Free, for that matter.

Comedy and column inches out of misery...

Wrote some comedy sketches. Myself and M had promised to write some for someone we know for performance by some young people. I was cold, tired, had the remnants of Swine Flu gnawing away at me, was bereft of ideas, couldn't think of any funny lines. Naturally, they turned out great.

I was in a pub the other day and, laid on a table, with nothing and nobody else in sight, was a newspaper. I realised, too late, when I'd taken it back to my table, that it was a copy of the Daily Mail. It was the edition, I'd find out much later in the day, containing Jan Moir's nasty assault on the memory of Stephen Gately. I picked up the paper and went and sat down with it. Ten minutes passed by and I'd read the back pages when a man tapped me on the shoulder. "Did you take that paper? The one from that table over there?" We looked. The table was still empty, with no obvious sign that anyone was or had been sitting there. I explained that I thought the paper in question had been abandoned. "It's my paper. Why did you take it?" I explained again and made some quip about the horror of the Daily Mail and the poor state of its page layout. "I'll have it back now." I'd already given it back to him before he'd said this. He was a rather odious man. A typical Daily Mail reader (I felt tainted having been near the paper for those ten minutes) - that paper was in his every movement and utterance. He shuffled off but didn't sit down and read but went over to another couple sitting across the way to tell them what had happened. "He," said the man, in fully earshot of me, "just took the paper. Can you believe it?" If I'd realised it was a copy of the Daily Mail I wouldn't actually have bothered touching it. And if only he'd known (although he reads the DM every day, so probably did know) what he'd relished fighting to have back in his possession - Jan Moir's nasty ramblings. Yuk.

Oh another week...

Here we go again. Spent much of the weekend heading back in time and watching all of The Thick Of It, including the two hour-long specials (Rise of the Nutters and Spinners and Losers) by the broadcast of which, of course, Chris Langham's hard drive had been well turned over and he wasn't around. Great show, magical one-liners, Tucker one of comedy's great lunatics. M said I shouldn't go on, or she won't get round to watching it.

What else? Oh, yes, sport. Listened to Hull FC's season end, unsurprisingly. What a disappointment this season has been and something of a crime against the club's history, not to mention an insult to the fans. But who am I to complain? Watched Tigers online too - those poor things deserved a draw. We also went out to Hull's Museums Quarter to 'Meet The Tudors', although my suspicions are that they were just contemporary folk wearing costume. There was some Tudor food up for grabs - bananas soaked in some sticky, orangey sauce and some smashingly bitey ginger bread amongst it. Not too much was going on, to be honest, which is just as well as not many people had bothered to turn up to see how little was going on (those two negatives not cancelling each other out. Hull is a place where mediocrity has bred apathy).

Spotted some shiny new things in the city as we strode back to the car along the riverside wharf: Some sculptures, attached to a fence at the back of a former warehouse turned-apartment block car park. I like them. There should be more of this stuff:

Comedy night...

My, we are spoilt for comedy choice on a Friday evening: Benidorm clashing with the new series of My Family (posing serious problems about which to watch 'live' and which to catch online later) and Ade Edmondson's Teenage Kicks taking laughing at a Chinese accent to dizzying new depths. What have we done to deserve this drivel? How does My Family remain a ratings winner? Couldn't Benidorm have been scrapped and the way paved for re-runs of ye olde Duty Free? Couldn't Edmondson have done some less-offensive slapstick with Rik Mayall instead? Didn't Robert Lindsay watch the episode of Extras that he made a cameo appearance in? Why, if I hadn't become a recent convert to Gavin and Stacey and Pulling I'd be making the bold declaration that the sit-com is dead. As it is, there's the odd glimmer of hope. Tucked away. In the late-night corners of almost obscure digital channels.

And talking of television...

Whoever subbed the two Jools Holland-related entries in this week's The Guardian Guide was no music fan, unsure of where commas were required. On Tuesday's Later Live, we were promised "the Kooks Yeasayer" while tonight, there was the prospect of getting down with "Goldfrapp the Kooks". This Later Live business is a strange thing - at last, we're able to watch Mr Boogie Woogie Piano Vamper at a reasonable hour but when it comes to Friday, I really can't be bothered to rewatch what I saw three nights previously for the sake of "30 minutes extra music and chat".

Dee do do do...

Apologies to Bob, who heard all this in the pub the other day...

Lead Balloon. Hmf. It's not that it doesn't make me laugh. It's not that Jack Dee can't act. It's not the washed out colour palette. No, none of those things make me dislike Lead Balloon and its 'creator'. It's just that I wish that Jack Dee would hold his hands up and say it loud - and he could even say it proud - that Lead Balloon owes an enormous debt of gratitude to Curb Your Enthusiasm. But with each and every interview - and since the return of the show and its arrival on BBC2 there have been many - Jack Dee seems to move further and further away from acknowledging that Lead Balloon is an extremely derivative piece of work. Now, there's nothing wrong with being derivative, of course (hell, nothing's original. I thank you messrs Milligan, Palin, Gilliam, Orton, Cook, Rossiter, Nobbs, Adams et al for all that I have taken from you. My words are but a pale imitation of yours). But why can't he just say it? Just once would do. Something along the lines of "Without Curb Your Enthusiasm, Lead Balloon would never have existed". And why haven't interviewers aske him about the obvious influence? Have they been briefed not to ask the question? There are differences - Curb is improvised by a team of extremely talented comic performers around a hefty outline, Lead Balloon's each and every line is unquestionably, precisely scripted by Dee and Pete Sinclair. Rick Spleen's a made up name, Larry David isn't. But the similarities are legion. So much so that it hurts to watch it. LD is an experienced old hand, a master of comedy situations: JD is a callow youth in comparison. I get the sense that Lead Balloon is supposed to be 'ironic' - but there's no irony. It's supposed to be a sit-com - but there's no comedy. It exhudes superiority (actually over the audience, which is an alarming approach) but is woefully inferior and simply, in its efforts to ape without acknowledgement, tries too hard.

Lead Balloon doesn't come anywhere close to the quality of the comedy to be found in Curb, but I'll concede one thing - in terms of the quality of its production values, Lead Balloon wins hands down.

...But Bob, the freaking weirdo, prefers Lead Balloon to Curb. If only he'd agreed with me (because I am the great objective right one) I would have been able to stop the inner turmoil I feel every time I see Jack Dee being interviewed on the telly. Please, Jack, make your show funny and confess from whence it came.

Tags: Jack Dee, comedy, Curb Your Enthusiasm

Funny...

Film Fun. Yes. Masked Dan was very funny as were the films of his comedy troupe The Replica Goose Egg. Scarlet Lights, a few of whose members I know (one of their number was in Off Their Trolleys), were rather good too. And Ladma's work about useless free runner Sebastien Foucault was a splendid, unexpected treat. Hull Comedy Festival, bless the damn thing, runs until 9 November.

Butterfield diet...

I was lambasted yesterday for eating Peperami sticks by a theatre director concerned about my intake of saturates. So, to remedy the situation, I will be turning to the Butterfield Diet. Don't know what I'm talking about? You must watch this, the funniest thing on television in ages:

Tags: Butterfield Diet, Peter Serafinowicz, comedy

Corrie goes music hall...

Coronation Street's Sally Webster when it was suggested that mechanic husband Kevin accompany her to a production of Henry V: "Kevin? Shakespeare? He thinks that Coriolanus is something you go to the doctor with."

Start of a good night of hilarity. The IT Crowd just gets better every week and Moss's appearance on Dragon's Den with his spontaneously combusting Abracadabra was truly inspired, then youtube provided me with the second instalment of the new Curb Your Enthusiasm season, The Anonymous Donor, in which Larry realises that it wasn't such a good idea to donate money using his own name, given that those that donate anonymously get all the credit. Wonderful - really good and consistently excellent comedy does exist.

Tags: Coronation Street, Curb Your Enthusiasm, The IT Crowd, comedy