Background has nothing to do with being funny 

Naomi Muse

Ho hum. Russell Brand is totally unfunny - quite agree and the same applies to Marcus Brigstocke. I find watching and listening to Frankie Boyle one of those 'behind the sofa' moments, like watching the monster or wherwolf and only seeing it through your slightly opened fingers, but cannot deny that he is razor sharp. His observations of Kerry Katona were cruel and got tedious, but they were right.

Michael MacIntyre is a jolly sort of fellow and skips and hops around whilst making his, admittedly, bourgeous observations of bourgeous life, but he does genuinely entertain. Maybe that's what Dominic is speaking of - entertainment.

Is it then that Michael MacIntyre is the Strictly Come Dancing of the comedy world - or is that observation too Frankie Boyle?

Susie

Come on, Russell Brand is quite funny and intelligent.

He's like a comedian/poet.

His delivery is almost Byronic.

Hugh Janus

I think you are completely wrong about Marcus Brigstoke. Here's my favourite joke I heard on some radio 4 show a few months ago.

"Aaaarrrghhh I HATE CLIMATE CHANGE DENIERS. Arrrggghhhh THEY ARE FLAT EARTHERS IN THE PAY OF THE BUSH/BLAIR CABAL. Arrrrgggghhhh GLOBAL WARMING IS HAPPENING AND BABIES WILL DIE AND THE TORIES EAT BABIES FOR BREAKFAST. Arrrrggghhhh I HATE CLIMATE CHANGE DENIERS".

How can you say that's not funny?

Fabio P.Barbieri

So... Charlie Chaplin intended to provoke embarrassment? Or Moliere? Goldoni? The funny bits in Shakespeare and Dickens? Laurel and Hardy? Wodehouse? Charles M. Schulz? Walt Disney? Funny that. I must be missing something.

Fergus Pickering

I have never heard of this guy. Gervais is a bore and Carr and Boyle about as funny as twin dogturds in the road. I think Paul Merton is funny, and that black guy they have on HIGNFY, and you, Rod, you certainly have your moments. At the moment I am rereading P.G. Wodehouse. Now that is funny. But bleeding COMEDY. Leave it out, mate.

Left wing propaganda is not funny

Yet most comedians claims to be 'working class' to gain critical immunity. All jokes are anti-Thatcher/Reagan. All Hollywood is liberal left wing. Maybe you could investigate this amazing lopsided reality Rod?
Background has nothing to do with being funny. ....duh...but why is 90% of all media comedy partisan left wing (and therefore propaganda with no one really laughing)

You should write a book and be on Oprah, Rod - but don't let it be analysing the manic unfunniness of the MAINSTREAM, DEFAULT left wing media or you won't get invited on. Some topics are, like immigration, and the failure of communism/socialism - best not mentioned. Just follow the crowd.
Oh I forgot - as usual - you're just showing us, once again, what a cool, sensitive and funny guy you really are. Thanks Rod.

Lisa

Rod, one of your best jokes this year was in The Times where you said Russell Brand was only slightly more funny than Marcus Brigstocke. That is quite the funniest and the cruellest thing I've read all year.

Political comedy on TV these days means only one thing: Leftist comedy.

Will they let Pat Condell go TV any time soon? I think not.

Brigstocke, Hardy, Stewart Lee, Hardeep Singh Don'tpesterme - they and plenty like them only get on to TV because they are so Leftist. They've never made a funny joke in their lives.

And the system is rigged this way. Most up and coming comedians need the support of papers like The Guardian and The Independent because that's what Radio 4 producers read.

The Perrier/if.comedy/whateveritisnow too is also skewed towards Left wing politcal shows.

The incubation system means only the Lefties can hatch.

Anyone else must look for a platform elsewhere.

Britney Seacole

Frikkin' 'ek Hughie, got the name - but the joke? Does one have to be a marxist to understand it?

Beer Moth

Susie

In what way is Russell Brand's delivery, almost Byronic?

Simon Denis

Scarcely anyone claiming to be a comedian is funny any more, first because society is so generally miserable; second because the culture commisars outlawed comedy in about 1985. Comedy arises from the juxtaposition of incongruous things. That's why effeminacy is so hilarious - men, generally, don't mince about in heels gassing about lipstick. Those who do are either grotesque or funny. That, in turn, is why humour (when it was allowed) served the purpose of drawing social bile in a harmless way. Instead of gay-bashing, most people had a laugh. Instead of recoiling in disgust from something they found monstrous, outlandish, obscene, the average blokes of 1985 would snigger, or giggle, or guffaw - and as a result, accept, a point I'll return to. There was in turn a glorious democracy in comedy, because just as funny was the puffed up stud. The incongruity there lay between the normal capacities of man and the pretensions of those claiming hyper-masculinity. You notice that within such comedy there lay a notion of normality - never consciously achieved, but out there - the "via media" - in this instance, the duly and modestly masculine male - Hamlet, rather than Laertes; Copperfield, not Steerforth. This is why the left declared such bitter war upon it. It hates the popular, easily grasped notion of normality and the laughter which goes with it - and it hates such a thing far, far more than your actual hate filled fascist. The thug has no influence, but the jesting gentleman who knows his onions and finds effeminacy funny - to the left, with its agenda of absolute and unsmiling "equality" - he is the enemy. The same is true - with, ahem, knobs on - of race and immigration. To the mentality of old comedy - so old that you can find it in "The Golden Ass" of the second century - the notion that resettling your own country with millions of indifferent or even hostile newcomers is somehow a good idea would in itself cause gales of laughter. To the old comedy, again, with its easy, popular notions of the norm, a Chinese, an Indian, mangling his consonants or stretching his vowels is automatically amusing. Dare to try it today, it brings involuntary grins to all but the sternest, thinnest lips. Comedy is conservative, because the vox populi is conservative, from the experience of living. That is why it had to go and here and now without it our lives are infinitely less "gay" - in the old sense.

daniel maris

Well I can't fault your sense of humour Rod - bang on as far as I'm concerned.

Gervais at his best wasn't afraid to prick PC left wing pomposity. Same with Carr of course (who actually is truly unashamed of being middle class).

Brand's humour doesn't rise much above the wreaths of smoke from the joint being passed around the self-referential circle of druggie mates.

MacIntyre is a smile-raiser, no more and a lot of his act is a dead steal off Lee Evans I would say who can be genuinely funny though not really my cuppa tea.

Do most comedians claim to be working class? I think - as a lower middle class type myself - that's where a lot of them are coming from. A lot of comedians have that typical lower middle class combination of fear of the working class and their disgusting habits, disdain for the effete, work-shy toffs and a conceited belief in their own superior intellect and innate moral worth.

Nicholas

I really dislike Marcus Brigstoke. For me he personifies the Ugly Marxist.

Sir Arnold Robinson

Rod - I have to say that I completely agree with your assessments:

Boyle & Gevais = very funny; Brigstock, Hardy & Brand = shit;
MacIntyre = indifferent.

It's been a long time since the BBC commissioned a genuinely funny and original new comedy. In the late 90s / early 00s there seemed to be several: The League of Gentlemen, The Office, Alan Partridge, The Day Today etc. Instead, most effort and resources seems to be directed towards either the turgid Saturday evening BBC1 dross (My Family, My Hero, All About Me) or insufferable 'alternative' (but actually very much mainstream) claptrap like Catherine Tate, Little Britain, Two Pints or the endless stream of panel shows. I appreciate I've gone a little off topic here but the BBC really should show some more invention and wit with its comedy output. All the best current comedies and comedians, e.g. Curb Your Enthusiasm or Peep Show, are to be found elsewhere.

Beer Moth

That Sandi Toksvig.

Now that's what I call funny.

Baron Pipin II

You cannot define ‘funniness’ in a short piece written when you’ve had one or two, and cannot think of anything else to tease us with. Not unlike love, it’s all in the eyes, well ears rather. What you can do, I reckon, is to measure the national imprint of fun by the size of its reach. You put Ken Dodd on the box, and I bet you he’ll still beat any of your short selection of the near PC, left-soaked comedian non-entities like Carr, and Brand. I like Boyle alot, in spite of the few lapses into fun vacuous vulgarities, Gervais, and Black Adder, the Two Ronnies, and Gimmie, Gimmie…

And another thing; why cannot the HIGNFY leave the Royal family alone. The have no power, and cannot answer back, what's the bloody point?

Wilhelm

Do yourself a favour Rod and type into Youtube Peter Kay Send the buggers back.

Its a folk song about a young lad who wanted white holy communion shoes, his dad being poor worked night and day, down a coalmine to
get those white holy communion shoes, when
he finally got the money, he ordered white holy communion shoes from the shoe shop, did he get them ? did he hell, he got black holy communion shoes.

Its very amusing.

Fergus Pickering

Too right, Beermoth. Sandi Toksvig is funny. Question. Where did she get her accent, since she was brought up in the USA. Re Merton's Duke of Edinburgh jokes; they are funny. I wouldn't be surprised if HE thought they were funny. Clue: we don't REALLY think he is a serial killer. Oh I meant to say. You can send donations for a statue to Spike Milligan to be erected in Finchley. Google it. Now THAT is funny. I've sent five quid. Go on, Rod, sent a twenty. It makes sense.

Daniel Lionsden

@Simon Denis
Wonderful post.
One of the most bizarre things I've seen on tv recently was Grayson Perry on Newsnight Review talking seriously about art.
Dressed as little bo peep.
This get-up, which would have had people rolling in the aisles 30 years ago, was treated with the utmost reverence.

Alexandrovich

Are there any english comedians, desperate to leave England, who go to Scotland and Ireland to make a living by insulting the local population?

rod liddle

I ought to point out that I first read Dominic's piece in the Daily Mail, and the later comments apply to the Mail and not to the Independent, as stated. I don't think the Indy has been whipping up fury about tasteless comics..........

and Mr Janus, yes I heard him tell that one. No matter how often he retells it, it's still a screamer isn't it?

jwhardin

I am no fan of Jim Davidson but I keep remembering a joke of his for the last 12 years. "Long ago Tony Blair looked across a room, saw Cherie Booth, and thought "what a beautifull women" And I'm supposed to trust his judgement?

Terry Walpole

Haven't seen or heard any of the comics mentioned ( I don't/can't watch the telly) except Marcus Brigstocke who used to be on R4's 'Now Show'. He must have been a Guardianista Wing Commander or something equally lofty, he sounded very 80's. I had to turn off at the sound of his rants.

Worried of Woking

'Russell Brand = Byronic'

eh?

EC

Comedians , and comedy, died out with the advent of 'alternate comedians' peddling their brand of lazy, political humour(sic) sanitised of anything remotely human or unPC. Take away 'Tories' and 'Maggie' out of 'alternate comedy' and there is very little left. Twenty years on the joke is wearing a bit thin. After the last twelve years there should be plenty of scope, one would imagine, to make a few jokes about NuLab but Brigstocke et al on the BBC/Ch4 payroll are all firmly stuck in the past.

Ben Elton, the pioneer, might be very very clever but he doesn't have 1/100th of the comic talent possessed by the late Benny Hill whom he decried.

To anybody who thinks Sandy Tosswig is remotely funny - quit drinking!

EC

"Nothing is more hopeless than a scheme of merriment."
Samuel Johnson.

There you have it. Alternate/PC comedy in a nutshell - maybe two!

The Gateless Seacole Gate

Lord Buckley was funny in an irritating sort of way. Perhaps it was the mustache rather than anything he said.

rod liddle

There is a certain gender split n the issue of Mr Brand, isn't there?

And yes, Grayson Perry on newsnight dressed as Bo Peep and afforded seriousness by the equally absurd Kirsty Wark was truly hilarious.

R Mitchum

Ricky Gervais - the best? I remember him joking about Thora Hird being disabled but then I suppose that is what is known as being "challenging". I find the "alternative" comedians cowardly in that they usually target people who can't fight back. I'm looking forward to their jokes about Islam - fat chance as that really would be "challenging".

EyeSee

Many years ago, in Watford Comedy Club I think, I saw a man I now know to be Marcus Brigstocke doing a standup routine. He was heckled by some drunks (as was everyone, they were idiots) and Marcus stormed off saying he didn't have to put up with that. Perhaps an early suggestion about the correctness of his career choice? Anyway, think before you speak applies even more to comedians than the rest of us. Things are funny when dealing with personal matters, when you are mildly rude about someone. Just stepping outside convention as it were. Not to acknowledge any limits means that the comedian isn't ever going to sustain humour, because they have ruined their own reference frame and have no empathy with their audience. Even worse though, is analysing humour.

James Seacole Delingpole

Rod I was going to agree you, but then - having checked on You Tube - I realised that the terminally unfunny squeaky voiced man with the punchable face I'd thought was Michael MacIntyre because he was on the Michael MacIntyre show wasn't in fact Michael MacIntyre. Michael MacIntyre is funny. Your problem is that his humour hates you because you are an oik and would never deign to waste time trying to tickle your vile proletarian nicotine-stained funny bones, is all. I agree though with Mr Janus on that Marcus Brigstocke joke. If Bergson were still alive, he'd be writing whole books on its insight and wit.

John Lea

The best comedy (and comedians) say the unspeakable: Jerry Sadowitz, Frankie Boyle, Bill Hicks, Bernard Manning (no, I'm not joking. I heard some of his stuff recently and was laughing so hard I was in physical pain).

Chris

Kirsty Young, not Kirsty Wark, whoever said Wark. Sandi Toksvig always impresses me, because it's astonishing that anyone with an arse that fat can have a head that's even fatter.

Bill Rees

Am I unusual, in thinking that both Michael McIntyre and Frankie Boyle are very funny, but for very different reasons.
McIntyre's observational comedy chimes with our everyday experiences, which is why it works, and why it can be shared with others.
Boyle's biting satire doesn't always hit the target as far as I'm concerned, but when it does it reflects what I would like to say about certain individuals he targets. He has the sharpest wit of any comedian currently around.
Is Brigstocke supposed to be a comedian? He has never said anything that made me come anywhere close to laughing.
Do the best comedians provoke embarrassment, as Rod claims? I can't accept this, maybe because I don't get embarrassed very easily, and comedy that relies on embarrassment is often a puerile form of humour.
The point about the great comedians is that their funniness is often difficult to fully explain. Tommy Cooper was a perfect example of a comedian who was hardly ever original, was non-threatening, didn't seek to humiliate or embarrass anyone, wasn't tremendously witty, and yet I would challenge anyone to have seen one of his shows and not come away with your body aching from laughter.
There was something about Cooper, if you saw him live, that made you laugh from beginning to end, and you just couldn't help yourself. He just had an extraordinary talent for comedy, and, quite frankly, to try to analyse it would be to diminish it.

hiro

I think Carr is seriously under-rated, esp. on the excellent 8 out of 10 cats.

Here's a bit:

Carr: You know, I felt exactly the same way about Micheal Jackson's death as I did Diana's.

COULD NOT GIVE A FUCK.

Brilliant.

John Lea

Bill Rees - Tommy Cooper is a good shout. Can't abide 'intellectual' or 'right on' comedians, such as Sandi Toksvig, Paul Merton or Jo Brand.

Susie - no such thing as a 'comedian/poet'. Comedians are either funny or unfunny. Please don't make them out to be troubled geniuses. I suspect you just fancy Russell Brand - is that it?

Andy Carpark

Nah, Doddy's got all these whippersnappers licked.

'Which is your favourite, Sir? Money, power or sex? Sex? You've got a marvellous memory, Sir! ... Is this your wife? Have you heard of Specsavers, Sir?

I've got five pounds here for anyone who's still here after midnight. How you divide it between you is up to you.'

Apres Doddy, rien.

Barry

R Mitchum at 9:40am: "I'm looking forward to their jokes about Islam - fat chance as that really would be "challenging"."

Like you said, fat chance. If there's one thing that takes itself far too seriously and could benefit from a good dose of humour, it's Islam. And I'm not talking about the occasional, token Muslim comedian either.

Simon Denis

Apropos Tommy Cooper - he was funny because he displayed his own apparent clumsiness, ungainliness, foolishness - that old notion of the human norm implicitly endorsed by the fact that everyone, including the man himself, found him ludicrous. There was therefore a deep humility in the old comedy - which redeemed everybody's faults in the spectacle of a clown turning his own to mirth. Hence, perhaps, the tradition of the Holy Fool. In the world of which Tommy Cooper was a part, it was all right to be big and clumsy and slow on the uptake - for with laughter comes forgiveness. In the snide world of Jimmy Carr, by contrast, the dominant feeling is not one of forgiveness but of censure - for the wrong tastes, the wrong opinions, the wrong "attitudes". A sad decline.

Hawkeye

Class.... favourite subject of the lefties. Relevance to everyday life - 0%

Zzzzzzzz.....

jon ryan

"Marriage is like the witness protection program: you get all new clothes, you live in the suburbs and you're not allowed to see your friends anymore." Hardy has got one decent joke.

We have lost two of the very best in the last few years. Linda Smith was the wittiest of all woman. Coren, late of this mag, was wonderful. (Alan, not that idiot child of his. Either of his idiot children).

tipper

What we need is an alternative
to alternative comedy:a 21st
century Lenny Bruce.
Pitty Bernard Manning is no
longer with us.

EC

Andy Carpark,

I saw Doddy about 7 years ago. He came on stage at 7:40pm (a miracle only 10 mins late!) He took his final bow at 12:45am.
Non-stop tattyfilariousness. What a guy!

Taipei Exile

I found MacIntyre very funny when I saw his live and laughing show. The funniest comedian i've seen in a long time mainly because he isn't politcal. He offers a bit of light relief from what can be a truly foul world. Nice to see someone not incorporating smug marxist views into their act all the while assuming that everyone listening is also a rampant socialist. I hear what you're saying about muslim comedians being considered funny just because they're muslim. In the same way Hardeep Singh Kholi is apparently funny because he's a sikh and wears a jazzy coloured turban.

Joe Strummer

The worst thing about the seemingly endless conveyer belt of smug and sneery BBC Leftie "comics" since the mid-1980's is just how tedious and predictably boring they really are. We can guess everything about their views on the world before they've even opened their mouths. Ironically, these state-financed buffoons just don't get the real joke in that THEY and their views ARE the " Establishment". The Beeb and others are genuinely terrified of someone like Jerry Sadowitz who takes no prisoners.

Talia

Once you've seen Richard Pryor's stand-up, no one else is even remotely funny.

Bibes

Yawn....

Pricky Gayes

I'm glad someone mentioned Jerry "Margaret Thatcher? That guy was a fucking genius!" Sadowitz.

Julian Jones

Thought this might be of interest to the many Marcus Brigstocke fans here:

http://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/find/music/gigs-contemporary/tickets/marcus-brigstocke-with-special-guests-50270

Have a laugh and save the planet, all for £20 (plus booking fee)

A House By The Seacole

Joe Strummer, I so agree.

Scott A Joseph, MD

Rod---do you have kids? If not, you have no idea what a difficult problem it is finding things on modern TV to watch with kids.

Art flourishes best within some structure. The most erotic scene in a movie, *EVER* was in "To Have and Have Not" where Lauren Bacall gives Bogie some non-explicit but quite provacative instructions on how to get her.

Crudity eventually bores.