Comedy
The man behind Eric and Ernie
It takes a special sort of talent to turn a good act into a great one, and without John Ammonds, who died last month, aged 88, it’s quite possible that… Read more
Life imitates art
The other evening my wife came home to find me watching re-runs of Steptoe and Son. The washing up had not been done, and everything was in a state of… Read more
A bit of slap and tickle
Hard on the heels of the ecstatically received London revival of Michael Frayn’s Noises Off (currently playing at the Novello Theatre) comes this hilarious novel. It’s not easy to pull… Read more
Deviation and double entendre
If there’s anything full-time novelists hate more than a celebrity muscling in on their turf, it’s the celebrity doing such a good job that it seems as if anybody could… Read more
Bookends: The showbiz Boris Johnson
Amiability can take you a long way in British public life. James Corden is no fool: he co-wrote and co-starred in three series of Gavin and Stacey, and wowed the… Read more
Bookends: Laughing by the book
Comedy is a serious business. The number of young people who seek to make a living making other people laugh seems to grow every year. Jonathan Lynn starts Comedy Rules… Read more
An existential hero
Sam Leith is enthralled by a masterpiece on monotony, but is devastated by its author’s death When David Foster Wallace took his own life two and a half years ago,… Read more
Forgotten laughter
The Radio Times now lists 72 channels, and that’s not all of them. The Radio Times now lists 72 channels, and that’s not all of them. No wonder television has… Read more
Twin peaks
It’s that time of year. The great reckoning is upon us. Insurance is being renewed. Tax returns are being ferreted out. Roofing jobs are being appraised and budgeted for. And… Read more
Lords of laughter
What do the following comedians have in common? Morecambe and Wise, Ronnie Barker, Frankie Howerd, Bob Monkhouse, Peter Sellers. They’re all dead, yes. But something else. None of them was… Read more
The sound of broken glass
What do Evelyn Waugh, Peter Cook and Chris Morris have in common? I would have said ‘irreverence’ and left it at that; but the social scientist Peter Wilkin has written… Read more
Dying of laughter
Marcus Berkmann on the few genuinely funny books aimed at this year’s Christmas market It’s a worrying sign, but I suspect that Christmas may not be as amusing as it… Read more
Anything for a laugh
A hundred years ago, when Britannia still ruled the waves, the Royal Navy fell victim to a humiliating hoax, reports of which kept the public amused for a few wintry… Read more
A couple of drifters
Paul Torday was 59 when his first novel, the highly acclaimed Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, was published in 2006. Since then, he can barely have stepped away from his… Read more
Quirky books for Christmas
After the Christmas ‘funny’ books, here’s an even larger pile of Christmas ‘quirky’ books. After the Christmas ‘funny’ books, here’s an even larger pile of Christmas ‘quirky’ books. In practice,… Read more
But then the snow turned to rain
My daughter when small came home from school one night singing these extraordinary lines: ‘Fortune, my foe, why dost thou frown on me/ And will thy favours never lighter be?’… Read more
The one that got away
Michael Palin is the meekest, mildest and nicest of the Pythons. The latest chunk of his diaries traces his attempt during the 1980s to break away from his wacky colleagues… Read more
Cries and whispers
The habit of dividing the past into centuries or decades might be historiographically suspect, but by now it seems unavoidable. And it is possible that, because we now expect decades… Read more
Joking apart
Free association underpins the comedy of Lorrie Moore’s writing — or perhaps the verb should be ‘unpins’, since her prose spins off in tangential, apparently affectless riffs. Free association underpins… Read more
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