When was the last time you heard someone tell a joke on television? I can’t remember when I did but I know it’s been several years since someone started their act by saying something like, “There was this man who….”
Nowadays, we are entertained by “Observational Humour”. There’s nothing wrong with observational humour other than the fact that it isn’t very funny. It’s usually clever and sometimes amusing and it will certainly never offend or upset anyone but it isn’t funny.
The moment that someone begins his or her act by saying, “Have you ever noticed that…”, I know that what I am about to hear will be vaguely amusing about something like ‘staircases’ or ‘baked beans’ or ‘waiting rooms’.
It will certainly be clever and will have a ring of truth about it; it may even produce a smile from me but I know I won’t laugh. There is a huge difference between something that is funny and something that is merely amusing.
Some months ago, Caroline and I were invited to attend a live show (or should I call it a gig?) by one of the country’s leading female comedians. I had never found her funny when watching her on television but we went nonetheless.
The show began with what might loosely be described as the ‘warm-up-act’. I’d never heard of him before and now I’ve forgotten his name altogether but I do remember he was neither funny nor amusing.
After 35 minutes of him, we were indulged by having an interval lasting nearly half an hour and then, shortly after nine o’clock we were finally in the presence of the star.
Just as when she appears on television, we heard tales of cakes, her weight, her absence of much of a sex life, and how untrustworthy and generally despicable most men are. Hilarious!
It was so dull and the material so old, that someone a few rows behind us, started yelling out the final line two or three seconds before she did. It was dreadful.
Two weeks later, that same woman was hosting Have I Got New For You and drawling out the same lines I had heard in the theatre. This time, however, they were greeted with hysterical laughter from the studio audience. Canned?
I know the next bit is sexist but I don’t care. Why do almost all female comedians from the school of Observational Comedy go on and on either about their bodies or their sex lives?
There are one or two exceptions to this trait but most of them seem to be under the impression that after they have said, “Have you ever noticed that…”, all they need to do is mention “periods” or “shagging” and the audience will laugh their stupid heads off. Maybe it’s just me who doesn’t laugh. After all, I am officially an old man now.
These cogitations have been brought on because on YouTube recently, I stumbled upon some clips of comedians from the 1960s and the 70s and I laughed.
I don’t think comedy is funny unless the listener is able to visualise the situation and imagine being involved in it. Watch clips of 1970s comedians telling jokes and you can do that; listen to a modern comedian and with very few exceptions, you can’t.
I laughed at a joke told by Bernard Manning. It started in classic style: “An Englishman, a Scotsman and an Irishman…..”. They were waiting in a prison cell to be guillotined.
I was there with them. I could see them sitting on straw bales dressed in rags and looking dejected and terrified. I could see the damp stone cell walls and the tiny window high up behind them throwing a narrow shaft of light into the dingy squalor. I could almost smell the dank filth. When the door opened and the guards came in to lead them to their deaths, I felt the terror they were feeling.
Because I am aware of the stereotypes employed in jokes from 50 years ago, I was curious as to how the Irishman’s stupidity was going to play a part in this story. Was he going to be so stupid that somehow he saved everyone or just himself?
The Englishman was the first to be brought forward. He said “God save the King” and bravely put his neck on the block. The blade fell but came to a stop, stuck just half way down. The Englishman was reprieved and allowed to go. The Scotsman was next and the same thing happened. He was released too.
After what had happened to the other two, the Irishman was feeling quite confident and cheerful as he was led to the death machine. He stopped in front of it and stared hard at the glistening, razor-sharp blade.
“Hold on there a moment,” he said to the guard, in his thick Irish brogue. “I think I see where it's stickin'.”
Okay, it’s a bit racist but so what? It was 1971 and things were so different then - comedians were funny because they told proper jokes.
For 35 years, I played club cricket. My journey home was sometimes delayed by an hour or more because one of our club members had an inexhaustible supply of jokes and he told them very well indeed. Most of them were very funny and once started, he could and would, go on for hours.
I don’t think he would be able to keep an audience of tipsy men enthralled and captive today by pondering about cereal boxes, cyclists or online shopping.
On The Mash Report, a satirical news programme on BBC2, all the host ever did was loudly abuse people who had voted Brexit while being encouraged by a wildly cheering audience of young Remainers. Today, he hosts The News Quiz on Radio 4. Both programmes are intended to be funny. On the News Quiz, he reads a mildly amusing script written by other people.
The only time he has made me laugh was when he appeared on the television programme Pointless and introduced himself as a comedian. He is never even slightly amusing.
It’s hardly surprising that comedians today aren’t funny. What follows is the list of topics that a comedian booked to appear at the School of African and Oriental Studies (SOAS), was not allowed to mention and he had to sign a contract agreeing that he wouldn’t:
Racism, sexism, classism, ageism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, islamophobia, anti-religion or anti-atheism.
That doesn’t leave much, does it?
The comedian was told by the student body that the reason he had to sign that contract was so that the event was preserved as a 'safe space' and a place for 'joy, love, and acceptance'.
God help us!
Yesterday, within twenty minutes, I heard two jokes:
From 1976: A priest a vicar and a rabbit go into a bar. “What are you doing here?” the priest asked the rabbit. “I dunno,” said the rabbit. “I think I’m a misprint.”
From 2020 Ed Byrne, Live at the Apollo: “You should never ask a comedian, ‘Who makes you laugh?’ in the same way you don’t ask a hairdresser ‘who cuts your hair’ or an Audi driver, ‘who do you think drives like a cock?”
Do I need to say more?
I’ll finish with a joke: Two flowerpots were in a laundrette. One of them noticed a crack in the other and……
Sorry, I've been told by my proofreader that that’s a container-phobic, ableist joke and she’s not allowing it on this site.
That’s a pity because it's a cracker and you’d have loved it.
