Our dying sense of humour is nothing to laugh at

THE author PG Wodehouse once complained that comedy was enormously hard work, but he kept on churning out effervescent prose almost until the day he died. Yet the prize created in his name ran out of fizz this year.

There will be no winner of the Wodehouse Prize for comic fiction in 2018, after the judges ruled that none of the 62 novels submitted generated ‘unanimous, abundant laughter’, merely ‘wry smiles’.

To paraphrase Bob Monkhouse: ‘They laughed when I said I’d write a comic novel – they’re not laughing now!’

This is a remarkable announcement of defeat. Can it be true that no one has written hilarious fiction in the past year?

What about that time Trump tweeted that everyone wanted to be his new chief economic adviser? Isn’t that the political equivalent of a schoolboy claiming that of course he has a girlfriend, she just goes to another school. In Australia.

Certainly, legitimate Scottish comedy writing seems to be going through a dry patch at the moment. The last series of Still Game was poorly received, Burniston’s native version of Little Britain is having a long rest, and Brian ‘Limmy’ Limond has given us only 30 minutes this year about the microtrivial irritations of modern Scottish life.

WHAT you most realise is the length of the shadow cast over Scottish comedy by Sir Billy Connolly and his big-hearted, populist, absurdist stories about the extremes to which Scots go to feel better about themselves – seaside swimsuits made out of wool, the incontinent disco dancer in plastic pants tied at the knee, and pretentious restaurants offering ‘potatoes of the night’. Connolly takes it all in.

Scotland hasn’t lost its sense of humour, but there has been a gradual loss of nerve. STV seems to have given up commissioning comedy altogether nowadays, while BBC Scotland often relies on the full McMonty of gouty Caledonian clichés about football, neds and colourful, colloquial chancers.

Yet Scotland has never had so much material ripe for satirical skewering. Natonalist MSP John Mason suggested a disabled Celtic fan should support another team if traffic regulations prevent him getting to Celtic Park.

Mhairi Black disclosed that Alex Salmond advised her to get a makeover and offered to help her choose clothes. And our First Minister strikes poses about creating a fitter nation by raising the price of bargain booze and banning two-for-one pizza deals.

Yet the nearest you get to Scottish topical satire is Breaking The News, an undernourished cousin to Radio 4’s The News Quiz, where contributors are invited to crack topical jokes, but often prefer to fall back on cheap laughs by namechecking Ardrossan or Saltcoats. Why so timid? Come on – let’s get jabbing.