All joking aside, it’s not easy being funny

It is customary at this time of the year for PostScript to lighten up proceedings with what have been voted as the best jokes from the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, which wraps up in Scotland this weekend. Unfortunately, this year’s offerings are rather underwhelming, or maybe I’m simply getting too ancient to appreciate modern wit.

The winner was a Birmingham gentleman, Masai Graham, who came up with: “My dad has suggested that I register for a donor card. He is a man after my own heart.”

Hardly a side splitter but it was the winner, so you can get a rough idea what the rest were like. Most of them ventured into “painful pun” territory and felt a bit like those jokes you get in cheap Christmas crackers.

Graham almost won it two years ago when he came runner-up with the following offering: “I’ve written a joke about a fat badger, but I couldn’t fit it into my set.” I suspect it only got votes because it was a badger joke — like hippo jokes, they always seem to get laughs.

In the unlikely event you are wondering what was deemed the worst joke at the festival this year, the following was a worthy winner of that category: “What do you call three members of ABBA in a slaughterhouse? Abba trois.”

Tears of a clown

Being a stand-up comedian is a tough job and many can’t handle the pressure. Just imagine going out on stage and cracking a couple of jokes, only to be greeted by dead silence in the audience. It must be a shattering experience. Comic actor Will Ferrell called it a “hard, lonely and vicious” profession.

In his excellent autobiography, A Clown Too Many, late British comedian Les Dawson described his experience as a young performer after a disastrous stand-up routine in Hull. “I stumbled off the stage to a chorus of jeers and fled into the black night back to my digs. That night I sobbed myself to slumber.”

Give and take

Among the most difficult things to handle for stand-up comedians are persistent hecklers. The Tunnel Club at Greenwich in London used to be notorious for such characters. Apologies in advance for the fruity language. One comedian came on stage and opened with “I’m a schizophrenic …” to be cut off in mid-sentence by an audience member shouting “F--- off then — both of you!”

Another exchange occurred when a comedian, fed up with being interrupted by one heckler, tried to humour him with “OK, ask me something topical.” The heckler responded “Get off!” The comedian replied “That’s not topical”, to which the heckler countered “Get off — now!”

One comedian spotted a member of the audience leaving his seat, seemingly heading towards the exit. The comedian put the spotlight on the fellow and asked where he was going in the middle of the act. The fellow shouted: “I am just going to take a leak before the comedian comes on.”

Getting their own back

Most top comedians have an armoury of putdowns to deal with persistent hecklers. A common response to particularly annoying audience members is a variation on “Is that your real face or are you still celebrating Halloween?”

When Scottish comedian Billy Connolly was repeatedly interrupted by a gentleman during one show, he came up with: “Oh, shut up. Do I come to your workplace and tell you how to sweep up?”

British female comedian Ava Vidal was on stage when a heckler shouted that she was “about as funny as a headache”. She responded: “I’m sure you know a fair bit about headaches, as I’m guessing that your girlfriend has one every night.”

A star is born

The following is not a joke but might raise a smile.

British actor Jim Sturgess ( Kidnapping Freddy Heineken, Stonehearst Asylum) was asked on an American TV talk show recently about being recognised in the street. He recounted an incident at King’s Cross station in London when he had just got off a bus that happened to have a big poster of him on the side, advertising his latest film.

A woman, who turned out to be Spanish, approached him and asked: “You’re a star?” He modestly shook his head and said: “No, not really.” But the woman persisted with “You’re a star?”

Thinking that she had probably recognised him from the bus poster, he admitted: ”Well, maybe I’m a small star. Do you want my autograph?” But the woman repeated “You’re a star?”

It was only then it dawned on him the woman was asking where to get Eurostar, the train service to France.

Best foot forward

Fortunately, most Thai people have a great sense of humour — they certainly have needed it with the politicians they have had to put up with over the years. Slapstick humour goes down particularly well in this country, as I discovered not long after arriving.

It was the rainy season and I stepped off a bus at Pratunam into what appeared to be just a surface puddle but turned out to be more like a crater. I plunged into the hole and as I picked myself up was greeted by an array of grinning faces among the bus passengers. They could not disguise their mirth at a farang falling into a waterfilled hole. Admittedly, it must have looked pretty comical.