Puns on the run!
CONFESSION time, folks! There are occasions when the thought of standing on stage, trying and make an audience laugh has no appeal to me. This usually happens when I’m actually standing on stage trying to make an audience laugh.
As the TV ad used to say about “The agony of trapped wind”… it soon passes.
Fortunately, I recently felt a powerful comedic resurgence (which isn’t the opposite of trapped wind) and a renewed confidence in my ability to tickle people’s funny bones when I saw the list of ‘The Ten Best Jokes’ at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
Because, to describe them as ‘Christmas Cracker’ quality would be a disservice to the poor devils who have to create the corny jokes we all groan at when we read them out loud at lunch on December 25.
Incidentally, if you know anyone who writes Christmas cracker jokes for a living, do give him/her my sympathy.
Anyway, I digress.
I’m not going to name the tellers of the top 10 jokes at the Edinburgh Festival because that would be meanspirited, which I’m not.
But in case you didn’t hear it, this is the winner: “I was going to steal some spaghetti from a supermarket but the female security guard stood in the doorway so I couldn’t get pasta.”
I did hear some people say it wasn’t even original and that one of the two Bobs (Hope and Monkhouse) told it years ago. But, in all honesty, I don’t think the joke would have appealed to them.
“Too punny to be funny” would certainly have been Mr Monkhouse’s reaction.
I’ve been to the Edinburgh Fringe many times and have seen some fine comedians delivering brilliant, cleverly-constructed material – like my friend Tudur Owen.
He never fails to make audiences laugh and his act is a pun-free zone.
Most of the other Top Ten Jokes also relied on puns, so forgive me if I’ve mentioned this several dozen times before, but it does amuse me.
John Cleese used to say “The first rule of comedy is…No puns! No puns! No puns!”
What did he call his classic 1970s sitcom? Fawlty Towers!