Is it just ME?

Or is it OK to be terrible at telling jokes?

IT’S been gleefully reported that Theresa May is rubbish at jokes. Her attempts at scripted humour at Prime Minister’s Questions fall embarrassingly flat. One male commentator even suggested that asking Mrs May to tell jokes ‘is like getting a walrus to dance the tango’.

Leaving aside whether the PM needs to tango, I’d argue that being good at jokes is vastly over-rated. It’s a skill, like map-reading or jammaking, no more.

I am hopelessly, woefully bad at jokes. When people go round the dinner table trading punchlines, I blush, stutter, mangle the delivery. Or my mind freezes and I can’t think of a single one.

It’s like that moment in The Good Life where Margot says wistfully: ‘It isn’t that I don’t want to join in. I just don’t know how to.’

Surely a love of puns and silly wordplay is a peculiarly male obsession?

I’m often puzzled when the smartest men go a bit Carry On (‘Ooh er, missus!’) in tense situations. Surely relentless punning is a weird mental tic?

Earlier this year, a report in a neuroscience journal claimed that people who compulsively tell jokes can suffer from a medical condition called Witzelsucht (addiction to wisecracking), brought on by a stroke or brain damage.

Male stand-up is often about one-upmanship, holding the floor. I’d argue female humour is far more nuanced, based on anecdote and slowburn comedy, sharing the joke rather than dominating the conversation.

Some of our finest TV comedy recently, from Channel 4’s Catastrophe to BBC’s Fleabag, has been based on extended sketches, rather than boom-boom jokes.

Women listen and respond — then deliver the best lines. They don’t automatically find themselves hilarious.

Having said that, if anyone can give me one killer joke — suitable for weddings, bar mitzvahs and funerals — I’ll be truly grateful.

Until then, this walrus isn’t for tango-ing. Liz Hoggard Puns are a curiously male obsession. Men go a bit Carry On in tense situations