Humorists

It takes a very special skill indeed to make people laugh when armed with nothing but a blank sheet of paper and the English language. It requires deep reserves of imagination, a wide vocabulary, and a subtle ear for rhythm. Think of Tony Hancock’s most famous line from Galton and Simpson’s The Blood Donor: “I don’t mind giving a reasonable amount, but a pint? That’s very nearly an armful.” It wouldn’t work if it was any other way: “That’s almost an armful”, “That’s nearly an armful”, “That’s practically an armful” – none has the deliciously limber mellifluence of the original. It’s like a phrase in music – any note, any beat out of place and it simply doesn’t sing. No wonder IAL Diamond would sit in the corner of the set when Billy Wilder was directing the script they’d co-written and if one of the actors said a line which wasn’t exactly the way they’d conceived it, no matter how perfect the take, they would need to go back and do it over. There’s perfectionism and there’s protecting your gift. There is no gift so worthy of protection than the gift of laughter.

Woody Allen

(1935‒)

Annie Hall (1977 film)

Then Manhattan (1979). The compilations of skits and articles (Getting Even, Without Feathers, Side Effects et al) are every bit as funny as the films. I particularly like the faux memoirs of Paris in the twenties where Ernest Hemingway goes around punching people in the mouth. Midnight in Paris (2011) is a bit like that.

Jilly Cooper

(1937-)

Emily (1975)

…or it might have been Bella or Harriet or Octavia or Imogen or Prudence that I read first, one of those early mononym titles anyway. I read them all one sexless summer holidays hoping they would help. They didn’t, but if I’d had any wit, such light romantic fare might have taught me something. I never progressed onto her more raunchy stuff though. Maybe that was it?

Alan Coren

(1938‒2007)

Punch magazine articles

This man would have been a legend, even if he hadn’t also been the father of the incomparable Victoria Coren Mitchell. Certain images keep coming back – the errant beach ball in the South of France, pinging amongst the naked nipples ‘like a Caligulan pinball table’ (‘Caligulan’); in Masters of Failure, the sight of the mighty Brabazon prototype aircraft ‘soaring along the ground’ (‘soaring along’)… You can’t develop technique like that, you either have or you don’t.

Stella Gibbons

(1902‒1989)

Cold Comfort Farm (1932)

Probably like everyone else, I’ve never read a word of the kind of dark rural melodrama this was satirising, but that only goes to prove my point, extolled elsewhere on this site (Play Spoofs), that you don’t need to know the original to get a laugh out of a good pastiche. And the TV adaptations have provided early outings for some of my favourite leading ladies, from Sarah Badel to Kate Beckinsale.

Michael Green

(1927‒2018)

The Art of Coarse Acting (1964)

Only rivalled in the satirical stakes by I, an Actor by Nicholas Craig (1988) by Nigel Planer and Christopher Douglas. Read the whole series – rugby, sailing, drinking, moving house, there’s nothing Michael Green hasn’t done… badly. Or so he would have us, hilariously, believe.

Clive James

(1939‒2019)

Unreliable Memoirs (1980)

…in addition to years of reading his collections of TV criticism, gathered in the three volumes Visions Before Midnight, The Crystal Bucket and Glued to the Box. How many authors can make you laugh out loud? Few as frequently as Clive James. And that’s even before his literary and cultural knowledge leave you slack-jawed with awe and respect. He was one of my specialist subjects when I went on Mastermind on TV all those years ago. Read all about it here.

Jerome K Jerome

(1859‒1927)

Three Men in a Boat (1889)

Timeless because it doesn’t read like something from the late Victorian period. Unstuffy, refreshingly modern. And funny af, of course. Start with Chapter III, wherein the author’s Uncle Podger attempts to hang a picture. If you know, you know. If you don’t, you can thank me later.

Spike Milligan

(1918‒2002)

The Goons (1950s)

I came late to Spike Milligan, but he was obviously a genius. I found the scattershot anarchy of his Q series on BBC2 a bit hit and miss, but you couldn’t deny his energy and invention and passion to please. And the war memoirs are as eloquent as they are funny. One of the greatest of the Greatest Generation.

AA Milne

(1882‒1956)

Winnie-the-Pooh (1926)

And The House at Pooh Corner (1928). And the volumes of verse aren’t bad either. Charm is a much-maligned quality. I’d rather read about John and his great big waterproof boots than the doings of J Alfred Prufrock any day.

Nancy Mitford

(1904‒1956)

The Pursuit of Love (1945)

A university friend suggested that since I liked Evelyn Waugh so much, I should try Nancy Mitford. Good call, though in the end I came to realise it wasn’t so much the upper crust society between the wars I was into, it was the cruel humour, and the coolest of cool, precise prose. At least Nancy was one of the good Mitfords; some of them were evil to the core. And interesting that she and Waugh were such warm friends. Does them both credit, IMO.

Dorothy Parker

(1893‒1957)

Complete Broadway (1918-1923)

“Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song, a medley of extemporanea.
And love is a thing which can never go wrong, and I am Marie of Romania.”

Once read never forgotten, and there will always be a place in my heart for anyone who can come up with something like that. She also said, “I hate writing, I love having written.” That’s the kind of woman I would like to have invited for a drink sometime, try and cheer her up…

Oscar Wilde

(1854‒1900)

The Importance of Being Earnest (1895)

Disgusting that he was deprived of the profits of the West End run of this masterpiece while the establishment shipped him off to prison. And even more scandalous he couldn’t have been accorded a more elegant monument at Père Lachaise. At least he’s allowed to repose there with his lifetime friend and champion Robbie Ross.

Victoria Wood

(1953‒2016)

Talent (1978)

The title of her first play says it all. She was just phenomenally gifted in multiple ways. And good-hearted. Remember that TV sketch about the young Channel swimmer completely ignored by her parents? Greasing herself up on the beach one early morning and plunging into the cold grey sea with a kid’s duffle bag over her shoulder, never to be seen again? She wrote that, knowing she was going to have to do it for real. Talk about brave. Talk about funny. Talk about heartbreaking.