I'll be posting topical one-liners on a regular basis.

I will be now be regularly posting some of my topical one-liners suitable for radio presenters, after dinner speakers and comedians on article sites such as Bubblews. Here is a selection based on some recent stories featured in UK newspapers. More to follow...

Topical one-liner suitable for a speech

A study has found that small businesses in Britain are owed £35.3 billion in unpaid invoices. The excuse always used to be 'Your cheque's in the post'; since April it's been 'We're saving up for a first class stamp to put your cheque in the post'. (More details of my topical gags here).

Like the clappers?

The grammar school where I was nearly educated had a Latin teacher who pulled pupils' hair if we got something wrong in a lesson. (As you can see from my picture, Latin wasn't my best subject). I can remember him once telling us how actors in ancient Rome would say 'plaudit' after a performance, which translates as 'applause, please'. (Well, if you have to ask...)

Of course, some audiences don't need to be requested to clap but rather have to be asked to reign in their appreciation. Another memory from my schooldays is of a primary school headmaster informing us that he would appreciate it if the applause at a forthcoming prize-giving where parents and local dignitaries would be present could be more subtle than that at a recent swimming gala. And I once saw a snooker match on TV where an overly-enthusiastic Steve Davis fan clapped in a loud (and lonely) fashion after every single shot his hero played. He was eventually told to tone it down by an official.

(Don't even get me started on the baying mobs at TV talent show auditions...)

But audience response can be stage-managed. Those cheers at the beginning and end of the new-ish, lower-budget version of Countdown don't quite sound spontaneous to me and we are, of course, well into the party conference season with its predictable standing ovations (probably the only exercise some of those delegates get each year).

So what about the applause on radio comedy shows? At my speaking engagements, I often meet people who believe that all the laughing and clapping must be 'canned' or in response to some little bloke frantically jumping up and down holding signs saying 'LAUGHTER', 'APPLAUSE', etc. Some may even have attended tapings of TV shows - some decades ago - where this actually happened.

Having spent some years regularly attending recordings at the BBC Paris Studios and Radio Theatre, I have to try and convince them that this just isn't the case. I have certainly seen producers tell audiences beforehand to be enthusiastic and observed an announcer hold up an arm to signal applause at the end of the opening and closing signatures but that's about it; the lion's share of the response is down to the material, performance - and audience.

For a radio comedy writer it's a great experience when 300 people in the studio applaud an original one-liner of yours. This may be because it makes a point which they agree with or because they simply find it very funny but the most glorious moments are when something subtle gets a laugh which builds into a ripple and then a full round of applause as the penny drops.

But I once wrote for a topical series on Radio 2 which had very little promotion. I didn't attend any of the recordings and perhaps I should have done; judging from the volume of the laughter and applause, this might have boosted the attendance figures by several per cent. It wasn't a bad programme at all but it only ran for one series and I can't help thinking that this lack of audible appreciation helped to seal its fate.

Some of the most enthusiastic responses can be heard when long-running radio comedy panel games record editions away from London, in fact listeners may be left wondering if this is the only live entertainment which has ever been staged in that particular city. How some commercial radio presenters must envy such audience energy when they compare the indifference at their OBs from shopping malls!

Right, that's the end of this column; please feel free to clap. Go on, 'plaudit, plaudit'...

(Reublished from the Radio Magazine, 30 September 2009)

Farewell, funnymen

The problem with having heroes of humour who are in their 80s is that you keep losing them. The great demolition raconteur Blaster Bates passed away in 2006 and was included in Radio 4's Last Word - although the earthy nature of his tales meant that he received precious little airtime when he was alive. Never mind, the album sales made up for that - and continue to do so with CD reissues.

This time last year, Humphrey Lyttelton died. Before his operation, he told Barry Cryer 'If all goes well, this year's drama is next year's anecdote', a brilliant, inspiring saying which will itself be quoted for many years to come. (Incidentally, I think the BBC's idea of having former I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue panellists Stephen Fry, Jack Dee and Rob Brydon taking it in turns to host the new shows is an inventive attempt at filling the gap left by Chairman Humph; it reduces the risk of regular listeners taking a dislike to one new permanent presenter but avoids having a long succession of hit-or-miss guest hosts, a practice which has sometimes affected the quality of Have I Got News For You. We will soon discover whether this experiment has worked).

In March, the death of the witty broadcaster Geoffrey Smith was marked by a feature on Gardener's Question Time.


I started regularly listening to Radio 4 when I was nine (any child who tunes in at an even younger age is probably like Stewie on Family Guy) so I listened to those guys for a long time but I'm now off to find some younger heroes because, as I said, the older ones have this infuriating habit of leaving just when you thought they could go on forever.

(Republished from the Radio Magazine Issue 889, 29 April 2009)

Growing My Own Arty Jokes

I know, I know: even by the standards of the titles I give these blog entries, that one’s a real shocker but, as always, it should at least give you some clue as to the content of the post to follow and its tenuous link to radio comedy.

I was at Broadcasting House one day, chatting about what I planned to be doing during the summer months while the topical shows I contributed to were off the off the air and one of my colleagues, a blunt Yorkshireman (is there any other kind?), remarked ‘Gardening? You don’t seem the type!’

I’m not sure exactly what the ‘type’ is but it’s hardly unusual for writers with a connection to radio humour to be have an interest in gardening. The prolific Mat Coward, author of the highly-acclaimed Pocket Essential Classic Radio Comedy, has been a regular contributor to Organic Gardening magazine since its inception exactly 20 years ago, while the first novel by Lynne Truss was called With One Lousy Free Packet of Seed and actually came with one attached to the cover (plus, I am sure, some perfect punctuation).

One of the questions I am most frequently asked at speaking engagements is who are my favourite comedians? I’m sure those asking always expect me to run off a long list of classic sitcom stars and stand-ups but I always answer that, although my influences are people renowned for using humour effectively, they are not always people you would think off as comedians. Groucho Marx certainly was a comic but the late Blaster Bates was a brilliantly funny speaker while Patrick ‘Call My Bluff’ Campbell was a wonderful purveyor of written wit which his stammer prevented from delivering (except in the smallest of doses) on TV. And then there is Geoffrey Smith.

I think that name always takes them by surprise but when I was listening to Gardeners’ Question Time circa 1994, just after the entire panel left to present Classic FM’s Classic Gardening Forum, the incoming independent production company put together a new team which included Mr Smith and I loved his off-the-cuff humour. Many great laughs in the current shows come from County Down’s vegetable-hating John Cushnie.

But vegetable growing is what I hope to be doing again this year (at my girlfriend Val’s place; I don’t think the Residents’ Association in the block where I live would appreciate it if I started digging up the communal gardens to put runner beans in). The weather in 2007 meant a washout for gardeners all over the UK and it probably also cost me a lot of creative ideas.

You see, another question I get asked a lot at talks is whether all comedians are depressives (audiences always think about Hancock and Spike Milligan in this regard). I answer that some seem to be, some don’t; then I go on to explain that creating humour is not a 9 – 5 job; whether you are a performer or a writer, you are always thinking about that next joke, observation – or magazine article! Whether you are walking along the street, doing the shopping or waiting for a train, you are constantly mulling over ideas and this distraction may look like depression to the outside world.

Which reminds me of the time when my late mother visited her local corner shop shortly after my extrovert younger brother. The shopkeeper spoke very good English but had an occasional, slightly unusual turn of phrase.

‘Your jovial son has just been here’, he said.
‘Ah’, replied my mother, ‘As opposed to the miserable bugger?’

And if I’m up to my knees in mud and stinking of compost and nettle juice feed, I can concentrate on humorous ideas and no-one accuses me of looking depressed because no-one wants to come near me at all.

(Reprinted from the Radio Magazine Issue 837, 23 April 2008)