The funniest standup I’ve ever seen
I saw Dame Edna four years ago and she was so funny you almost couldn’t bear to look. It was at, of all things, a Variety Club lunch for Prince Philip’s 90th birthday. Dame Edna had prepared a poem for the occasion and it was about the rudest thing about someone I’ve ever seen done to their face.
The funniest book I’ve ever read
I was a huge Tom Sharpe fan as a lad; it seems those kind of books have maybe disappeared. His books about South Africa – Riotous Assembly and Indecent Exposure – were banned there: they’re rude, forthright, scabrous stuff. But the funniest book I have ever read is the volume of Goon Show scripts that used to be in my mum and dad’s loo.
The funniest film I’ve ever seen
Life Of Brian. It hasn’t got any flab, it has Michael Palin playing everyone imaginable, ends with an unforgettable song, hits its targets, and is full of memorable but slightly shop-soiled lines that people who think quoting slabs of Python is the same thing as having a sense of humour can recite.
The funniest item of clothing I’ve ever owned
I bought a hat in Los Angeles I’ve never worn because of its very existence. Or rather, because the fact you can buy one in a souvenir shop is outrageous. It says “WW2 Veteran” and has loads of military ribbons on it. What? How? The thing is hilarious.
The funniest TV show I’ve ever seen
The most I’ve laughed at something on TV has been watching Father Ted with my kids. That show’s fundamental joyous absurdity is timeless.
The funniest hairstyle I’ve ever had
The great liberation of realising that the Pub Landlord needs to have his hair cut very short was it put me out of my misery with my hair. I never knew what to do with it. Lank, mousy, thin but not thinning; it wasn’t so much funny as laughable.
The funniest person I know
When my younger daughter does her impression of emotive, lip-curling X Factor singing, she leaves everyone else for dust.
