The funniest standup I’ve ever seen
Physically seen live was Louis CK – I thought he was very good. He’s found a way of accessing a truth about subjects and making them hilariously funny as well.
The funniest book I’ve ever read
A Confederacy Of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. Once you get into the characters, it becomes a sustained comic riff which lasts for the entirety of the novel. I don’t think I’ve ever read anything quite like it.
The funniest heckle I’ve ever had
The things that throw me are the totally unexpected and non sequitur-type heckles. I was doing a show and I think I’d mentioned birds, but hadn’t referred to them for a long while. Then a woman just said quite clearly: “I saw four goldfinches in my garden.” There was nothing I could say to that.
The funniest person I know
I’ve got an aunt, she’s very funny – Auntie Jean. She talks in an Alan Bennett-style monologue the whole time. Out of nowhere, she’ll just suddenly say, “Now, that Nicholas Witchell, he’s gone off the boil,” and it sounds like a line from an Alan Bennett play – but that’s how she talks.
The funniest word
In Steptoe And Son, when old man Steptoe was annoyed about something, he would say “cobblers”. Me and a few friends, that’s become our go-to phrase for describing something a bit rubbish.
The funniest item of clothing I’ve ever owned
I did have a mask of my own face; it was quite disturbing. When I did Sonisphere I was on before Slipknot, and I thought as a tribute I’d have a mask made. It looked totally bizarre, particularly when my son put it on and was running around like a mini me. Terrifying.
The funniest joke I’ve ever heard
Simon Munnery does a character called Alan Parker: Urban Warrior, a Wolfie Smith, one-man-against-the-world type. He has some lines which resonate a long, long time after I’ve heard them. A great one went: “What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. Frosties, par exemple.”
