The funniest standup I’ve ever seen
Henry Paker at Edinburgh in 2010. Him, the surrealist maverick “unreading the Bible” in his hoodigan. Me, the spotty teenager coming to watch every day on my own.
The funniest book I’ve ever read
Lucky Jim. Essentially 250 pages of an angry man getting into scrapes and pulling faces behind people’s backs. I adore it.
The funniest hairstyle I’ve ever had
The shaved head with which I returned to university in my second year was meant to give me a new air of mystery and menace. It did not. It also took bloody ages to grow back.
The funniest sketch I’ve ever seen
Tied in a hopelessly indecisive first place: Key & Peele’s Party Games, Mitchell and Webb’s Lion Bars.
The funniest person I know
My friend Tom, with whom I’ve watched over 50 films starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, is the man in the room saying the things I wish I’d said, yet a classy enough operator to keep his witticisms extracurricular rather than devote his life to chasing them onstage. Despicable.
The funniest film I’ve ever seen
A Fish Called Wanda: an inheritance from my father, who showed it to me and my siblings when we were 11, nine and seven, in a heroic slice of bad parenting.
The funniest word
I loved saying “swab” in my 2014 fringe show. In an otherwise very mumbly performance, there wasn’t a day that I didn’t absolutely chuck myself at it.
The funniest meal I’ve ever eaten
I was recently in a steakhouse in Amsterdam with Phil Wang and Pierre Novellie (clang!) and our steaks came with huge, unbargained-for slices of orange on the top. Not much to go on, you might think, but that would be a disservice to the two Ps’ ability to riff about oranges on steaks. A whale of a time.
Ivo Graham: Educated Guess is at the Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh, to 27 August
