The funniest standup I’ve ever seen
Right now it’s John Kearns: very funny, crafted, and original. If you say ever, I guess when I first saw Paul Foot it blew my mind.
The funniest book I’ve ever read
The Ascent of Rum Doodle, an amazing book about mountain climbing from 1956. A bunch of buffoons try to scale the highest mountain in the world, a fictional peak, height 40,000-and-a-half feet. Laugh-out-loud literature.
The funniest item of clothing I’ve ever owned
I’ve got a very long tan raincoat that I got in some vintage shop at some point. I took advice from two different people before buying it but I’m sure they were both in touch with one another and finding it hilarious. It’s a tragic piece. I wear it on New Year’s Day.
The funniest sketch I’ve ever seen
I want to pick something from The Day Today. I guess the swimming-pool deaths bit [spoof documentary The Pool]. Brilliant writing, brilliant Steve Coogan.
The funniest person I know
My friend Jelson’s up there. Barely any of it’s intentional but he’s a pretty good magnet for chaos.
The funniest film I’ve ever seen
Man Bites Dog. Belgian mockumentary charting the dark arts of a serial killer, as he is shadowed by a group of film students. It’s jet-black comedy, lots of slaying, weighing down bodies with stones, slinging them into canals, trying to record the sound properly. Funny.
The funniest word
Jelson has started throwing around the word “skuzzlewit”, which usually raises a smile from me anyway.
The funniest joke I’ve ever heard
I’ve just finished filming a Tim Vine pilot. The script was exhausting enough but just spending 48 hours with Tim was the icing on the cake. Pun after pun after pun. Can’t remember any of them. At the afterparty, I found him reflecting that he should have put his gin and tunic gag in. I love Tim Vine.
Tim Key is at Union Chapel, N1 and Leicester Square theatre, WC2, 4 July; Pleasance Theatre, N7, 5-6 July and 10 July
