Comedians we forgot...

[TwickenhamCyclist]

Linda Smith.

So underrated and I miss her very much...

On her home town of Erith:
Erith isn't twinned with anywhere but it does have a suicide pact with Dagenham.

And a whole room 101!!!

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtoNxG3uEt0

 

[Profpointy]

Another of Linda Smith's great lines (if I remember right) was on the News Quiz refering to the inspectors looking for the "weapons of mass destruction". She said "I'm like that with scissors..... except I do actually have scissors". Absolutely bang on the point and funny with it. Talented, clever and piercing as well as genuinely funny. Very sad her untimely passing

 

[Crackle]

My 6-year old son has decided that Will Hay is extremely funny* and do you know what? He's not wrong. I've found myself chuckling at parts of Oh, Mr Porter from 1937... If you like Ealing comedies, it's worth checking him out. Silly, fast-moving and in that great tradition of ridiculous incompetents who's only made to look in any way good by the fact that everyone else is even more ridiculous and incompetent than he is.

*why he came across Will Hay is a long story but the short version is that he was also an amateur astronomer and my son is totally obsessed by planets and everyone who has ever been inolved in studying them.

I just watched that on Youtube. Great stuff.

 

[Profpointy]

Ah, they don't write plot devices like they used to.

Apparently Stan had originally intended to have a bomb in the piano as well but sadly that didn't make it into the final take. I'm not making this up

 

[mr_cellophane]

and there's more

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IC4TaV8HEzw

 

[mr_cellophane]

There was the was the way he told them

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mX_8kQ8Lcm8

 

[mr_cellophane]

This Fokker

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8Yf5B6GbYk

 

[glenn forger]

I just watched that on Youtube. Great stuff.

Will Hay and his two sidekicks who are just as stupid as him are dressed as, and therefore in cinematic terms are, policemen. They conduct a roadside speed check and Will Hay is arguing with an outraged motorist as the old man arrives, puffing and panting and carrying a 30 mph speed sign. "What's that?" yells the angry driver. "Ah ha!" says the old man. "That's evidence!"

 

[mr_cellophane]

Or from a cleaner, more gently time

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0DXDV1xThU

 

[Profpointy]

Or from a cleaner, more gently time

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0DXDV1xThU

Gets a laugh off me. Pure silliness really slickly done, presumably honed by decades of stage appearances. Still stands up today. I do vaguely recall Mr Pastry but rather expected it not to still work

 

[TwickenhamCyclist]

Has anyone mentioned the genius that was Peter Cook?


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CVrJDLie0k

 

[Tin Pot]

The tall one off the Goodies.

 

[TwickenhamCyclist]

I went to a recording of I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, in the days when Humphrey Littleton was the MC, and it was marvellous except for one thing - Jupitus was a panel member, and not funny. He just didn't seem to get it at all. Very disappointing.

Humphrey Littleton was superb... excellent delivery and perfect timing. I loved ISIHAC.
He's got the unofficial record for the filthiest joke ever told on Radio 4...
"The next game is Sound Charades. This is based on the erstwhile television favourite Give Us A Clue, where teams of players used to delight their audience by miming the titles of songs, films or plays against a strict time limit. The most highly skilled of all was Lionel Blair, but how the tears of frustration welled up in his eyes during their Italian tour, at not being allowed the use of his mouth to finish off Two Gentlemen Of Verona."

This one must have come a close second...

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTx-PFJ6mds

 

[TwickenhamCyclist]

I went to a recording of I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, in the days when Humphrey Littleton was the MC, and it was marvellous except for one thing - Jupitus was a panel member, and not funny. He just didn't seem to get it at all. Very disappointing.

Jupitus has his moments... I saw him at the Barecat Club here in Twickenham a few times. He was on on the evening of Diana's funeral. If you remember Mother Theresa died that same afternoon. His opening line was something like "If the Queen Mum goes tonight it'll be like a rollover weekend...." to which about half a dozen people walked out...

 

[TwickenhamCyclist]

Rowland Rivron and Simon Brint had thier moments - not least in this sketch on French and Saunders which I think was one of the best TV sketches of all time.... especially if you play guitar

View: https://vimeo.com/167985315