Herbert Beerbohm makes an adjustment

This is Herbert Beerbohm Tree, the actor, and Max Beerbohm, the writer and caricaturist. They were half-brothers; Herbert the older by nineteen years. When Herbert became an actor in 1876, he added 'Tree' (translation of Bohm) to his name. According to Max, this was because he wanted a "shoutable monosyllable, for purposes of applause."

I really like Max's caricatures (this isn't one of his best, perhaps because he was fond of his brother.) He gave a very useful recipe for them, which also applies to a certain kind of comedy writing:

The most perfect caricature is that which, on a small surface, with the simplest means, most accurately exaggerates, to the highest point, the peculiarities of a human being, at his most characteristic moment, in the most beautiful manner.

Aubrey Beardsley

 

Millionaire Lifestyle

I have since been informed that a thing is not technically enrobed in chocolate if it is not entirely covered.  I'm glad I didn't know that when I wrote this. Because 'enrobed' is a funny word.

Quasimodo

Originally, I played Quasimodo and Simon played Victor. I don't know why it worked so much better this way round, but it really did.

Ol' Lols

I had a conversation this week about which writers could still make you laugh out loud from a distance of over a hundred years. A huge number of funny authors pre-1910, of course, but how many can actually make you physically laugh -even just a chuckle- as you read? (For fairness, I think it has to be from the page, not when read out or in performance.) We immediately came up with very early Wodehouse; Jerome K Jerome; Mark Twain and the Grossmith brothers (the authors of The Diary of a Nobody, which I've always thought would make an excellent musical). Since then, I've remembered Saki and Stephen Leacock. One of us nominated Dickens, which may be true for him, but, though I like Dickens and find him funny, I'm not sure I've ever actually laughed out loud whilst reading him. Nor at Shakespeare, nor Swift. At Wilde, outside performance? Not sure, but I think maybe not. Thurber, Parker, Waugh and Lardner are all too young. Who else? There must be more. Who've I forgotten?

P.S. Since I started writing this post, I accidentally came across another one - a writer whom, had someone else proposed them, I'm afraid I'd have put in the huge 'funny-but-not-laugh-out-loud-funny' bracket: Lewis Carroll.  I was reading a book of his letters, and this, written to a child in 1871, definitely made me (appropriately) chortle.

'You know I have three dinner-bells - the first (which is the largest) is rung when dinner is nearly ready; the second (which is rather larger) is rung when it is quite ready; and the third (which is as large as the other two put together) is rung all the time I am at dinner.'

Lazy comedy cliche things that actually happened to me this weekend.

I was infuriated by the confusing instructions for assembling some flat-pack furniture.

I avoided work by needlessly alphabetising my DVDs.

I hit my thumb with a hammer.

Join me next week, by when I will have slipped on a banana skin, had my computer explained to me by a child, and enthusiastically slagged someone off before realising that she's standing right behind me, isn't she?

Three 'comedy' words or phrases I wouldn't care if I never heard again.

-based and -related.
To make a mock pompous formulation, as in: 'A wotsit, or other cheese-based snack!' or 'I was sorry for the old man and his footwear-related woes'. Yes, that was funny for the first six or seven years. Stop it now.

Marrying your sister.
Apparently the inevitable fate of all residents of Norfolk, Wales, the West Country, the North Country, Scotland, the American South, or indeed anywhere where you can see trees. As in Graham Norton yesterday: 'So, you shouldn't go to Cornwall. No, you really shouldn't go to Cornwall, because you'll end up marrying your sister!' Apart from the fact someone was well paid to photocopy that joke into the script, I'd also like to point out that if you're going to Cornwall, presumably your sister doesn't live there; so rather than marrying your sister for lack of other alternatives, as the Cornish all famously do, you'll have to persuade your sister to move down to Cornwall from London or Sheffield or Moscow for the express purpose of marrying you. And I'm not sure she'll be game for that. And if she is, then frankly the incestuous tendency is clearly latent in the pair of you, and I don't think you can really blame it on Cornwall.

Restraining orders.
As in '...and that's why I don't see her any more.' 'Yeah... that and the restraining order!'. Especially annoying in sitcoms, where we're supposed to believe the lovably hapless character was so stupidly in love, his ex had to put a hilarious restraining order on him!!! Yes, and then he was humorously sectioned under the comedy mental health act.

Edinburgh Fringe Recommendations, 2005

I shan't be going to Edinburgh this year, so I've been spending July going to lots and lots of Edinburgh previews. Here are my top five, all of which I heartily recommend you see if you're planning on visiting the City That Never Stops Smelling Of Beer.

Dara O'Briain

No theme, just one hour of yer straight-forward vanilla stand-up. But he's hugely likable and (apparently) effortlessly funny. Now with added crutch.

Daniel Kitson

An hour long discussion about how an Australian critic was wrong about him. Sounds terrible. Is captivating.

What's the Time, Mr Lion?

Jeremy Lion's latest show is a superb, terrifying, beautifully-crafted hour of the worst children's entertainment imaginable. I am still laughing at lines from this several days later.

Dan Tetsell - Sins of the Grandfathers

Fascinating, personal, thought-provoking, and far-funnier-than-it-ought-to-be account of how it feels to grow up knowing that the answer to the question 'What did you do in the war, Grandad?' would have been 'Well, funny you should ask- I was an officer in the SS.'

Alex Horne - When In Rome

Alex Horne and loyal assistant Tim teach you Latin in an hour, pushing both powerpoint and punning to their very limits. They've put far too much work into this, and it really shows.


Other things I haven't seen, but would still recommend, include:

Comedy Zone - four comics do quarter of an hour each, so you're bound to enjoy at least a couple, especially as one is the extremely funny Matt Green. And I don't just say that because he's a friend of mine- I say it despite that.
John Oliver and Andy Zaltzman - the best satirical comedians around (alongside Armando Iannucci).
Richard Herring, Colin and Fergus, John Shuttleworth, Ben Willbond, Stewart Lee, Mark Watson, Simon Munnery - you can't go far wrong with any of these.