Not stand up but...



Basil Fawlty: Manuel put it on those trays.

Manuel: No no Mr Fawlty. Unos, dos, tres.





or



Father Ted: Right, one more time. These are small, but the ones out there are far away.... Small.... Far away.





As for Spike Milligan, his imagination and creativity in comedy was ahead of his time. Listen to old Goons recordings. Not everyone's cup of tea. A lot of funny people have credited him as being their inspiration. Then again if you watch the programme Curry & Chips you can see how he fell out of the mainstream

There is a very good biography written about him by his personal assistant of 30-odd (probably very odd) years, "Memories of Milligan" by Norma Farnes gives a lot of insight into his personal life and personal turmoil with life-long depression which he always attributed to his experiences as a gunner in Italy during WW2, his own written memoirs of that time tend to gloss over the real issues he had and try to put a funny spin on it.



A quote from her ...







His contemporaries, the comedians and other script writers that he worked with speak of his generosity too, for instance he'd bought a house in central London just to work in and write by himself but after setting up his own and Norma Farnes' office he was left with several upstairs rooms and so would let aspiring writers use them cheaply or for free as long as they didn't disturb him downstairs, the comedy writers Galton and Simpson and also Eric Sykes became long term residents there.



A line from him as a review of a not-very-good comedian that he'd seen : "He left an indelible blank on my mind,"

The number of times we've looked at each other and done the: "It's perspective" routine: we were half disappointed that Linehan hadn't shoehorned it into his stage version of [iThe Ladykillers[/i.



We also tend to find ourselves doing a version of the 'whipped' pronunciation routine between Stewie and Brian from [iFamily Guy[/i.

At the other end of the spectrum, I went to a cricket club's annual dinner where the "turn" was Norman Collier. His most famous routine was playing a club's MC with a broken mic. Unfortunately on this occasion Collier's mic genuinely was faulty and kept cutting out, but not of course at the right places. Completely ruined his act, after 10 mins he sat down with his head in his hands.

As opening lines go, the bloke who did the Leeds ex-players dinner a few years ago had a pretty good one, as Jerry Chicken will attest to.



Thanks very much. I nearly didn't make it here tonight because I came on the bus. It's alright though - I made it look like an asthma attack.





The rest of the turn was utterly forgettable

There are times and situations and often involve drink, where you find yourself sat at a table of hysteria, when he told that joke there was a quiet ripple of laughter to start with, then ten seconds later the laughter started and then I can't remember any other joke that he told but I do remember thinking that if I kept on laughing much longer I was going to be sick, what with all that banoffee pie I'd eaten, and everything.

Slightly paraphrased to make it comply with the AUP.



My father died making love. He did. My father was 57 when he died. The woman was 18. My father came and went at the same time.



Richard Pryor

86 today.



Happy Birthday, Doddy

Doddy needs to pack it in, he hasn't been funny for 20 years, should have followed Russ Abbotts example

Next time you decide to repeat yourself in the same thread, you might find it helps to make an attempt at consistency.

Tommy Cooper



"Ireland’s worst air disaster occurred early this morning when a small two-seater Cessna plane crashed into a cemetery. Irish search and rescue workers have recovered 1826 bodies so far and expect that number to climb as digging continues into the night"

Russ Abbott was brilliant for a time. Unfortunately he was that good he was on TV every week for about 3 years so people got bored. Apparently you can have too much of a good thing.