Writing an original joke is easy. You just put words together. Writing an original joke that is also FUNNY is far harder – the reject pile proves that. I do think, though, that there are some formulas that can be used to raise the chances of them being successful. Like food flavours, each one appeals to different people – so I wondered which worked best for me (none of the following are written by me, I hasten to add; all are by comedians I idolise: Ken Dodd, Emo Phillips, Ben Elton, and many more)…

“Mis-Direction.” A good start. Man walks into a bar. His nose bleeds. Iron Bar.

“Intellectually obscure”: Sorry, we don’t serve time-travellers in here. Dr Who walks into a bar.

“Clever wordplay”: A man walks into a bar. Asks the barmaid for a double entendre. So she gives him one.

“Impeccable logic”: A duck walks into a bar, asks for a pint and a sandwich. Barman remarks they don’t get many ducks in. Duck replies he’s working locally on a job. Another man walks in, barman’s friend. Barmen tells man about duck and friend goes over to duck’s table to offer duck job with the circus. ‘Why does the circus need a plasterer?’ queries a baffled duck.  

“Cruel but funny”: A duck walks into an off-licence. “Got any bread?” asks the duck. “No” replies the assistant, “we sell booze, not bread. “Oh” says the duck and leaves. Two hours later the duck is back, “Got any bread?” asks the duck. “No” replies the assistant, “I told you before that we sell booze, not bread. “Oh” says the duck and leaves. An hour later the duck is back: “Got any bread?” asks the duck. “No” replies the assistant, “and I’ve told you twice now. If you come asking again, I’ll nail your beak to the shop counter.” “Oh” says the duck and leaves. Three hours later the duck is back. “Got any nails?” asks the duck. “No” replies the assistant.“ “Oh” says the duck, “got any bread?”

And of course, theatrical humour: the very finest, to my mind, of all time lines ever; courtesy of Mr Ken Dodd, who knows because he was there: “Freud said that laughter is the conservation of psychic energy. Then again, Freud never played second house, Friday Night, at the Glasgow Empire.”

It’s timing and presentation too of course. Take a look at “Live From the Apollo” and note that the acts who pace themselves and communicate best with the audience get the most laughs. The “rule of three” build up structure – letting the audience think they are clever by planting a meaningless line three times during an act before paying it off near the end is just one great example of keeping people with you.

So, what makes me laugh? Those who have the gift and are willing to share it. Laughter I think really is the best medicine in the world (unless you are diabetic of course, in which case Insulin is even better).

My name’s been Steve, you’ve been great, and I’m here all week. Thank you very much and goodnight!

Anyway, the LBC presenter asked listeners to call in and explain to him “When does protest help?” He was referring to the day those protesting outside St Pauls were told by a court to shift. Aside from making work for public cleaning staff, the radio presenter’s stance was that the whole event was a failure. Hence his question to the wider public (and is it just me who misses when LBC was our LOCAL radio station? No. fine. Back to the subject again)…

In my Dreamland anticipatory state, I instantly thought of one example where public protest worked brilliantly: the removal of the ridiculous “Poll Tax” of the early 1990s. Riots are never a good means of making a protest in a democracy… but that one I felt did a greater national good – there’s nothing wrong with paying tax if you have an income of any sort, but when you don’t…

Still, what got me thinking was that normally, it’s the smaller stuff that folk can get changed if they try hard enough. In my own area of theatre customer services, examples included the numerous protests about the very high stage of the London Palladium when “The Wizard Of Oz” opened. Within months of opening, Andrew Lloyd Webber was spotted (allegedly) with his welding torch, mask and can of acetylene, going in through the stage door. Now, he may have been about to sack the Musical Director, or releasing the Tin Man from his costume… but it was odd how the stage two days later was much lower. I do still get anxious emails checking how good the view is from the mid front stalls though – OK, I’m informed.

Another success came last week when a reader pointed out that one seat-back opera glasses holder badly restricted his legroom while watching a play. A quick email to my friends at the Opera Glasses company, a visit from their crack team of opera glasses holder installers (ask your careers officers how you get into that one, kids!) and the issue is no more. Result.

For myself, and also this week, I managed to get one of those nagging problems resolved. No, I don’t mean finally convincing Mr P that “The Priory” might make a wonderful holiday destination this year for him (though, it would). I mean making my life easier by getting one ticketing company who had changed a page layout into something unreadable for me to bring back a “parallel” version of their old and perfectly good page too. It’s to their advantage of course, as I can now list easily their offers again, but still wonderful.

To finish on a wider scale once more, I was even happier to hear that Westminster Council will not proceed with their outrageously stupid plan to charge for evening parking in theWest End. Destroying evening trade for restaurants, theatres and other venues was bad enough as customers would go elsewhere. My concern, though, was the effect on those who work in the area and who face difficult and (particularly for the younger women) dangerous journies home. Further, as they are going home, coming into town are armies of cleaners, maintenance workers and other night working staff – all carrying out essential work at a quiet time so that easier work can be done later on. This time, public voice changed things, no tents or hooliganism required. “When do protests change things,” Mr LBC presenter? When they are justified, for the greater good, and gone about in the right way, I’d say.

Now, I’m the first to want the “’Uman Rights Act” repealed in this country as it is a licence for officious lunatic behaviour – and I’m the first to condemn anybody using it as such. In this case, though, I REALLY hope the lady wins.

Why? Because it might inject some common sense into the system. Without having the full facts (there are two sides to every story, of course) it seems on the surface that somebody working at something that might get them a job that they are qualified to do was asked to do something that would set their career back – and indeed take a place away from somebody else who might be seeking a retail career (quite a fun sector to work in, as I’ve done often).

Common sense would instantly suggest the museum worker should have her work designated as appropriate as the shop job – and be treated accordingly.

From my own experience, I know the system is set up to benefit / target only those at the very bottom of the heap. Defenceless folk who won’t or can’t fight back, sly ones who figure out how to cheat the system, and heaven help anybody decent who is forced into one of those places.

The staff there do take a battering from some customers, but are also tied by rules so stolid that anybody going against them is crushed by them; but anybody wishing to tunnel under them can do so without fear of being crushed by them.

In my own case, I was once offered a much needed job in a place about 15 miles from any public transport whatsoever and no housing either – the era of the ‘out of town offices’ that infrastructure never caught up with. The much touted “social fund” was offering loans to help people get into work… could they help – perhaps with a car loan or rent deposit? No! Result: one claimant continued until, two weeks later, he realised what a crock it all was and started doing his own thing. Oh, and I know four others who came to the same conclusions and did the same.

My point is that it isn’t really about “stopping the Shameless Community of Chatsworth Estate” from defrauding us all – as I know, you never know when you may need the system you pay into each week. What it is about is having the imagination to target the right help to each individual. My guess is that the sooner staff are free to do this, the sooner the enormous cost of the system will fall…

Nice dreaming, anyway.

My guess is that “Made In Calvary” (the preferred title over “The † Factor,” “You Rang, M’Lord” and “Christ Cross Quiz”) will see first round auditionees forming long lines outside various chapels up and down the country, hoping to impress the choir-masters.

Those lucky enough to be “raised up” to the next level will report to “Herod’s Kindergarten” for the elimination stage. A gruelling selection process climaxes in the famous “walk across the swimming pool” – with anybody actually making it over getting an automatic place in the final 12 disciples, and the rest being selected from among those who don’t actually drown.

Making it through to the live TV shows, the 12 will face a panel consisting of “The Lord” himself, The Archbishop of Canterbury and Imogen Thomas (who will also lead a spinoff show searching for ‘Mary’ on Babestation an hour later). This panel are a late choice after Satan pleaded busy with his “Britain’s Got Talent” series, and both the Pope and Katie Price turned it down for being “too tacky.”

As ever, each night contestants will sing one ‘popular’ song, plus a hymn. Once all contestants have sung, the phone lines will be open to supplicants. Calls will cost no more than 30 pieces of silver from a BT Landline, mobile providers may charge more. Don’t call after the ‘Last Supper’ as your prayers will not be answered but you may still be charged.

Yes, once phonelines close, the disciples will gather around a long table, and a Judas will announce the results “in no particular order.” The two with the fewest votes will be dragged away by Roman soldiers and nailed (fake) to two crosses in front of the judging panel.

After a final sing-off, Andrew Lloyd Webber will decide which of the two will be “resurrected” and come back next week. The loser will then be required to throw down his crown of thorns as he ascends towards the studio ceiling in a cloud of dry ice singing the final notes from the show as he does. This nearly causes a riot in the first episode when, instead of the final theme from “Superstar” being played, the “Up, Up, Up to the Heaviside Layer” closing sequence from “Cats” is accidentally substituted.

The credits will roll, and the show’s sponsor will assure us that “B and Q have all your hardware and materials needs.”

Regular readers of this blog might be surprised at how cynical I am about this idea, given what a huge fan I am of these casting programmes. Somehow, this time, it just doesn’t seem quite so tasteful. The show itself is magical, and from it I easily understood precisely why Christianity inspires so many – it is founded on an amazing tale of faith indeed. It’s also about a man exhibiting a great degree of humility, though… something at odds with the brashness of television.

The Muslim faith have a deeply protective attitude towards their revered icons and strictly forbid their physical representation at all. Somehow, with ideas like this around, I do rather see their point. I do hope the stage show goes ahead, and no doubt I’ll watch the TV show too if that does – but it’s a fine line and I do rather hope any production team make a perfect job of staying on the right side of it.

Now, by “half the country” I’m not being PC or religiously sensitive. No. I’m dividing the country strictly on “gender” lines – and am pretty confident that the supermarket visit (and much of the rest of the preparation) will fall to the female half of the community. Sure, there’ll be exceptions, but I’m still not betting against it.

So, that annual ‘Daily Mail’ism repeated,  it got me thinking. Not about how I could save a lady a trip to the supermarket – as its not an issue I’m dealing with myself – but just what supermarkets would be like if they were designed to be used entirely by MEN…

For a start, they’d be miles bigger. Great wide aisles, and no need for trolleys with dodgy wheels. Why? Powered golf buggies. Why push and walk when you can ride and grab? Oh, and the on-board checkout facility eliminates that line too.

Next up, the entrance area. Full of green healthy stuff now, and the smell of bread. When TerryCo replaces TessaCo, it’s beer pyramids (at 10p a can) at the door, with the scent of either beer or the female supermodel greeter in place enticing men further into the store.

Moving on, the aisles are no longer a jumble of illogical marriages like “jam next to oven cleaner next to gerbil food” to make us walk (or drive, at TerryCo) past everything else. No, for those computer illiterate saps who haven’t gone straight down the main motorway from beer entrance to “collect your entire pre-ordered list from the smiling ex-barmaid” counter (or maybe the man dashing from the office for a ‘top up’ lunch or get something in for an unexpected lucky dinner date)… every aisle is organised by meal.

The breakfast aisle has your bacon next to your eggs and the pan and oil to fry it in. The lunch aisle is (of course) beer and sandwiches (cheese or ham, pickle or no – with a non-smelly tuna or egg option for the exotic taste).

Dinner aisle: Frozen ready meal city. You name it, we have it – and in alphabetical order from Beef Bolognaise to Tikka Masala. Of course, it’s accepted that some men will want something a little more substantial – and nobody beats mum’s cooking. Thus on one side of the aisle the unemployment crisis among women has been solved with a row of shiny wonderful mothers, each equipped with a stove to turn out a roast dinner to take away – fresh and tasty as you remember it and every plate full of love. They even have a cupboard over the oven to hand you a bottle of Heinz Tomato or Brown sauce from… or vinegar from their home made chips of course. In summer, the cookers are swapped for Barbecues of course – which customers are free to take over and try while the mums produce an emergency replacement meal free.

Driving on, and yes, there’s cleaning materials. Arranged by room. And function. So, bathroom: bath cleaner (made for TerryCo in a ‘one spray and then rinse off with the shower attachment “at full blast ‘cos it’s fun” mode. Sink cleaner, ditto. Toilet aisle. One squirt, five years protection bottle available… plus (expensive, as they know it’ll sell) another that works instantly to remove all smells and stains the second your mother or other significant female rings your doorbell.

There’s actually even a kitchen cleaner section too – but that mostly contains fun things like powerful drain unblockers which produce amusing bubbly snakes when applied to bite through the grime.

Elsewhere in store of course there’s a “life saver” aisle of perfectly wrapped gift items from flowers to jewellery – graded from “sorry I broke the vase” to “yeah, in Love and if you mention it I’ll kill you.” Another aisle of clothes has football shirts of all nations and emergency office shirts (with free ironing on purchase) of all offices.

Sure, there’s fresh fruit and veg available too. The “Bird Table” (as the store labels it – in a non-sexist way, just because it sounds good and is what feathered birds eat – so the PR man will try and have you believe) has it all, but as it’s at the end of the store, furthest from the door and is never changed until the fruit is able to march to the dustbin on its own, it gets ignored…

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And with that Christmas dream, I’m signing off for 2011. This is the last entry from me until around 11^th January 2012. The website takes a lot of time before that, and the office is also closed for a much needed break too. For those last minute gifts, the book is still available – so make somebody’s Christmas and give a little Theatremonkey while you can.

Best wishes for a happy holiday and peaceful 2012 to all, and again thanks for reading this year.

Steve.

Too young to really appreciate it back then, watching this box set was a mixture of my own nostalgic feelings, coupled with a deep wonderment at the memories it triggered – and an amazement at just how far we have come as a nation.

For those who don’t know the programme, it concerns a dentist, his wife and twenty year old layabout sons living a comfortable lifestyle in Cheltenham. He is a keen lepidopterist with a semi-detached attitude to his wife and tremendous frustration with his sons’ lack of work ethic. She is sick of her pre-feminist era role of “just a housewife” and enjoys chance (never more than chat) meetings with a divorced businessman who is driven around by his chauffeur thanks to one lost driving licence. The sons exist happily on a diet of dole money and young women, with little concern for those around them or the future.

The acting is less naturalistic and more “stage speech” than we are used to – though that evolves as the series continues. It’s all still considerably more cerebral than today’s ‘one liner’ comedy, with the real beauty found in the contemplation of lines and delivery – not just the smart arrangement of the words.

Production values aside, it’s the portrait of how we once lived (well within my own memory) that marks this out for me as compulsive viewing.

A dentist, earning a good enough salary to run a large house with 3 cars and a cleaner. Yet neither his house (nor those of his neighbours) are double glazed. No front gardens are bricked over for parking space – and indeed there is ample space at every curb to park a car. Even in the centre of town – and no ticket machines and marked bays either.

You’d be lucky to make it that far, though. Those cars don’t appear to have safety glass, airbags, compulsory seatbelts or anything to protect such tiny and light metal objects from impact. Further, they are all just bolted and welded with cables to control everything – how do they keep going without a computer to run the engine?

Out of the car, the park has not a bit of graffiti and nor do any of the streets. The streets themselves appear ‘ethnically cleansed’ and every shop assistant was educated at Grammar School.

You won’t spot a charity shop, just a varied collection of small businesses, which folk still need to visit daily to stock up for the evening meal and get to before “half day” and Sunday closing. The one supermarket would be a mini-mart today, bringing an ironic smile as I recall one local ‘major’ supermarket that became a video store in the early 90s and just last year became a ‘minor’ supermarket for another chain. Where once you would do a shop for a whole week, the space cannot contain enough to satisfy more than an office lunch run now. What do we do with it all (and does the obesity rate have anything to do with it?).

Back home, the dentist makes it home for lunch each day – a cooked one (badly, the running joke of the series) at that. Never a frozen M&Smeal. Or curry. Or Spaghetti Bolognaise. And it comes from the actual oven. No “Chicken Tikka Ping” (named for the sound the microwave makes when it’s ready).

On the other hand, there’s a sense of continuity, parents passing still valid experiences to sons, knowing their lives will turn out the same – a job leading to regular employment until retirement, affordable home if they work for it, values shared by a community unafraid to discuss and demonstrate them.

The pace is slow, aspirations more modest and life takes a little longer… you wouldn’t want it all back (strikes, shoddy goods, Bay City Rollers) but a little gentle waft from a butterfly’s wing would be nice.

Thanks Alessia Horwich, much appreciated!

I got just such a wake up call last week, when I was invited to see “Chicago” in its new home at the Garrick Theatre. One unusual feature of this show is that it begins at 8pm. A common occurrence when I was younger, but now costs and contracts deem 7.30pm a cheaper curtain time – and for those emigrating back outside the M25 area by public transport, it’s a welcome alteration.

Anyway, even for those of us blessed (well, sometimes) with access to the London Underground network, it pays to allow a wide margin for error. So, I chose to leave only a little after my usual time that I’d go if the curtain were 7.30pm. As a result, I arrived in Zone 1 (tube passenger speak for the central area of London, including the West End) with time to spare. It was then I decided to become a tourist.

For those who don’t know, London is one of the most walkable places on earth. Nothing is very far from anything else within Zone 1, and it is often quicker to walk somewhere (if you know the streets) than take any other form of transport. Thus a decision to alight (another tube passenger term, for “leave the train”) at Oxford Circus rather than Charing Cross (nearest station to the theatre) was taken.

And it was a good one…

Forget the advertising that has to exist in order that the rest of the display might… the Oxford Street and Regent Street Christmas – and anybody PC can feel free to substitute their own word if they like, to me they are the Christmas – Lights this year remain a seasonal joy.

Oxford Street’s are symbols against the dark sky, while Regent Street has gone for beautiful cobwebs, fading in and out in dazzling blue white along the length of the street.

Put simply, very, very beautiful.

Among my fellow pavement users, some stopped and shared the experience, others hurried by oblivious, but for me it was a little moment ‘out’ from the rush to enjoy something I’ve grown up with and rediscover it once more.

Later that night, rather than take the tube a couple of stops, I walked along from the theatre, via Leicester Square, to Green Park Station for a homeward connection. No Christmas lights this time, just lighted windows both at street level and above. This time, it was the glorious parade of architecture from the 1700s onwards that were caught in the perfection of a clear night. Again a reminder of those who built this city for us, and what we can still achieve.

As the writer Bill Bryson observed, in England, its always worth looking above the plastic signs, for there is treasure to be found – even for those who think they see things every day. As for London, Dr J’s wise words also still hold true. Tire of London? Never.