Being an early generation Xer, as a young man I grew up with the TV series friends. At the time Chandler was just one of the very funny characters that made this show so enjoyable to watch. It was only when the actor who played Chandler, Matthew Perry, passed away at the end of October this year that many interviews of him resurfaced where he openly spoke about his mental health issues and his struggle with alcoholism and drug abuse. Sadly, like many artistically talented folk before him, Matthew clearly had to battle for many years against his inner demons, a battle that finally he would lose although thankfully not at the tender age of 27 which is that strange age that appears to claim so many of rock stars. Below is a collection of funny moments from the first series of Friends.

We now move onto a slightly different genre of comedy sketches with this recent sketch by the comedian Tom Walker who has created a fictional character Jonathan Pie. Walker created his character by imagining what professional journalists might really think of the stories they are reporting on the TV, especially when they relate to the crazy goings on of our elected officials.

Most of his skits follow a format whereby Jonathan begins as if he is concluding his news report and then as he says the final line of his report "Jonathan Pie reporting from London" or something like this, he then goes into a massive comical rant about what he really thinks of the subject matter he has just reported on.

This sketch is a slight departure from his standard formula as here he imagines his character Jonathan, has been asked by the New York times to give a rundown for an American audience of UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson's character and behaviour. One of the distinct aspect of Pie's humour is that his rants often have an almost prophetic tone to them whereby the hearer is often left with a strong desire to say Amen as one feels his anger at the corruption that currently plagues the UK ruling class.

A common joke that does the round at medical school is: "What's the difference between God and a medical student?" Answer: "God doesn't think he is a medical student!". In many ways, this sketch reminds me of this joke although here Harry and Paul are capturing godlike properties of consultants along with their strange educated upper middle class foibles which is only really found inside the English class system.

I think one of the funniest comedy series made in the teens of the 21^st was the IT crowd. The concept of the series is based around the IT department of a big multinational (Reynholme industries) that produces a product that is never revealed (part of the comical concept of the whole series). The IT department consists of two geeky guys: a classical geek (Moss) and a more subtle geek (Roy) who boasts to his boss Jen in the final episode of the whole series that his girlfriend thinks he is on the "emotional artistic spectrum". In some episodes (including this one) a goth called Richmond, who lives in the Server room, also puts in an appearance just to add to fun.

The series in general was brilliant but like all series, there were some episodes that were particularly funny. This clip is taken from the first episode of season 2 where Moss and Roy gate crash a date with their boss Jen who taken to the theatre by a bloke she hopes will be her next love interest. Unfortunately for her, he is gay and the musical he takes them to is not what one would describe as "mainstream". Yet given this is Moss's very first time at the theatre, he is very impressed, although, unbeknown to him and Roy, things are going to get interesting as the episode unfolds with Roy having to fake he is disabled and Moss ending up working behind the drinks counter and causing utter mayhem. All crazy stuff that generates a ton of very funny comedy. The clip below is the beginning of this very funny episode.

Time for change of comedy genre. The two Ronnies are the type of comedians that you could safely take you neighbourhood monk to and they would probably not be offended. Ronnie Barker was very gifted at coming up with clever ideas for sketches and this one, while not a play on words, is nonetheless clever in its execution. It also has a nice little punchline to bring the sketch to a fitting conclusion

So it has been a tumultuous week in British politics which has resulted in comedy sketches being released left, right and centre as the politician make a fool of themselves giving the comedians plenty of material that is often a little hard to parody. Nerine Skinner has been parodying Liz Truss now for some months so of course she was always going to release a spoof of Liz's final speech as PM which of course was full of all the grace and humility you might expect from such a high calibre leader.

In the spirit of Private Eye's "Separated from birth" section below I have placed Liz's final speech under Liv's final speech. You the reader will have to work out which is which.

Liz Truss Leaving Speech 25^th of October 2022

Liv Struss Leaving Speech 25^th of October 2022

Time for some more Blackadder. The last time I cited Blackadder on this website was all the way back in June when the days were warm and long. That particular set of sketches was taken from the final series of Blackadder which was set in World War I. This Blackadder is set around the time of George the 3^rd and this historical context created lots of opportunities for the very clever comedy writers of Blackadder to create a series of master sketches. These wonderful sketches have brought many people much joy over many years and have raised the spirits of those who are feeling the "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune".