John Barry Humphreys 17^th February 1934 – 22^nd April 2023.

As with Covid Island Discs, I will occasionally publish a comedy sketch when something significant happens in the world of comedy. Sadly, usually the most significant events are related to deaths of a famous comedians. On the 22^nd of April 2023, the famous Aussie comedian Barry Humphreys (aka Dame Edna Everage) passed away after complications developed from a hip replacement. During his long life he made many people laugh as his alter egos Dame Edna Everage and Sir Les Patterson. Below is a compilation of Dame Edna doing her thing on various talk shows. If you grab a bingo card you can also play spot the famous celebrity sitting next to Dame Edna. Sadly, too many of them, like dear Olivia Newton John are also no longer with us.

So working through the comedians in the comedy picture spread above, Rowen Atkinson's famous comedy creation Mr Bean always brings a laugh to most people. Apparently Bean is popular even without translation in other languages because his humour is so visual. The set of sketches in this video are well worth watching if your day needs a lift with some light slap stick comedy. I particularly enjoy when Bean goes to the theatre to watch a horror movie with his long-suffering girlfriend.

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.

Another funny sketch from Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse. In this series part of the charm of this humour was simply capturing the odd characteristics of certain iconic characters that exist in every generation in this strange world we all find ourselves in. The ultra posh private Harley Street specialist routine is just so funny as in high powered medicine you do end up getting some characters, especially at the top echelons of the profession.

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

In week 23 I posted some material from the series the IT crowd which was a brilliant series that screened in the naughties. Although all the episodes were very funny, two that were exceptionally good were "Are we not men?" (a nice reference to Devo there) and "The work outing". I have already cited the first bit of the work outing in September last year so now it is time for the next instalment. For the context of where this sketch starts, click here to watch part I.

Time for another sketch from Armstrong and Miller. In their comedy series, they developed thematic sketches and one of their themes was the hapless educational historian who examines "priceless" historical artefacts only to accidentally destroy them through some odd mishap. A very simple but effective comedic theme.