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.

So I guess this strictly isn't comedy although it certainly contains very funny elements. I must confess I am mentally exhausted living in a world where wicked people always get away with it and seemingly never face the consequences of their many crimes. I think for me the last few years in Britain has been really tough as I have witness an extremist faction of the Tory party (the European Research Group) get control of the party and through their stooge Boris Johnson, completely reek havoc on the UK economy by taking Britain out of the European Union trading bloc while allowing a man like Johnson, who does not have a honest bone in his body, lie his way through his premiership. The harsh consequences for the country has been the highest death toll in Europe from Covid-19, a National Health Service in complete meltdown, sustained double digit inflation, a severe cost of living crisis that the government is not even pretending to deal with, and finally a political campaign to find Johnson's replacement fought by too completely incompetent non-entities who should not have a job cleaning toilets let alone running the UK as the next PM.

Anyway, in this video you will see how Kitboger strings along a professional scammer, who normally preys on poor old ladies and gentlemen, to waste 5 hours of his day and give him the complete run-around as he thinks he has an easy target on which to ply his trade. The sense of schadenfreude in is strong in this video.

Click here to see post in its original context.

Time to move to stand up comedy. This first sketch is an impressive little musical number with somewhat complex lyrics that explores (critiques) the American idea that where you fall on the political spectrum is a morally neutral choice. It makes it point rather successfully I feel through comedy although the song itself is definitely not a laugh minute tune.

Diane Morgan plays a famous character in the UK comedy scene called Philomena Cunk. While searching for funny comedy sketches for this section of my website, I came across this Youtube video of her working her craft as a stand up comedian. One of the interesting things about stand up comedy, is that comedians definitely inject their own unique characters into their routines. It is clear from Cunk and Morgan's routine in this little clip that she would be a person with an incredibly dry wit which completely permeates her whole character.

In fact, to give you a feel of Diane in a real life situation, I have also included this interview of her with her director Charlie Brooker. It is clear from some of the statements that Charlie makes, that he really doesn't have the first idea of what makes Diane tick. Sixteen minutes into this video Brooker says "Philomena is sort of on some unknowable level like or horse or something...It's hard to know what her inner life is or is that just me" To which Diane replies: I wouldn't say it was an absence of character"

Ryan George has a real gift of taking the cultural furniture that has been with us for our whole lives and exposing just how strange it really is when observed from a different perspective. I guess our Christmas paraphernalia is ripe for such parody given the thousands of Christmas songs that have accumulated over the centuries this season has been celebrated in the Western world.

Frosty the Snowman has always been one of my favourites since our next door neigbour once bought my daughter Grace a dancing singing snowman with this tune programmed into it. Strangely enough the version in our snowman is a little different to the classic one. Perhaps I am doing a Peter Kay by mishearing the lyrics of my dancing snowman but it truly likes he is singing:

"🎼 Frosty the snowman was a jolly happy soul, with a pink carnation and a button nose and a lively 'I don't know'🎵". My youngest autistic daughter Rebekah and I now regularly sing these words as we both find them rather amusing in their silliness.

If you're a nervous flyer perhaps best not watch this sketch. Aircraft have definitely been a setting for many comical scenes over the years