大象传媒

Need a laugh? You’re not alone. In these testing times, unable to see friends and hug loved ones, comedy has never felt more necessary. Laughter may not literally be the best medicine, but it’ll give you a healthy shot of feelgood endorphins to hold back those lockdown blues.

Comedy is a comfort blanket

Fawlty Towers: Never has a car been struck with a small tree quite so well

When it comes to entertainment, we’re living in the era of the box-set binge-watch. Big budget drama shows get most of the hype and column inches these days, but I like to think it’s comedy that will stand the test of time. Cast your mind back to your childhood… what are the TV shows you remember; that still unleash a little ‘yay’ inside? I’ll bet you it’s the ones that made you laugh. For me, it’s things like Blackadder, The Day Today, Fawlty Towers and I’m Alan Partridge – programmes I was introduced to by my parents or discovered myself, that not only made me giggle like a maniac but also gave me new words or phrases I etched onto my brain, like “Monkey Tennis”, or “I have a cunning plan.” Comedy can make us think and question our world as drama does, but it also has that wonderful ‘comfort blanket’ quality – the joy of hearing favourite catchphrases and running jokes, like laugh-inducing mantras for the soul.

It's our identity

Whilst live comedy is sadly on hold and current productions are forced to down tools, there are delights to be had in raiding the comedy archives. The 大象传媒 Sounds Classic Comedy season has curated some hand-picked gems that represent the best of radio comedy stretching back as far as the 1950s. It’s a body of work that I’d say’s about as representative of our national identity as it gets. I’ve travelled a lot for work, and the first thing people I meet abroad always say – after, “why do you spell ‘Leicester Square’ like that?” – is how much they love British comedy. We’re famous across the globe for our propensity for, and commitment to, humour. Never forget, we are the nation who, when faced with the dark threat of Hitler, chose to compose a humorous song about his lack of a second testicle.

We've got a lot of it to enjoy

So, as we face our current adversity, let’s take a little comfort in this rich treasure trove of classic 大象传媒 comedy – The Goon Show, for instance, so wonderfully surreal, delivering the comic legends that were Spike Milligan and Peter Sellers to the world. You’d be hard pushed to find much modern comedy that hasn’t been touched, even indirectly, by its influence. The Mighty Boosh, another brilliantly imaginative series included in this season, can definitely be seen as the Goons’ Rock n Roll skinny-jeaned grandchild.

Hancock’s Half Hour is another golden oldie that leaps out at me. Listen to Tony Hancock, the original deadpan genius, and then trace a comedy lineage to Jack Dee, Jo Brand, and Paul Merton.

Tony Hancock: Joy personified

Talking to the nation sixty-odd years after Hancock did, is the sharp and funny Tez Ilyas, giving us his own take on Britain, from the perspective of growing up as a Muslim here. You’ll find three series of his excellent show Tez Talks in the comedy archive.

There are panel shows too, like Just a Minute – in my opinion, pound for pound, one of the most solid deliverers of snort-your-tea-through-your-nose-inducing laughter ever, now more poignant listening since the passing of host Nicholas Parsons.

And it's all cathartically joyful

Put any of these mighty programmes into a capsule and fire it into space, and you’d give aliens a good idea of British identity – the humour hardwired into our DNA; often silly, sometimes surreal, regularly self-deprecating, but always cathartically joyful.
A final mention for this season must go to a foreign import. Flight of the Conchords. Whilst their TV series would take them to New York, the radio version is set and recorded in London, with Rob Brydon narrating and it still remains the Usain Bolt-style standard-setter for modern musical comedy.

Of course, the above selection is only the tip of a classic radio comedy iceberg awaiting your aural delectation, so get listening and remember, it’s not just Joe Wicks that can get a nation’s endorphins going…