If it wasn’t sickening enough to see that Marcus Brigstocke hosts an annual comedy festival at a ski resort, the old corporate gig seems to be raising its profile, with a recent business course from LearnDirect employing the services of comedy actors Ricky Gervais, Hugh Laurie, Dawn French and James Nesbitt.
I mean - yes, I obviously sound extremely working class saying this - but come on, have some integrity!
I could accept perhaps a small gig in the Alps. Perhaps a course on comedy employing the services of these famous names.
But business? Ski resort comedy festivals?
What next, Edinburgh Festival moves to an ice palace, or Monte Carlo?
These people know who they are, and they should be ashamed of themselves. It is making a mockery of the comedy industry, and you should all think very carefully about what you’re doing.
This weeks Comedy Dialogue of the Week is by Ben Elton and Richard Curtis, and comes from the first episode of Blackadder III. Prince George’s (Hugh Laurie) butler Edmund Blackadder (Rowan Atkinson) works to undermine the Prime Minster’s (Pitt the Younger) plans to remove the Prince Regent’s income.
Calling on royalist Sir Talbot Buxomly to sway the vote in their favour, Blackadder and the Prince are astonished to find that he has died mid conversation…
EDMUND: We must move at once.
PRINCE GEORGE: In which direction?
EDMUND: Sir Talbot represented the constituency of Dunny-on-the-Wold, and, by an extraordinary stroke of luck, it is a rotten borough.
PRINCE GEORGE: Really! Is it! Well, lucky-lucky us. Lucky-lucky-luck. (as a chicken) Luck-luck-LAKK-LAKK-LAKK-LAKK-cluck-cluck-cluck-cluck-cluck
-LAKK-LAKK-LAKK.
EDMUND: You don’t know what a rotten borough is, do you, sir.
PRINCE GEORGE: No.
EDMUND: So what was the chicken impression in aid of?
PRINCE GEORGE: Well, I just didn’t want to hurt your feelings. Erm, so, what is a robber button?
EDMUND: Rotten borough.
PRINCE GEORGE: Oh, yes, you’re right.
EDMUND: A rotten borough, sir, is a constituency where the owner of the land corruptly controls the both the voters and the MP.
PRINCE GEORGE: Good, yes…and a robber button is…?
EDMUND: Could we leave that for a moment? Dunny-on-the-Wold is a tuppenny-ha’penny place. Half an acre of sodden marshland in the Suffolk Fens with an empty town hall on it. Population: three rather mangy cows, a dachshund named `Colin’, and a small hen in its late forties.
PRINCE GEORGE: So, no people at all, then? apart from Colin…
EDMUND: Colin is a dog, sir.
If you missed it, now would be a good time to read over the recent Times interview with the multi-talented Hugh Laurie, about aspects of his life and his fame in the USA as the star of House.
Probably the least likely of all British actors to become a star of American television, Laurie has nevertheless been hugely successful, with a possibility of a further 4 series of House to come.
His role as Dr Gregory House has however lead to him being the subject of the paparazzi.
No, really…
“It used to be the case that the only people who paid any attention to me were those who liked what I did,” he says, drawing on the first of many cigarettes. “Now I get noticed by people who don’t care whether I live or die – probably want me to die. That takes a bit of getting used to.” But he gets a reasonable press, doesn’t he, by and large? “I don’t know. I try to avoid it. I hope you won’t be offended, but I won’t read this.”
“I’ve had it a lot better than many people. I went to a pub with Kenneth Branagh once and a man shouted, ‘Oi, Branagh! You’re a c***!’”
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