Just for the laughs Kevin Galea visits London’s The Comedians Pub, where every pint is accompanied by a punchline. Uncontrollable, convulsive laughter came out of the confessional box. “What do you want?” asked the barman. “What do you recommend?” “Something to make you funnier.” Crypts aren’t usually very amusing places. You don’t normally hear much laughter in them. Titters are hard to come by. Unless you are drinking in the undercroft of St George Church in Bloomsbury in central London. “How about a Rivers Deeper Vodka cocktail? Tart lemon juice,” said the barman behind the golden age of comedy bar-top. Mine host, David Hodge, also goes by the name ‘Very Miss O’, one of London’s most famous drag queens. “Or a Benny’s Pill? Or maybe some Long Comfortable Guffaws? Ginger and ginger beer.” Very Miss O’s alter ego winked. The Comedians Bar, at the Museum of Comedy, is a funny place. It’s fitted out with sitcom chairs from Father Ted and pews straight out of The Vicar of Dibley, as well a backcloth from the Old Players’ Theatre.

The bar top is part of the Tower Hamlets’ Wilton’s Theatre, the oldest surviving grand music hall, going back to the mid-19th century. The unique bar is to be found in London’s new Museum of Comedy. Museum curator and veteran comedy industry insider Martin Witts often pulls pints there. “The big idea is to make comedy an essential part of London tourism and ring-fence British comedy as the best in the world.” He was interrupted by raucous laughter from the confessional box. “It comes from the Dave Allen show. We’ve turned it into a joke booth. You can deposit your own joke there recorded for posterity.” Mine was “What do you call a judge with no thumbs? During his 30 year career, Witts has worked with Ken Dodd, Russ Abbot, Joan Rivers, Doug Stanhope, Norman Wisdom, Eddie Izzard, The Two Ronnies, Freddie Starr, Danny La Rue, Benny Hill and Paul O’Grady (Lily Savage). As artistic director of the West End’s Leicester Square Theatre, he has hosted over a thousand famous comedy acts and met most of comedy legends.

And he has come away with more than a few mementos and souvenirs – the museum has over 6,000 exhibits. “I have Captain Mainwaring’s binocular case from Dad’s Army and one of Hodges’s air warden hats, as well as Benny Hill’s mandolin, Tony Hancock’s homburg and coat, Spike Milligan’s piano and some original Goons scripts. arctic pear chandelier copy ukI have Monty Python scripts too.”chandelier pas cher gifi As well as live, stand-up comedy nights and magic shows, the museum’s cinema regularly screens silent comedies starring Laurel and Hardy and Chaplin. chandelier lotro“I also have a Chaplin cane. And some Tommy Cooper stuff, including an original fez and props like the plants stand for his vase and flower trick.

“I’m trying to find the chandelier from Only Fools and Horses, and am on the lookout for anything connected with Joan Rivers. I’ve already got a wig, one of her handbags and some shoes. “Then there’s a suit worn by Max Miller and Peter Kay’s The Way To Amrillo suit; the reception phone from the Fawlty Towers set; a pair of Russ Abbott’s brothel creepers; a pair of Charlie Cairoli’s super-sized clown shoes; and a pair of Little Tich’s shoes. Then there’s Bill Bailey’s six-head guitar and a pair of Ronnie Barker’s glasses, plus loads of original contracts, like Marie Loyd’s, as well as a number of tickets and flyers.” The museum also houses a collection of music hall posters from the early 19th century, besides what Witts claims to be the world’s earliest funny bone. It was found during excavation work underneath the floor of the crypt. There are over 40000 song sheets, videos, DVDs and an archive library containing thousands of books. “I suppose one of my favourite items must be the stuffed bear from Steptoe and Son, together with the human skeleton from the show.

I’ve also got the sign of Oil Drum Lane, where the show’s rag and bone scrapyard was. One of my proudest moments was outbidding a member of the Royal family in a Goons memorabilia auction!” Last orders were called. “One for the road?” asked the barman, answering his own feed. “I’m on a whisky diet. Last week I lost three days.” He looked around at the selection of London ales. “We’re waiting a delivery of Bill Bailey brew.” Nearby, a woman was playing with a guillotine as seen on The Tommy Cooper Show. We toasted the success of the museum. “I’ve still got 3000 items at home to sort through, and I get donations daily,” said Witts. “I’m planning to get some more fezs and fit them with earphones so people can walk around listening to the guided audio tour, while enjoying the gags. Museums should be fun places... people should be seen having a good time in them. There seem to be too many that are too solemn and serious. Time was called, but no bell rang.

Instead a loud foghorn sounded.“I got it from the theatre at the end of Blackpool’s North End pier.” with javascript turned on. Sicily, spoiling our tastebuds Varanasi – the oldest living city in the... Discover the colours of Barcelona Copyright © Allied Newspapers Ltd., printed on - 11-10-2016 - Printed content is for personal use only, and should not be distributedThe requested URL /?p=1849 was not found on this server.Exam Revision & Study Guides Bruce Springsteen New Bio & CD Alva Single Burner Stove Click Right Here forOnly Fools and Horses The Three Trotters Official T ShirtIt looks safe to say that the biggest British TV moment of 2015 will have been the final episode of The Great British Bake Off. More than 13 million tuned in to watch Nadiya Hussain’s tear-jerking victory speech – and she made headlines all over the world. Twee and kitsch Bake Off may be, filmed as it is from a marquee in the grounds of a posh country house with bunting fluttering around the contestants, but there’s no doubt that its appeal transcends age and gender.

Another such show climaxed at the start of December on BBC Two, with a tad fewer viewers. Four amateurs vied to be crowned Top Potter in The Great Pottery Throw Down, or at least make judge Keith Brymer Jones cry with joy (as he has managed at least once per episode, to the bewilderment of all). Eminently watchable, the challenges in this production have included blindfolded potting, crafting spectacular porcelain chandeliers, and the hilariously innuendo-fuelled pulling of cup handles. Matthew Wilcock, a young art teacher from North Yorkshire, walked away the ultimate winner. Spin-offs continue to multiply with abandon. We’ve already had six series of Bake Off, three of The Great British Sewing Bee, and two of The Big Allotment Challenge. And next year the format turns professional, with Bake Off: Crème de la Crème seeing teams of professional pastry chefs compete for glory. Go back to previous decades and the annual battle for the most viewers on TV was often between Coronation Street, Eastenders and Only Fools and Horses, not puff pastry and macarons.

We seem to be utterly compelled by shows about extremely mundane, even retro exercises such as baking, sewing and throwing pottery. And as an increasingly dematerialised, even deskilled society, this interest hints at a contradictory relationship to skilled practice and the crafts. David Pye, a skilled bowl turner and designer of industrial furniture, made a telling distinction in 1968 between the “workmanship of certainty”, and the “workmanship of risk”. He held the former to be increasingly prevalent in industrial society, characterised by mass production processes which leave little room for in the moment creativity and don’t demand close attention to material idiosyncracies. One iPad, after all, resembles exactly any other iPad. On the other hand, Pye held the workmanship of risk – craft – to be prominent in the material production of every human society until remarkably recently. Craft involves a perenially precarious balance of judgement, skill, and technique.

As Pye put it: An operative, applying the workmanship of certainty, cannot spoil the job. A workman using the workmanship of risk assisted by no matter what machine-tools and jigs, can do so at almost any minute. That is the essential difference. The risk is real. In contrast to those iPads, two hand-thrown cups, or two hand-stitched garments will never be exactly the same. And, as The Great British … series have shown us, they often fail in heart-breaking, mystifying, and gut-wrenching ways. Given this, it’s not particularly hard to see why a series such as the Allotment Challenge has struggled for viewers. Critics claimed it was too slow-moving or, as one put it, “as exciting as watching tomatoes dry”. The title screen of The Great Pottery Throw Down shows the dramatic disintegration of a beautiful clay pot. Where is the scope for such drama and nail-biting tension in the realm of allotment gardening? Gardening is inherently a slower process: much is left to the vagaries of the elements, and months pass between the sowing of seeds, harvesting, and preservation.

On the other hand, anyone who has watched the Throw Down over the last six weeks will be aware just how drastically risky pottery, like baking, can be. When the pots are taken out of the oven, this cruel viewer, at least, is secretly hoping for at least one dramatic breakage. Make your clay too dry and it’ll leave enormous cracks, too wet and it will collapse. Judge the speed of the potter’s wheel wrong and your clay will cave and crumple. Fail to remove air from the clay, or have too much variation in the thickness of vessel walls, and it will explode or crack when baked in 1200°C heat. Apply the wrong alchemy of powdered minerals for decoration and, after firing, you’ll be left with a dull, colourless dud. A rotten tomato on the other hand is, well, a rotten tomato. So what does our compulsion to watch the “workmanship of risk” in our millions tell us about crafts in contemporary society? One conclusion could be that in the hurried world of modern capitalism, microwaveable ready meals, next-day (or soon drone) delivery, IKEA-equipped houses and sweatshop-produced high-street clothing, there is still a deep-grained compulsion to appreciate timeless, artful skills.