ON TOPIC! I went to see Jason Mountford recently...

by **Keith** » Tue Mar 15, 2011 9:00 am

I went to see Jason Mountford a couple of weeks ago. Very funny night and plenty of audience participation... "this show's lasted forty minutes longer than normal with all that heckling".

One guy had a really odd laugh. It was both very deep and booming, but loud. Also it was sometimes a moment behind everyone else, or perhaps it was simply that he laughed a moment longer than everyone else, so occasionally it was noticeable. Jason Mountford noticed and started taking the rip out of the guy. And everyone laughed. He raised a laugh commenting about the guy needing to improve his timing and get closer to the punch line.

Anyway, he moves on and is talking about something else. Just a moment before the punch line, this booming laugh goes off! Everyone falls about laughing, including Mountford. He says something like 'there's no greater feeling than making a thousand people laugh together and that's why I love comedy'. He said to the guy to hold that moment and enjoy it but as he turns away he said "but that's as good as that joke gets, you've got to let it go". Sure enough, a few minutes later and the same boom goes off again and receives a minor chortle from the people immediately around him and silence from everyone else. Mountford kills him with a whithering look and a wave of the hand at the silent audience. Shaking his head "you could have left with the funniest moment of the night but you had to kill your own joke".

Sammy finishes... a jigsaw puzzle
Sammy leaves.... his coat at training
Bentley signs for... whoever some other Bentley went to

...and in jokes repeated ad-infinitum.

If you want your own private in-joke-board, I can happily help you set one up. We have folk complaining about "the clique" as if it is something the moderators are a part of or should do something about. So you're own playground may be something we can do something about? Right now, we really are getting a constant stream of 'alerts' and complaints about the puerile behaviour. Now I'm not above puerile behaviour myself sometimes. Sarcasm is my stock humour. Talentless & baseless jokes, definitely, supplemented only by awful puns. But I hope I don't over do it? And if I did over do it, I would take a warning from others and tone it done a bit.

If all you can do is a loud guffaw, then you just become a one trick pony, and not a very funny one.