Comedian Duncan Oakley has appealed for the return of a career’s worth of jokes after a thief stole two disc drives from his home.

A burglar broke into his home in Nottingham earlier this month and took a laptop bag containing the drives.

They have little financial value, but contain more than 20 years worth of material, as well as irreplaceable family photographs.

The comic has placed an appeal on Facebook for their return, hoping to appeal to the thief’s better nature.

And in a touch of wry humour, he offered to give the burglar a singing stuffed toy dog that he left behind if the drives are returned.

On the video, Oakley says: ‘This morning we had someone come into our little house and steal a laptop bag and my wife’s purse.

‘At first I was quite happy because the laptop wasn’t in the bag (or my wife’s purse) – but then I realised I had two hard drives in the bag that were not dumped in the neighbour’s bin

‘So someone has taken the two hard drives. They are WD – Western Digital – hard drives. One is an older black Elements hard drive, just a plain black box with a plug at the bottom. The other is a WD My Passport in a pale blue colour.

‘They contain 20 years of work for me as well as family photos and all sorts of things. So I’m appealing to anyone in the Nottingham area or anyone who can maybe share this film maybe find these hard drives or to the good nature of the person whose life is probably not as good as ours.’

Then he hold up the irritating toy dog and says: ‘Of all the things you could have taken you left with us with this. Thank you for that. My son loves this annoying hound.’

The stolen drives cost just over £30 new for the 1TB versions, and will go for a fraction of that price on the black market.

Oakley's clip has been viewed more than 90,000 times after it was shared repeatedly on Facebook.