Carl Donnelly on what makes him laugh

Question Time

A strange choice for a >list of things that make me laugh but there is nothing I like more than seeing politicians fighting over rounds of applause. That is basically all QT actually is. It is like a gong show for politicians.

I think the finest moment on television is when a panel member says their piece and builds to a passionate crescendo only for it to get nothing and after an awkward silence, Dimbleby just throws it to another panel member. The look on their poor face is priceless. It is very similar to stand-up in the sense that there is no more heartbreaking moment than doing a joke that you think is a banker only for an audience to look at you like you’re an idiot!

The only person none of this applies to is Peter Hitchens who seems to revel in being an unpopular twat.

Transformers: Dark Side Of The Moon

I don’t remember much of this film but do recall laughing so much at how crap it was. Me and a few friends were having quite a heavy all-day drinking session (a ‘Leo Sayer’ if you are down with the lingo) in central London and by about 7pm were totally smashed.

We then moved pubs and on route walked past the IMAX in Waterloo and someone came up with the idea of getting tickets to the next showing and then buying a lot of booze from the nearest off licence to take in. The films was Transformers and we were so drunk and near the screen, we had no idea what happened for two hours.

In the final scene Megatron appears, having been a main character for the whole film, at which point my friend loudly and genuinely said: ‘Who the fuck is this geezer?’ to which we laughed a lot and everyone else tutted and hated us.

You’ve Been Framed

Another one that is mainly based on my enjoyment of it when drunk. I had never fully appreciated how funny it is watching old people fall over while dancing at weddings until I watched a late night repeat of You’ve Been Framed while drunk and deliriously tired.

It was the night last year of the Floyd Mayweather vs Victor Ortiz fight and I had ordered it on pay per view. My friend and I had to stay up until 5am to watch it live and messed up our timings by getting drunk by 9pm. By about 2am we were officially the most tired people on earth and no amount of drink was going to keep us going.

At that point ‘YBF’ came on and saved the day. Something clicked and for an hour (it was an extended special edition) we cried with laughter. The tipping point where I almost vomited was when a toddler rode his little bike under a trampoline only for it to be too low and he hit his head rolling over backwards off the bike. Game over!

Any footage of stand up online that definitely shouldn’t be online.

I remember when I first put any footage of myself on the internet. I had been going a couple of years and finally had a decent 20 minutes of material so thought it might be a good idea in case people wanted to see it. About a month later I took it down as realised that I was shit and not ready to have evidence of that online. This should be roughly how new acts think and feel.

However, now there seems to be this new thing of new acts putting footage of their very early gigs (first gigs in some cases) online. What the hell are you thinking? They don’t realise that you should never publicise the early years where we were all crap. Also, they need to know that established comics are being forwarded the link and then sending it around with really horrible yet funny comments about them.

I regularly get sent links from established comic friends saying ‘Check out this shit head!’ etc. I love watching them but only because they should not be available. My favourite clip of an early stand up performance is Justin Lee Collins in the BBC competition. It is one of the worst things I’ve ever seen!

Pictures of inanimate objects that resemble humans

This seems to be becoming more and more popular and I am very happy about that. There are blogs devoted to this very thing. I’ve been seeing faces in inanimate objects for years but just thought it was down to me being secretly insane and suggesting that one day I’d snap and kill a number of people. It turns out that others think the same too.

I have even managed to photograph some myself and put them on Twitter. The best being a tower in Victoria that looked like I had caught it spying on me so it had hidden behind a tree and was acting casual,right. The best I think I’ve seen online is the well known picture of a house that looks surprised. Either that or the slightly confused alarm clock.

My only fear is that the more popular the concept gets, the more manufacturers will start doing it on purpose. It should always be accidental.

Norm Macdonald

One of the most underrated stand ups in the world in my opinion. A lot of UK comics mention their influences orinspiration being Bill Hicks, Chris Rock, Louis CK etc but I think Norm is as good as any of those guys.

His album from last year, Me Doing Standup, is my favourite stand-up album for years. He is one of those people that makes observational comedy look so effortless that people often write it off as being easy, when in fact his logic is incredibly interesting and different. He just happens to be talking about common themes.

His routine about heart attacks and death is so good that you end up trying to tell it to strangers and they look at you like you're an idiot until you just get their email and forward them the link! Idiots often assume that comedians get less funny with age, when in fact it is normally down to a loss of passion or interest. Norm shows that if you keep writing and stay interested in it, you can only improve with age and have a more interesting, wiser outlook on the world.

Published: 7 Aug 2012