#116 The Best Medicine
12/04/25 20:26
My husband and I often struggle to find stuff to watch as a family. The only thing that’s really drawn us all in recently is Reacher, but I feel bad about letting my kids see something so violent, even if it is just baddies getting their comeuppance. My youngest son and I just finished a marathon trawl through Buffy the Vampire Slayer, all seven seasons, and again, I feel embarrassed about that because although it’s just as good as I remember, it’s also not really suitable for a nine-year-old. Luckily, he puts a blanket over his head through all of the kissing scenes, and is thus unaware that it goes a lot further than kissing.
My twelve-year-old son is particularly hard to please – dead against Renegade Nell because he doesn’t like fantasy, bored by Young Sheldon now he’s not as young himself, wary of anything he perceives as ‘childish’. He’s desperate to watch Adolescence but we definitely can’t go there. Both boys continue their baffling obsession with Death in Paradise, which their father and I no longer share. It’s difficult to find something that suits everyone. In the last few weeks, we watched the buzzy new Amazon series Last One Laughing but, as my children and husband got busy wetting themselves, I discovered that the person it didn’t suit was me.
In many ways, I approve of this show. It widens the comedy format gene pool, it features exceptional talent, it’s decently made. But as we worked our way through the episodes, I felt more and more uneasy. Last One Laughing has an intriguing premise: ten comedians are put in a room with the one aim of making each other giggle – but anyone who does is out of the contest, the winner the one who remains resolutely straight-faced. The comedians in question are stellar – Bob Mortimer, Joe Lycett, Rob Beckett, Judi Love, Daisy May Cooper, Richard Ayoade… the list of prime jokesters goes on. All incredibly funny people who you’d struggle not to laugh at. But they’re not laughing. And that kind of restraint was always frowned on when I was making telly - I can hear my former boss’s voice in my head: ‘why are we watching people sit around not doing something?’ I’d have pitched this and got roundly rejected – ‘not doing the thing’ is a formatting no-no, so it irks me that someone else got it away. Yes, I admit there’s some professional jealousy here – like Traitors, this is an idea I could have had, but would never have got commissioned. I’m annoyed and bitter; my natural state. But it’s more than that.
I’m also perturbed because this show rewards a particular form of comedic mean-spiritedness. For me, the funniest people are not just the ones who make the joke, but the ones who get it. I love it when comedians laugh at each other. My absolute favourite example of this is David Mitchell spitting with frustration (and choking with mirth) when Bob Mortimer spins a yarn in Would I Lie To You. It’s delicious – David’s engagement reveals all of his respect and admiration for Bob’s humour and gives bountiful ballast to his ridiculously tall tales. It’s generous, warm, uplifting behaviour. NOT laughing - being aloof - is the opposite, and it rewards comedians who are naturally poker-faced. I’ve never really liked Paul Merton on Have I Got News For You, because he hardly ever laughs at anyone else – he just sits there like he’s the sole onlooker who’s noticed the emperor isn’t wearing any clothes. It gives him an air of superiority; the only one making jokes worth chuckling at.
So, Last One Laughing is a show that rewards the Paul Mertons of this world – the ones loftily unmoved by the humour of others. Of course, I get that half the fun is watching comedians try not to laugh and fail – Daisy May Cooper valiantly contorting her face in an attempt to stay focused is highly amusing. But the winner is the one who can stick it out. Success is a stony countenance. As one by one they fell about, joining hosts Jimmy Carr and Roisin Conaty to comment on the remaining competitors, it became apparent that this is also a show that rewards male comedians. I don’t want to generalise here but I’m going to: women are more likely to laugh than men, because it’s more ingrained. That urge to please, to share, to ‘smile more’. It makes us more likely to crack.
And so, predictably, we’re left with two men in the final funny face-off: Bob Mortimer and Richard Ayoade. Now, I admire Richard greatly – he’s an excellent comic actor, a compelling TV host, and incredibly clever to boot. But he’s not known for his uncontrolled tittering, is he? Straight-faced is what he does. There’s a strong argument that Bob Mortimer is the funniest man on the planet, and yet when Richard finally succumbed to ‘laughter’ I’m afraid I didn’t buy it – it looked fake. It felt like I was watching him finally do the thing as a pretence, which was even worse than just not doing the thing. As far as I was concerned, it was a damp squib, although, like I said, the rest of my family were rolling in the aisles, while I wrinkled my nose in distaste. One man’s laugh is another’s displeasure.
Next week, I’m doing a blog about a series that does suit me: Hacks. Both shows explore the nature of comedy, but where Last One Laughing is a seemingly jovial show with a strangely cold core, Hacks has a mean exterior and a warm heart. Where LOL favours the men, Hacks gives women the limelight. In fact, Hacks suits me so well I feel like it was made for me.
However, it’s definitely not family viewing…
My twelve-year-old son is particularly hard to please – dead against Renegade Nell because he doesn’t like fantasy, bored by Young Sheldon now he’s not as young himself, wary of anything he perceives as ‘childish’. He’s desperate to watch Adolescence but we definitely can’t go there. Both boys continue their baffling obsession with Death in Paradise, which their father and I no longer share. It’s difficult to find something that suits everyone. In the last few weeks, we watched the buzzy new Amazon series Last One Laughing but, as my children and husband got busy wetting themselves, I discovered that the person it didn’t suit was me.
In many ways, I approve of this show. It widens the comedy format gene pool, it features exceptional talent, it’s decently made. But as we worked our way through the episodes, I felt more and more uneasy. Last One Laughing has an intriguing premise: ten comedians are put in a room with the one aim of making each other giggle – but anyone who does is out of the contest, the winner the one who remains resolutely straight-faced. The comedians in question are stellar – Bob Mortimer, Joe Lycett, Rob Beckett, Judi Love, Daisy May Cooper, Richard Ayoade… the list of prime jokesters goes on. All incredibly funny people who you’d struggle not to laugh at. But they’re not laughing. And that kind of restraint was always frowned on when I was making telly - I can hear my former boss’s voice in my head: ‘why are we watching people sit around not doing something?’ I’d have pitched this and got roundly rejected – ‘not doing the thing’ is a formatting no-no, so it irks me that someone else got it away. Yes, I admit there’s some professional jealousy here – like Traitors, this is an idea I could have had, but would never have got commissioned. I’m annoyed and bitter; my natural state. But it’s more than that.
I’m also perturbed because this show rewards a particular form of comedic mean-spiritedness. For me, the funniest people are not just the ones who make the joke, but the ones who get it. I love it when comedians laugh at each other. My absolute favourite example of this is David Mitchell spitting with frustration (and choking with mirth) when Bob Mortimer spins a yarn in Would I Lie To You. It’s delicious – David’s engagement reveals all of his respect and admiration for Bob’s humour and gives bountiful ballast to his ridiculously tall tales. It’s generous, warm, uplifting behaviour. NOT laughing - being aloof - is the opposite, and it rewards comedians who are naturally poker-faced. I’ve never really liked Paul Merton on Have I Got News For You, because he hardly ever laughs at anyone else – he just sits there like he’s the sole onlooker who’s noticed the emperor isn’t wearing any clothes. It gives him an air of superiority; the only one making jokes worth chuckling at.
So, Last One Laughing is a show that rewards the Paul Mertons of this world – the ones loftily unmoved by the humour of others. Of course, I get that half the fun is watching comedians try not to laugh and fail – Daisy May Cooper valiantly contorting her face in an attempt to stay focused is highly amusing. But the winner is the one who can stick it out. Success is a stony countenance. As one by one they fell about, joining hosts Jimmy Carr and Roisin Conaty to comment on the remaining competitors, it became apparent that this is also a show that rewards male comedians. I don’t want to generalise here but I’m going to: women are more likely to laugh than men, because it’s more ingrained. That urge to please, to share, to ‘smile more’. It makes us more likely to crack.
And so, predictably, we’re left with two men in the final funny face-off: Bob Mortimer and Richard Ayoade. Now, I admire Richard greatly – he’s an excellent comic actor, a compelling TV host, and incredibly clever to boot. But he’s not known for his uncontrolled tittering, is he? Straight-faced is what he does. There’s a strong argument that Bob Mortimer is the funniest man on the planet, and yet when Richard finally succumbed to ‘laughter’ I’m afraid I didn’t buy it – it looked fake. It felt like I was watching him finally do the thing as a pretence, which was even worse than just not doing the thing. As far as I was concerned, it was a damp squib, although, like I said, the rest of my family were rolling in the aisles, while I wrinkled my nose in distaste. One man’s laugh is another’s displeasure.
Next week, I’m doing a blog about a series that does suit me: Hacks. Both shows explore the nature of comedy, but where Last One Laughing is a seemingly jovial show with a strangely cold core, Hacks has a mean exterior and a warm heart. Where LOL favours the men, Hacks gives women the limelight. In fact, Hacks suits me so well I feel like it was made for me.
However, it’s definitely not family viewing…
- Last One Laughing, six episodes, Amazon Prime
