The Big Yin, without question. Funniest man on the planet, in my (limited) view. And Victor Borge, although he sat down a lot. I’ve been privileged enough to have seen both live (Connolly three times), and both reduced me to tears of helpless laughter.
I remember actually shutting down at least once during Connolly’s gigs because my cheek bones hurt too much. Had he spotted me in the crowd staring blankly into space it could easily have been a devastating moment. I like to think I saved his career.
Borge was simply unique (as was the Big Yin). His routines were pure genius and his delivery and timing second to none. I’d watched him avidly as a kid any time he appeared on telly, and seeing him live at the Caird Hall in Dundee as an adult was awesome. He was still doing many of the routines I’d seen years before on the box, but even though I knew much of what was coming, it was still hilarious.
I took my second wife to see Frank Carson at Llandudno Theatre on our honeymoon (yes, I know…). He was also awesome, and it definitely was ‘the way he told him’, as there were jokes in that act I used to tell during my school days. But it was the sheer volume of jokes, relentlessly delivered one after the other, seemingly clutched out of thin air, and the fact he had to be dragged off the stage as people were checking their watches for the last bus home. He’d have done those gigs for nothing (something he actually admitted to once when I saw him being interviewed). Not one of my particular favourites before that night, but a tour de force with an addiction to making people laugh. There are far worse addictions.
