I read in the papers the other day that Frankie Boyle has been given another comedy show by Channel Four. My first reaction was - Why? He's an absolutely horrible man. His comedy consists of being cruel to people, and he laughed when he made Jordan cry. So what were they thinking?
I discussed it with a few of my friends who are writing comedy for other comedians this year at the Edinburgh Fringe and they all said the same thing. Comedians get cruel because they know the game is over. They start substituting shock for jokes because they know that at least shocking the audience will get them talked about in the next days news.
But that kind of thing only works so long as the shocks get bigger, and eventually the shock jokes gets so bad that someone takes legal action. But that's what happened last year with Jordan. So why have Channel 4 brought him back.
I do have to admit, he did sometimes make me laugh a lot when he was on Mock the Week. But nowadays his comedy just seems to consist of a question and then a very obvious but cruel answer. He doesn't even bother to think about whether its clever any more he just says the nastiest thing he can think of.
The only conclusion I can come up with is maybe he's promised them he'll change his ways. So that's why I'll be tuning in to his first show when it arrives on our screens. But curiosity will only make people turn up for the first week. It will be up to him if he gets that audience to come back. Nobody likes a bitter clown.
The world of comedy is filled with so many other people who are funny without being cruel. One of them is my friend Victor Nicholas. I've written with him on various projects for the last two years and I never get tired of his warm, gentle form of humour.
Victor is is the creator of the VicNickDaily Twitter account., and he is also a contributing writer for an exceptionally funny site called the Isle of White news. The thing I like most about Victor is that he is a prolific writer who writes every day. This means there is lots to read and every day I find something new that I haven't read before. His one liners make me laugh so much.
Whenever I need a laugh, I go visit the VicNickDaily site and I'm never disappointed. I quite often retweet his jokes so other people can read them, too. I also love his work over on Spoof News. He writes old fashioned stories of the clever variety and I think the world needs more comedy writers like him.
I've lost track of the hours I've spent over the past two years reading Victor's work. His stories are so enjoyable that I sometimes find myself avoiding doing other things like eating and sleeping just so I can read a bit more of his work. My favourite story of his was "Piers Morgan interviews himself." and another one I especially liked was "Burnley man admits to being Sasquatch".
Because Victor has written 376 articles for Spoof, I can't mention them all here. But, if you pop over to his profile at that excellent establishment, you will see that there is a whole world of stories ready for you to read. My advice today is to leave the real world with all its violence and selfish people and go jump into Victor's world of strange things. Its fun over there.
http://www.thespoof.co.uk/profile.cfm?uID=7631
http://twitter.com/#!/VicNickDaily
http://twitter.com/DeltaPanda