Stand Up Comedians

"Arms trade. If there was a legitimate trade, they'd sell those things - guns and bombs - in a supermarket. It would be like a cosmetics demonstration, and you'd have a little bit of shopping music in the background. And so, here's our arms trade demonstrator. 'Hello, and welcome to our new "Twilight of the World" range - our stunning new collection for nuclear winter. Now, for those persistent racial problems, why not try our new ethnic cleanser, "Pogrom"? Apply vigorously to the affected area, and then wipe off the face of the earth. For persistent outbreaks, to eliminate those last spots of resistance, why not try our new "I Can't Believe It's Not a Kalashnikov"? Go on, leaders, treat yourself. Tell yourself "I want it, I need it, I'll have it". Now, for those particularly sensitive areas, why not try our new range, "U.N."? It's entirely cosmetic; it does nothing. Apply half-heartedly with our new hand-wringing cream. Now, people often come up to me and say "Can you save my face?" Well, I can. So for those secret little deals - those secret little Iraqi liaisons - why not try "Embargo", the mark of the middleman? Now, for a touch of mystery, why not visit the "Missing Body Shop"? Collect your free nail remover and watch your problems disappear. Now, you're probably sitting there thinking "Oh, I'm such a hideous old blood-soaked dictator of a thing; nobody will deal with me". How wrong you are! We are sole suppliers to the US government of "Turn-a-Blind-Eye Liner" - use always in conjunction with "Oil of Kuwaiti", a touch of "Massacre" and blusher. Oh, you won't need that. I'm Marlene from the House of Charnel. Thank you for your time and patience. And for that finishing touch - for those romantic evenings when you really want to take the enemy out - why not try our stunning new nerve gas, "Paralyse" by Calvin Klein.'"

"Sex and politics - sex and politicians. I never understand how any politician gets a shag, really. Can you? A classic example: the David Mellor sex scandal. I bet you're the same as me. We're not shocked by these scandals involving politicians. I bet when that happened, your response was not 'Good God, that's outrageous! A man in his job, he should be running the country, not messing about like this; no wonder we're in a state; terrible!' No, that wasn't the response. You open the paper, you read about that, and you go 'Ha ha ha ha - I don't think so, Dave! I don't think so. In your dreams, perhaps.' The interesting person in that relationship is not him; it's her - Antonia. A woman of mystery; a mystery woman. Antonia de Sancha, always described as an 'unemployed actress'. Unemployed actress? How's she an unemployed actress? God! if you can feign sexual interest in David Mellor, I should think Chekhov's a piece of piss. So, she thinks 'I'm an actress. It's a role. I'll prepare'. She gets to the bedroom situation. He's in a kit-off situation, and there's Antonia giving it 'Red lorry, yellow lorry - Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled pepper'. But the hair - that's the main unattractive thing. What barber told him that suited him? Someone winding him up there. 'Yes, David, that'll suit you, mate: a greasy, oily flap of dirty-looking patent leather, wafting about down one side of your moosh; that'll drive those unemployed actresses mental!' (Linda Live, 1993)"

"It'd be ludicrous, because the idea of the British Empire is such an outmoded idea. The British Empire now, if it were a being, would be living out its days in some sunshine home on the South Coast, wouldn't it? - boring the tits off everyone, shuffling around in oversize slippers, boring everyone with their press cuttings of when they were famous: 'Ooh look! ooh yes! I was very popular in the world once. Ooh yes! I went all over the world. Look, you see here; they loved me here - Sri Lanka. Of course, we used to call that Ceylon. Now, let me see; what have we here? Oh yes! they loved us there - Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe! Of course, we didn't call it Zimbabwe then. It was Rhodesia. Rhodesia, you see? And this; oh, this marvelous tour I had here - now what was it? India! India - what did we used to call that? Oh yes... Ours!'"

"And another thing I like about cricket is, because most of the commentators apart from Boycott and Trueman are very old-worldly, they have an innocence and naïveté about them, that makes them sometimes say, in the course of their commentary, inadvertently rude things: 'Now we're at the start of play, and we're coming in to play; and the bowler's Holding, the batman's Willey'; 'Here we are, and we're about to commence play. And there's Simpson, in his usual position, standing with his legs wide open, at first slip, waiting for a tickle.'"

"So, anyway, I think I'll go visit my nan: knock on the door; she's in the kitchen there, bottling up little gingham-top jars of racial hatred. So, I think 'Right, I'll avoid anything that's going to provoke her, because there's no point arguing with someone who, strictly speaking, isn't even alive. So I'll keep off anything controversial'. But you can forget that, because you just get this monologue. The line of logic is harder to follow than the plot of Finnegans Wake: 'Hello, Nan.' 'Hello, our Lin, it's lovely to see you. Come in. I hate blacks. Come in. Sit down. I'll make you a nice cup of tea, our Lin. I hate blacks. Come on in, our Lin. Would you like a nice piece of cake? I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but I don't like black people.' You think 'Oh Christ! Shut up! What can I do? What can I do to divert her from this monomania? Right, OK': 'Garden looks lovely, Nan.' 'Oh, yes, Lin; I like a bit of gardening - unlike black people, who I don't like at all.' 'I think it's gonna rain.' 'So do I, Linda, I also think President Botha should be running this country.'"

"For the Government, it is quite hard for them to find media faces – to find people to head up campaigns – because they are all so weird-looking, aren't they? They all look like Muppets who have been left too close to a radiator. I don't like to mock the afflicted, but how did anyone know that Willie Whitelaw had had a stroke? What genius spotted that? I mean, with most people it's quite a dramatic change, isn't it? But what happened? Someone thought 'Oh, Willie's dribbled an extra pint today. What's going on? We'll run a few tests'."

"Turn for some crumb of comfort to the Labour Party? Forget it! The Labour Party seem to be packaging themselves like a pack of toilet paper, at the moment – sort of going for this pastel-politics look; this sort of Labour, Little Rose; a kind of tampon that uses the same logo, called 'Femmes'. Perhaps it would be even less socialist to call themselves Labs; Labies: 'Safe, strong, soft Neil Kinnock, absorbs all kinds of shit except socialism. Expands width-wise to include everybody.'"

"Oh God, the bed and breakfast! Why is it that British people can't cope with the idea of the paying guest? It's like you pay these people to stay there, but you try and act as inconspicuous as you possibly can. It's like no financial transaction's taken place. It's as though you've just imposed yourself off the street; and they think 'Who the fuck are you? You've not just paid me £25, have you, to stay here?' First you try the lounge – the TV lounge. Suddenly you are in Poland – martial law – because there's a curfew. You're watching a film; the telly goes off at 11.30; a bloke standing over you, shouting 'I've got to get up at six o'clock this morning. What time are you going to bed?' – 'All right, yes; we're going now; we're going now.' You go up to bed with a sinking heart, which sinks even further when you open the door and find – ughh! - the MAUVE CANDLEWICK BEDSPREAD! Now this is a bad sign, because it is now on the cards that you are going to open up that bed and find MAUVE NYLON SHEETS. You get in there, and it's like sleeping between two pieces of velcro."

"Maltesers have the less-fattening centre. Well, yes, but they are covered in chocolate! That's like saying 'I'll have a mineral water, please. Can you put some cubes of lard in it?'"

"People say 'Ooh, doesn't Lionel Blair look good for his age?' Well, no, not really – not unless he's about five hundred. Otherwise he looks like nothing more than an elaborately coiffured scrotum."

"[On the prospect of Margaret Thatcher's death] Be serious - this is just a fantasy, because if she were killed, would it actually make any difference? Would things get any better? Course they wouldn't; don't kid yourself. They'd get worse, because she would become a martyr – this monetarist martyr - a cult figure, like Eva Peron. Can you imagine the televised funeral? There she'd be, laid out in a glass coffin, in the blue gear, the hair-do and all the rest of it. She'd be laying there just really life-like - just like she was in life - a bit warmer. It would be on the telly. You thought Winston Churchill was bad; you can imagine what this would be like. And then, of course, it wouldn't stop at that. There would be films - The Night Brighton Rocked. There'd be musicals. Tim Rice would be churning out the musicals about her life - Magita. There'd be Elaine Page belting out the big numbers: 'Don't Cry for Me, Barnet Finchley'."

"He force-fed his daughter with some mechanically recovered beef fragments [...] on TV to show there was no danger from BSE. [...] She's probably a teenager now. Most teenagers just irrationally hate their parents. You wouldn't want to be round their house of a Christmas: 'Let's watch that film, when you tried to kill me. Yes I would like a flat, thank you.'"

"You should always book tradesmen by personal recommendation."

"London water – it’s hard but fair."

"Rugby is a game for men with no fear of brain injury."

"Piers Morgan who used to be editor of The Mirror. He's got a whole new career now, as the bloke who used to be editor of The Mirror."

"I sort of sympathise with them looking for weapons of mass destruction, because I'm like that with scissors. Honestly, I just turn the house upside down. Of course the difference is, I know I have got some scissors."

"This is Prince Charles & Camilla. Or, as I like to think of them, Rod Hull & Emu."

"Paul Merton: (on the subject of people wearing bow-ties) People wear bow-ties because it's show-business, isn't it? I mean there's Bernard Manning there. I mean, obviously he is in show-business, and Neil Hamilton desperately would like to be in show-business. But that's the idea isn't it? Linda Smith: I don't really like you saying his name, because it gives him the oxygen of publicity and I'm not happy with him having the oxygen of oxygen."

"Gordon Jackson! (throughout)"

"[Of a recipe for Chilli Con Carne] English people may like to substitute a sponge cake at this point. (Series 1, Episode 6)"

"As Linda drifted in and out of consciousness, her fellow comedian Mark Steel noticed Joan Collins on the television. “I was on a chat show with Joan Collins,” he told fellow comedian Andy Hamilton. "How old is she?" Hamilton asked. "I think she must be close to 75," replied Steel. From beneath the pile of bedclothes a little voice piped up: “How much is that in human years?”"

"[On her home town in Kent:] Erith isn't twinned with anywhere but it does have a suicide pact with Dagenham."

"People knock ASBOs but you have to bear in mind they are the only qualification some of these kids are going to get."

"If God wanted us to believe in him, he'd exist."

"My favourite ever headline was "Worksop Man Dies Of Natural Causes.""

"RIP Rik Mayall. An icon of modern British comedy."

"Simply distraught to hear of the death of Rik Mayall. An authentic comedy genius and a prince among men."

"I owe him so much. He changed my life utterly when he asked me to co-write The Young Ones with him, and he was with me on the day I met my wife... He always made me cry with laughter. Now he's just made me cry."

"There were times when Rik and I were writing together when we almost died laughing. They were some of the most carefree stupid days I ever had, and I feel privileged to have shared them with him. And now he's died for real. Without me. Selfish bastard."

"He was a force of nature. His appetite was not blunted, and his enthusiasm and his ambition were huge. He often asked me: ‘What’s my motivation for this scene?’ ‘Why am I sitting on your toilet having a shit?’ was a question he genuinely asked me, and I had to say: ‘It’s … fun? There’s nothing deeper than that, I’m sorry’."

"Rik Mayall was just pure wiry, energetic, unpredictable humour poured into the shape of a human. You couldn't not watch him."

"[A]ll those tributes to him were right, he was a constantly creative comic mind and one of the best people to come out of that era, and a real tragedy that he's lost in many ways."

"When I was a little boy, at Rashwood County Primary School near Droitwich in Worcestershire, all the little girls and boys were stood on the table and the parents came in to hear us sing Christmas carols. I was about three and a half, and I can still fucking remember this – the teacher came up and said to me before, “now Richard, don’t sing – I want all the children to sing, but not you, because you’ve got a horrible voice. So just move your mouth to look like you’re singing, but don’t sing, ok?” So in came the mums and dads, and while all the other kids were being good, I was being bad. Not technically bad, because I did what I was told and didn’t make any noise, but I was moving my mouth very stupidly and waving my bottom around, and I got big laughs – and they were good laughs as well. I thought I like this! Until the middle of the concert and in front of 40 parents, I was pulled off the table by my ear and taken into the corner of the room. I was still pulling faces and getting laughs and I wasn’t even onstage!"

"Insanity is a very high art form. If everyone was insane, I wouldn’t be here!"

"I feel proud to have turned that down. I wish I could remember what it was. Let’s say Hamlet. Yeah, I turned down Hamlet. Well who fucking wouldn’t? I mean how many gags are there in that?"

"I can be gloriously stupid, but if it helps to divert peoples attentions from the grimness of life, I’m happy."

"[Ade Edmondson]’s a good and loyal friend. I adore him. It’s like a marriage. We chose each other in ’75 and we’ve been together ever since."

"Luckily, I was spared bullying, although one kid at school, Dobson, always used to tease me about my surname. He’d say: “Look, it’s Fe-Mayall!” One time he wouldn’t stop and I thought “I’m going to have to hit him”. So I belted him and he lost his two front teeth, broke his nose and ended up in hospital. I was never picked on again after that!"

"I once walked to school in my underpants and a soggy shoe because my shoe flew off into the river when I tried kicking a ball. My brother retrieved it, but then demanded my trousers, because his were soaked."

"I was brought up to be a good boy and proud of myself so I suppress all the things about me that are bad."

"On stage you can group 200 people together and scare them or embarrass them or whatever. You can't do that on TV. You have to use the conventions, that's why Kevin [Turvey] works so well."

"Shocked & saddened that a comedy hero is gone; for those who grew up on The Young Ones, Rik Mayall was one of funniest performers ever."

"It is a terrible loss, he was true pioneer and an incredible force. His peers and him were as important to comedy as the Sex Pistols were to music. For me, The Young Ones will always be his signature performance. Rick was just a character for the ages."

"Rik Mayall is putrid – absolutely vile. He thinks nose-picking is funny and farting and all that. He is the arsehole of British comedy."

"A young girl, stricken with terminal cancer, once asked Rik Mayall for an autograph. He wrote: "Young Ones are never afraid.""

"Very, very sad to learn of Rik Mayall's passing. Frank Oz and I saw him and Adrian Edmondson at the Comic Strip while I was in pre-production on An American Werewolf in London and they were extraordinary. He did not believe me at first when afterwards I offered him a part. I just remember how excited Rik was to be in a movie and how good he was even in such a small role. It was no surprise to me he went on to The Young Ones and a brilliant career. A great loss of a truly gifted man."

"Very sad to hear of the passing of Rik Mayall. Far too young. A very funny and talented man."

"I've never stopped missing Rik Mayall but thankful for his legacy of incomparable comedy!"

"James Blunt - a man who recently got voted more annoying than paper cuts."