Traditional Comedy Quotes

I don't know if the art of stand-up will survive. Stand-up seems dated. Now you can do a mini-movie or a short with a beginning, middle, and end. A guy standing there seems a little old - especially when you can go on the Internet and see 'Funny or Die.'

I like doing the mainstream, right-down-the-pike broad comedies as much as I like doing the kind of unorthodox different stuff.

There's an assumption that my audience is all these bearded twats from Dalston. But actually, quite a lot of older people go. For them, it's like pre-alternative comedy, when there was Dave Allen or Jackie Mason or someone. Also, weirdly, because I don't really swear, they're not scared off.

Black Books adheres to a more old fashioned, traditional sitcom format, which I think works, because in its own way, it's quite theatrical.

People ask 'do you make a conscious effort not to swear?' - if you're doing silly stuff you're not tempted to put swearing in. All the comics from my childhood, who were funny without swearing, were the people that influenced me. What I do is quite traditional anyway.

Growing up, there were TV shows that were very funny but very traditional. Classic things like 'Fawlty Towers,' obviously, and 'Blackadder' were pretty traditionally shot. And then there were the ones that start to break the mold or be really ambitious. The ones that spring particularly to mind would be 'The Young Ones.'

Maybe in 10 years,I'll only be doing "classical" comedy. Or crashing my car into trees.

Postmodern comedy doesn't work well with very old audiences, because it's making fun of the comedy they enjoy.

For me to make a living acting silly for as long as I can get away with it, I think the most viable way to make that happen is to evolve into more traditional comedy. I've really been putting in the work.

Don't get me wrong, I'm under no illusions, I've got a very old-school, mainstream leaning to the way I present my comedy because I actually like jokes and don't just do observational stuff.

When I started out I was definitely more traditional. It was 1988. Everyone was doing the Jerry Seinfeld.

The life of a true, traditional stand-up is really unappealing for women.