1. On the phone with Mum discussing her trip to the Warfarin clinic…
“They mentioned what I’ve got on ‘Casualty’. I leaned right forward and nearly fell off my chair.”
“That’s precisely why you shouldn’t watch things like ‘Casualty’.”
“Well she ended up on a life support machine but then she was okay.”
“You’re not going to end up on a life support machine.”
“The doctor said it was fine as long as you had the right treatment.”
“The ACTOR Mum, the ACTOR said.”
“Well they have to get their research right!”
2. In a candlelit restaurant with my cousin and 80-something auntie…
“Oh nay, that’s not a salt cellar. How does this work?”
“It’s a grinder. Here, I’ll do it for you…”
“Ridiculous. What’s wrong with a proper one? And I can’t see what I’m doing with all these candles… Is that chicken?”
Cousin patiently holds phone aloft to train torch app on plate.
“Better?”
“Why do they change everything?”
3. Woman having a fag outside an indoor meat market
“Well whatever it was, it’s what sent her vegetarian.”
4. When I asked if they had cappuccino or latte in a Great Yarmouth café…
“We do frothy coffee…”
She lowers her notepad to bestow the ‘You’re Not From Round Here Are You’ Look.
“…and we do milky coffee.”
Comedy gold that. I’ve always had an ear for dialogue and as a journalist it lets me pull out the most telling or expressive quotes from what may be a very long interview.
As a playwright I know that certain characters would speak a certain way. There are things they will say and things they would never say.
Plus, some words and phrasings just are funny and you’ll have to trust the writer and not resort to some quip-killing decision-by-committee. Which all sound very pompous from moi me so over to the comedy gods that are Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, scriptwriters for ‘Hancock’s Half Hour’ and much else besides.
They were on the radio helping to mark what would have been the late Tony Hancock’s 90th birthday.
“23 Railway Cuttings, East Cheam. Because 23 is a lovely number. It’s funny. 24 not funny, 23 funny.”
Exactly. You can’t explain. It just is. They have the OBEs to prove it.
Pictured: Tony Hancock
