So You Think Dave's Funny?

Complaints about the Dave Award begin when you see the some of the acts on the list. While Robert White’s set was demented and energetic, filled with puppets and improvised songs, tired gags like, "For Vanessa Feltz, life is like a box of chocolates…empty", let him down. Dave thought this joke was the ninth best thing about the Fringe. Gary Delaney, a rapid-fire one-liner merchant in the same vein as Emo Phillips and Tim Vine, appears twice on this list at #4 and #8. Ironically, the #3 joke is one that he used to do, but decided to drop.

Maybe the problem with Dave’s list is that it’s looking in the wrong place. Fringe shows, as a rule, tend to resemble one-person theatrical pieces with all of the jokes spun together into a single story or concept. There are plenty of other sources of good, short gags.

Twitter, for example, is the perfect medium for comedians, who can throw out an idea and get an instant reaction from fans. This suits acts like Gary Delaney, whose prolific tweeting has seen his profile grow enormously over the last year (helped by jokes like “I think the hardest part of having a long distance relationship was persuading my girlfriend to move away”). Tiernan Douieb debuted at last year’s Fringe shortly after hosting the first ever Twitter Comedy club, in which acts such as Mark Watson and Pappy’s tweeted for an hour. Tony Cowards went one further this year, by tweeting a daily Fringe show from his bedroom in Swindon.

Established names can be relied on to throw jokes onto Twitter too. Peter Serafinowicz has been tweeting jokes on a daily basis since Twitter first appeared, earning him a huge following in the process, while legendary comedy writers like Graham Linehan, David Quantick and David Schneider seem to spend more time writing online than they do writing for telly. 

It’s not to say for one moment that Twitter is better than live comedy. Material posted there tends to be quite raw and even the funniest people can produce some real stinkers, whereas a show tends to have been more carefully crafted. But if you're looking for a quick one-liner, you’re better looking at a medium where people are trying to write short, standalone gags. Following the right people on Twitter will usually provide you with ten better jokes each day than the Dave Award does in a
year.