It's National Let's Laugh Day.

It's National Let's Laugh Day.


This is absolutely true. I kid you not. Today folks is National Let's Laugh Day. I know,  I couldn't believe it as well. Who'd have thought it possible? I'm being perfectly serious.  My reliable source tells me with a straight face that today is the day we should all abandon yourself to belly aching, side splitting laughter. Of course laughter is the best medicine but who knew that March 19 was National Let's Laugh Day?

 Perhaps it was inevitable that somebody would come up with this latest wheeze. You can't beat a laugh and in  a world that continues to teeter on the brink of some terrible, earth shattering event it's somehow comforting to know that somebody out there still believes that, regardless of circumstances, we should all take time out to see the brighter side of life with a good, old fashioned guffaw or, as they say nowadays, a laugh out loud time.

From the earliest days of Shakespearean humour right through to the knockabout, jolly hockey sticks comedy of PG Wodehouse, the human race has always found good reason to chuckle helplessly at the ever present absurdities and frivolities of every day life. We laugh at everything and everybody from comedians of today and those from the past, the music hall comics who used to get away, quite literally with murder and the stand up maestros who adore playing to the gallery.

My late dad would go into lyrical raptures about Max Miller, a comedian who revelled in naughtiness, innuendo, sauciness, double entendres and subtly delivered vulgarity that reduced most of his audiences to tearful laughter. There was the blue and the white book and Miller would spend most of his time on centre stage, innocently recounting racy stories about husbands, wives and anything related to salacious human gossip. Miller exposed all of the human vulnerabilities that at the time must have seemed like risque jokes that were perfectly harmless.

Throughout the ages comedians and laughter have become an almost essential antidote to the gloom and tragedy around us. But today is National Let's Laugh Day and maybe that should become a permanent fixture. Maybe the National Health Service should prescribe the appropriate medication for the tough times in our lives when days are not quite as straightforward and easy living as they should be.

Last week Britain lost one of its great comic treasures, a man who spent all of his career pouring out a veritable torrent of what might have been regarded as childish jokes and obvious social observations. Liverpool born Ken Dodd spent well over 50 years entertaining the whole of the United Kingdom with eccentric mannerisms, the tickling sticks, goofy toothed gags and that most eclectic community known as the Diddy Men.

It is, I think, common knowledge by now that Ken Dodd loved to be on stage and performing. But what Dodd may have forgotten was that at some point during his act the audience had to go to bed. Dodd, we were told, would skip out onto stage shortly after tea time and then find that most of his adoring audience were both sleeping and snoring their heads off at one o' clock in the morning.

But for all of his tomfoolery and court jester comedy, Dodd would have loved today because here was a  man with a genuine addiction to the world of cackling, giggling hilarity. Today after all has been a day devoted to those who simply want to laugh and wherever you are, maybe that should be made compulsory and part of the school curriculum.

My dad would also sing the praises of that great American wartime comedian Jack Benny. Benny, my dad would tell me, once walked out at the world famous London Palladium and by the end of the show, Benny's audience would be beside themselves with uncontrollable happiness. Every time Benny would quite casually walk out onto the stage without a care in the world. Then for the best part of ten or five minutes he would just stand in the same place, fold his arms in all innocence and then just stare at his audience without uttering a single word. He would look at his stunned admirers, gazing, analysing and wondering what on earth his audience were thinking of at the time.

By the time I came into the world at the beginning of the Swinging Sixties comedy had assumed new forms, new themes and new attitudes. Comedy had evolved into anti Establishment, cutting edge satire, ridiculing and lampooning TV celebrities and politicians, taking the mickey, grinning mercilessly at figures of authority and then stabbing knives into the backs of those for whom there seemed to be no legal comeback or recourse.

During the 1960s one programme That Was The Week That Was captured a TV market that may have been overlooked. David Frost, later to become a distinguished interviewer, broadcaster of distinction and political interrogator, introduced a programme that was not so much funny as downright outrageous. Both prime ministers, presidents, kings and queens were all fair game for Frost's waspish and acerbic tongue.

Then towards the end of the 1960s a vastly talented group of Cambridge intellectuals formed themselves into one of the funniest comic teams Britain had ever seen. Monty Python's Flying Circus was by far and away one of the quirkiest, gloriously silly and brilliantly inventive BBC comedy programmes ever seen or produced. It was years ahead of its time and marvellously, groundbreakingly innovative.

With Terry Jones, Michael Palin, Graham Chapman, John Cleese and Eric Idle all combining forces to provide comedy beautifully infused with huge helpings of spot on improvisation, magically perceptive social commentary and ridiculous routines straight out of the world of the unconventional, Monty Python's Flying Circus gave us the mad, the ludicrous and football playing philosophers such as Socrates taking part in the football World Cup. Sheer genius.

Then there were the legendary comics who made my dad's life complete. There was Tommy Cooper, the master magician, buffoon and bumbling funny man. Cooper was the man who once juggled a thousand handkerchiefs, dropped endless table tennis balls onto the ground and then completely forgot what he was doing only to find that his audience were still there but convulsed with more and more laughter. He would swap glasses around with all the professional coolness and aplomb of somebody who knew what he was doing but didn't really care if the joke fell flat on its face which was never invariably the case..

Back in the 1970s one Billy Connolly simply blew away the opposition with humour that had much that generated almost instant reaction. The Scottish Big Yin would give us anarchy, devil may care irreverence, swearing, profanity and explosively funny jokes that would live on in the memory. Connolly had energy, physicality, rebellion and the most fiercest sense of patriotism. Scotland, of course are the best thing since sliced bread and Connolly made no secret of the fact.

Lest we should ever forget there was Morecambe and Wise, my personal heroes. Eric and Ern entered my consciousness at a very early age and once there they continued to weave a spell that would always leave me totally entranced and hooked for life. The relationship of two men from the wartime music hall was a deeply powerful one that almost seemed telepathic. From the unforgettable breakfast sketch to the tune of the Stripper to the wonderful Andre Previn sketch where all the notes were played in the wrong order Morecambe and Wise crossed all classes, age groups and social backgrounds.

And so to the present day. The nostalgic among us will insist that there can never be another Ken Dodd, another Billy Connolly, Monty Python's Flying Circus or Morecambe and Wise. But of course every generation has its very own comic characteristics and idiosyncrasies. Now the comic landscape has brought us Ben Elton, Lee Mack, John Bishop, Lee Evans, Jo Brand, Jennifer Saunders and Dawn French.

The cynics will tell us that today's crop of comics are rude, challenging, boundary breaking, and recklessly scandalous in their choice of jokes. How can they possibly funny if they sprinkle their acts with rough and ready four word expletives? The defence for the charged would be that hundreds, thousands and millions pack out the halls and theatres of provincial Britain and the cities because they simply can't get enough, the biting humour, the gags that can only be good for the heart and soul.

So there you have it folks. It's National Let's Laugh Day and it has to be the proudest and most unexpected announcement I've made in recent times. To be perfectly honest I had no idea that this was the day we should all burst out with funny, tickle tummy day. Now come on everybody it's time for a lengthy bout of wisecracking, of rolling around in the aisles, of cracking a conveyor belt of jokes, laughing for the sake of laughing. It is after all National Let's Laugh Day and long may it continue.