I mentioned yesterday that I’m doing an exciting election thing this coming week, and that one of my partners in crime (electoral fraud?) will be James Aylett.

I never tire of telling the story of how I met James. In 2003, I was sent up to the Edinburgh Fringe by the Guardian, in the hope of finding the worst show on offer that year. After two long days of truly terrible stand-up, dance, comedy and the like, I finally hit the jackpot. There in the Fringe Guide was a show called ‘Out Of Your Mind’ – an improvised comedy thing by some Cambridge graduates. 

Improv.

Fucking Oxbridge grads.

It was going to be awful. Had to be. Couldn’t fail to be. 

And yet. And yet. And yet. As I was forced to admit…
 

* * * *

“If I’ve learnt anything from my visit to this year’s Edinburgh Fringe, it is that it’s impossible to tire of bad comedy. Bad theatre, bad dance, bad juggling, bad close-up magic – most branches of bad performing arts get boring in large doses, but not bad comedy. In fact, the more bad comedy you see, the more you want to see. You soon find yourself spending every spare minute poring over the Fringe Guide looking for worse and worse shows; something more buttock-clenchingly dreadful than The News Revue or more nail-bitingly ill-conceived than Tempus Fudge-it. Perhaps something by a group of recent Oxbridge graduates, or some improv. It’s almost impossible to go right with improv.

And so it was that I found myself sitting in the front row of Out of Your Mind – a show by a group of Cambridge graduates called The Uncertainty Division. The flyer promised an improvised show based on “the ideas, memories, and thoughts of an audience volunteer”, and from the moment the four men in white coats strode on to the stage carrying plastic crates, I knew I was in for bad comedy of the highest order.

In fact, I have never been so disappointed. It was actually, properly, non-ironically great. Not quite Gary Le Strange great or Flight of the Conchords great but then this is only the group’s third proper show. The plot was well thought out, the characters were spot on and a line about watching the Matrix while wearing stolen pearls was one of the funniest things I’ve ever heard.

The bad comedy junkie in me could barely hide his disappointment, but my inner good-comedy fan went straight on to the web in search of tour dates. Out of Your Mind with Uncertaintydivision is in London, Peterborough and Cambridge between now and October. Enjoy!”
 

* * * *

Given that introduction, it’s strangely fitting that three years later I ended up publishing James’ book about the Edinburgh Fringe while at The Friday Project. If you can find a copy (it was a casualty of the TFP – um – retooling), it’s laugh out loud funny throughout as well as being packed with useful advice for anyone interested in taking a show north of the border.

James’ co-author on the book was James Lark, another Uncertainty Division-er who also never fails to make me laugh out loud. His Tony Blair Musical (Tony Blair, The Musical) rightly received rave reviews (ahem).

In fact possibly the only thing funnier than James and James separately is James and James together. So you can imagine my joy when James A told me about their latest joint project – The Sitcom. Set in a writers’ room, it is refreshingly devoid of sympathetic characters – as the Jameses put it, “writers are bastards” – and it’s really fucking funny.

They’ve created a pilot and chopped it into six Youtube friendly parts. I’ve embedded the first part below, the others are linked underneath. Each < 5min part had at least two jokes which made me laugh out loud which is a pretty great strike rate (little Britain is in its sixth year and I’m still waiting for the first smile). 

James and James are hoping to produce more but, as the whole thing is self-funded, they’re hoping to get some donations from people who enjoy the clips. Have a watch and, if you like what you see (you will), consider making a donation. Again, link below. 

More parts of The Sitcom pilot, and donation information.

Go!