The greatest thing ever... | David Trent chooses his comedy favourites

The greatest thing ever...

David Trent chooses his comedy favourites

Has he had an accident?

The Chris Morris Radio 1 shows are the greatest things ever made. Jimmy Savile sued the BBC because Morris’s announcement of his death ruined his Christmas. Just typing that made me laugh out loud.

No moleste

Tig Notaro is the greatest thing ever. Look.

Three Little Ducks

This is Charlie Chuck. He is most exciting. I saw him in Reading in the 1990s at the Purple Turtle.

Violent, unhinged and catastrophic, veering from baby-faced ecstasy to juddering tears of despair often within the same sentence, the set came to an abrupt end after about ten minutes when he smashed a drumkit to pieces that had been hired in by the venue to the initially vocal and ultimately physical displeasure of the venue management.

It was a thrill and an inspiration. The greatest thing ever.

He's like yer Dad, inni?, this geezer?

I am in an English lesson. I am 14. have been asked what my favourite book is. I say it is The Sex Pistols Diaries by Fred and Judy Vermorel. I think it is the greatest book ever.

My teacher says, 'Why do you like it?' I say it is really funny. She asks me if I want to read a bit out. I say 'No, Mrs Rook, I don’t want to read it,”

She says “Why not?” and I explain because of all the rude words, that there are a lot of rude words.

She says, 'Read it David, it’s OK.' So I read the transcript of this interview.

When I look up, Mrs Rook is trembling with fury.

I spend the next two years in the bottom set for English.

I'll just go and find out

Here’s the pitch, which I stole from Wikipedia - Julie Walters, as an elderly waitress, takes too long to deliver two bowls of soup. That’s it. Sounds shit. IT IS NOT SHIT, IT IS THE GREATEST THING EVER.

Add to that... two beaten eggs

I am very late to the party on these two and I’m sure everyone already knows how hilarious they are but whenever I ask people about them they screw up their faces and say: 'They are awful!' If you share this opinion I beg you to try again. They are the greatest thing ever.

There are two bikers and they look a bit scary but they are both really soft hearted lovely men. One of them is slightly more professional than the other and a bit better at being a TV presenter, I don’t know his name. I could find it out in an instant on Google, but I prefer to stay in the dark. The other is called Dave.

Dave is one of my favourite things on television. He makes me laugh every time I see him.

This isn’t even a particularly good clip, but after seven seconds Dave has already made me laugh because he has slagged Kingy (see, I do really know the other one’s name) off. Then there is an exquisite pause and glance at the camera between the words 'add to that' and 'two beaten eggs'.

At 24 seconds into the clip Dave is urging us to take care with the fish sauce, sharing a love for us all at home that is missing in the Teutonic glare of Nigella’s rictus grin or Jamie’s mainstream hipster stylings. At one point in this clip Dave accuses Kingy of being an ex drug user.

This clip ends weakly – If I could find it I would direct you to Hairy Bikers Bakeation - France when Dave has spent the evening eating cassoulet. Just the utter joy as he sings his little song at the end about how happy he is to have eaten the cassoulet is, in my eyes, worth my entire licence fee. It is both hilarious and uplifting to see a man transported by food and expressing his joy so nakedly.

Six Feet Two in a compact

Louis Theroux impish faux naïf blank stare and deadpan earnestness made his Weird Weekends in America the ultimate fish out of water show. The rap episode where he goes to launch his rapping career is a treat from beginning to end.

This clip is the greatest thing ever. I’ve watched it so many times and it never fails to make me laugh. Louis is having such a great time behind the mic and the way he keeps laughing both in delight with what’s happening and at his own preposterousness is infectious. I love it.

Tony Newley?

I can remember going round to my friend Luke’s house and him putting this on and the two of us sitting on the floor of his living room listening to this and laughing and laughing while his Mum sat on the sofa and shook her head at us like we were the most stupid idiots in the entire world. It was the greatest thing ever. We were fourteen. Luke’s mum is to blame.

Does this video look cool?

WELL DOES IT? DOES IT REALLY LOOK COOL?

The year that punk broke

The internet informs me that it is November 28, 1991. We are on the sofa at our house in Liverpool Road, Reading. I am on the sofa. Jon is on the chair. He is wearing his Dead Kennedys T-shirt that he got last week and his hair looks great. Really spiky like Billy Idol.

The Milkman (so named because he once drank a whole bottle of milk) is sitting next to me. My criteria for becoming friends with him was that he was wearing a Nirvana T-shirt when I saw him on the day in the summer when people who have gone into university through clearing have to go and get a house. It is now September. Somehow Nirvana has become the biggest band in the world and they are going to be on Top Of The Pops.

At the time, Top Of The Pops had a new policy that the bands had to sing live. Kurt apparently had a sore throat so he did this…

We are so delighted that we go out to the shop and buy some bread and some eggs and have fried egg sandwiches. Great times. The greatest times ever.

Shit on Debra's desk

I don’t remember how I ended up watching this. What I can remember is that when by the time I got to “PROMOTE SYNERGY” I was very excited and by 'Oh fuck me i can’t fucking do it, shit' I was pretty sure that I was watching the greatest thing ever. From then on in it’s just consistently surprising from line to line - at no point could I second guess it.

Seth Rogen’s questions at the end are perfect. I also strongly recommend Bing Bong Brothers where two men whisper about their penises. It is also excellent - even better when you know it’s a parody of this.

Michael Jackson at the Brits

We are all watching the Brits. This was when people watched TV. Little Mickey Jackson comes on. He is going to mime to Earth Song for about 10 minutes.

He does quite a lot of funny stuff anyway – he does some very weird walking and a lot of strange wobbly head movements. Behind him is a circle which is projecting loads of images of giraffes and stuff. The millionaire singer is singing about whether we have ever noticed that some people are poor. His fingers get very very itchy (3.00) and he blows off so powerfully that he becomes enveloped in a cloud composed entirely of his own fart steam (3.17)

Lots of children dressed in rags appear on the stage accompanied by various other very poorly shod adults – Has Jacko been back to Victorian Britain? Or is this simply how Jackson thinks people live here in the UK? Fair enough – I grew up my whole life without a rollercoaster in my back garden so it was a relatively poverty stricken existence…

A lot of the children appear to be crying and singing simultaneously, singing 'What about us?' I don’t even like to consider.

By this time, I can remember sitting at home wondering: “WHO IS GOING TO SAVE EVERYONE FROM ALL THIS POVERTY?”

But look, look at the left hand side of the screen at 5.06 – someone is coming to save us all from Michael Jackson.

Thank you Jarvis. You are the greatest person ever.

David Trent: This Is All I Have is at the Soho Theatre, London, from Wednesday to Saturday – then at the Leicester Comedy Festival on February 23.

Published: 3 Feb 2014

Live comedy picks

We see you are using AdBlocker software. Chortle relies on advertisers to fund this website so it’s free for you, so we would ask that you disable it for this site. Our ads are non-intrusive and relevant. Help keep Chortle viable.