Every year, 154 million Christmas crackers are sold in Britain - filled with bad puns and plastic tat.

Now comic  Fin Taylor is on a mission to change that, and make the mealtime novelties  less cheesy.

The stand-up is releasing his own batch of Christmas – but featuring his own, edgy, gags rather than the family-friendly puns they usually contain. And he’s hoping that he’ll be able to help more comedians make bespoke crackers for their fans in the future.

Taylor told Chortle that the venture, Comedy Crackers, started as a practical joke tied into his web series in which he asks wildly inappropriate questions of his guests.

‘A couple of years ago I had a stupid idea to see if we could psy-op people’s Christmases and hide Fin vs The Internet-style jokes in normal-looking Christmas crackers,’ he said. 

‘We sold 100 in two minutes and people sent me videos of their unsuspecting in-laws reading out jokes they either didn’t understand or didn’t approve of. 

‘Last year we thought we’d upscale, made 1,000, but again they sold out by the second week of November. My wife then realised that maybe this demand was telling us something: why does everyone accept that Christmas cracker jokes are rubbish? Why don’t comedians sell Christmas crackers with jokes designed for their fans? 

‘It could be a chance to grow fanbases among families, or in my case, to throw some hand-grenades on the dinner table and make Christmas even more awkward.’

One sample gag from his previous designs is: ‘Apparently 1 in 8 men will get prostate cancer. And normally it’s the one being fucked up the arse by the other seven.’

Now he’s selling six British-made, plastic free crackers for £25, each containing a snap, a hat, a joke, and a game though the Comedy Crackers website.

‘This year it's just my jokes, but we'll be reaching out to other comics in the new year to bring more people into the stable,’ he added.