Is this the most influential joke ever written?

'Lost' recording rediscovered

A recording of a joke described as one of the most influential ever written has been unearthed after more than 65 years.

The gag – about buxom film star Jane Russell – was the first ever sold by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, kicking off their illustrious writing career.

They sold the quip to the 1950s radio show Happy-Go-Lucky, a variety vehicle for comedian Derek Roy. Also in the cast was a young comic called Tony Hancock – marking the start of a partnership that would create one of the most significant British sitcoms ever, placing emphasis on characters more than one-liners for the first time.

After Hancock Half Hour, the writers went on to create Steptoe And Son, and the two series went on to influence generations of comedy to follow.

Tristan Brittain-Dissont, the archivist of the Tony Hancock Appreciation Society, recently found a recording of the joke in the archives of the British Library, calling it 'one of the most extraordinary discoveries in the history of radio comedy'.

And in a new interview with the Daily Telegraph, he added: 'In my opinion this is one of the most important jokes ever written.'

It is not known whether the joke was used on Happy-Go-Lucky, but Brittain-Disson found a tape of Roy telling it on Variety Ahoy!, a radio show which toured naval bases, that aired on January 22, 1952.

The gag takes place on a pirate ship, when the bored crew are discussing how to kill time. One suggests a game of Jane Russell Pontoon.

'Is that the same as ordinary pontoon?' his shipmate asks, prompting the punchline: 'It is, but you need 38 to bust.'

Here's the gag:

Galton and Simpson were chuffed to receive a response from the BBC after submitting the joke.

The reply from Broadcasting House said: 'Don't read more into this letter than appears on the surface, but we've read your script and were highly amused' – and inviting them in for a meeting.

In the book The Masters Of Sitcom, Galton recalled: 'We got drunk on that letter, we showed it to everyone. If that had been the end of our writing careers we'd still be dining out on it now.'

Simpson agreed it was the pontoon gag that caught the script editor's eye.

The clip was played at an day-long event run by archive organisation Kaleidoscope at Birmingham University over the weekend. It also featured clips from an unsuccessful variety series Hancock for ABC Television called Hancock's in 1967, where he played the manager of a nightclub, featuring June Whitfield as a showgirl: