Stanley Baxter is the David Bowie of comedy

Lynn Ferguson's comedy favourites

Lynn Ferguson – the comedy veteran who also voiced Mac in Chicken Run 1 and 2 – has started her Edinburgh Fringe run of Storyland at the Gilded Balloon today. Here she shares her Perfect Playlist of comedy favourites

Stanley Baxter

Stanley Baxter is just magnificent. He’s sort of like the David Bowie of comedy in that even if you think you don’t like him, you’ll find a piece of his work that you love. He’s so versatile. I remember Parliamo Glasgow from my childhood - a language that birthed a whole industry of Scottish souvenirs.

If I had to choose my favourite sketch though, Alan Whicker’s Scottish Country Dancing, in which he plays Ali Whicker interviewing Marjorie Ferguson (whom he also plays) would be right up there.

It came out in the 70s and in Scotland at the time, all school kids had to learn Scottish country dancing for the Christmas dance. None of us wanted to. This sketch brought great relief to a whole generation of school kids questioning what kind of Hunger Games Hellscape they’d been born into where knowing the steps to the Gay Gordons was a necessity.

Morecambe and Wise: Cleopatra

There are so many sketches to choose, but it would have to be Cleopatra with Glenda Jackson. It's a masterstroke in how to pass the ball. Writer Eddie Braben really is an unrecognised genius. His style of writing is tight, gag filled and clever.

He believed that when you asked someone to guest on your show, get them to do what they are already good at. Let them in on the joke - Angela Rippon with her legs, Des O’Connor and the singing, and of course André Preview. But the Glenda Jackson one I love most of all because they’re all really having a laugh and they let her be funny too.

Maid: He loves you terribly

Cleopatra: I keep telling him that.

The jokes keep coming and the running gags are just brilliant, whether it’s ‘What do you think of it so far’ or Ernie’s little legs.

I never get bored watching this sketch. It’s unashamedly joke heavy, cleverly constructed, really choreographed, but like all really brilliant things, it looks simple.

This weeks #SaturdaySpecial sees #GlendaJackson join Eric, Ern & Ann in the court of Cleopatra…

find out why Eric is late…what’s happens to Julius Caesar and what Eric’s been eating…

2021 is this clips 50th Anniversary!#StillBringingSunshine #PassItOn #Smile pic.twitter.com/NorfSRYbUn
— The Morecambe & Wise Archive (@eric_ernie_col) November 20, 2021

The Marx Brothers

I'm not a big fan of clowns, but The Marx Brothers take clowning to a whole new degree. The Mirror scene. The Cabin scene. I watch them late every Christmas night, with turkey sandwiches. They are amazing performers.

I couldn’t choose a favourite movie. Between A Night At The Opera, A Day At The Races Duck Soup and Casablanca they’re all up there. Casablanca has evil Nazis and a wandering hairpiece, but the other three have Margaret Dumont.

The lines are great.

‘You’ve been up in your room three and a half hours and your trunks haven’t arrived. well put your pants on. nobody will notice the difference’

But all three of them are just amazing performers. Even in their ‘meh’ movies like The Big Store, there’s still stuff to love, like Harpo’s harp daydream or Chico and Harpo with Mama Yo Quero, or the dream team of Groucho and Margaret Dumont….

The Muppet Show

Veterinarians Hospital - the continuing story of a doctor whose gone to the dogs.

OK, so if you don’t like puppet medical drama with a doctor who’s a dog and a full-time piano player and a nurse who’s a narcissistic pig and a karate artist, there’s something wrong with you.

The Swedish Chef. Mnah nah. Fozzie Bear. The stuff I found funny as a kid, i introduced my kids to and they loved it. This either showed that they have a genetically warped sense of humour, or that Frank Oz’s work was just magic. Probably both.

Billy Connolly: Big Banana Feet

I have musician friends who talk about how the Beatles changed everything in terms of music. I feel like that about Billy Connolly.

Watching the Big Banana feet doc, I was mesmerised. He said things that I found true and funny and he sounded like people I knew, rather than the smart polished comedy of south of the border.

He talked about stuff that I understood, rather than mother-in-law is so fat/wife is so angry type stuff.

He wasn’t glitzy, he was real. He told stories. True stories that happened to be funny because they connected to the ridiculousness of real life. He didn’t clown, or have puppets or an orchestra or a fancy stage. He was just a Scottish guy wearing daft boots and playing a banjo and what made the magic was his perspective. It still does.

Janet Brown

Possibly not a comic name that many people remember. She impersonated Margaret Thatcher back in the days of the Mike Yarwood show. She was married to Peter Butterworth - another one of my comedy heroes (Carry On Screaming is in my top 10 favourite films ever)

I loved her as Margaret Thatcher - mostly, I think, because of how much it made my anti-Thatcherite parents laugh, but I worked with her a lot in her later years, on a BBC comedy show of mine called Millport.

She could take a fairly indistinct line and make it shine. When people talk about women in comedy being ignored, I always think about her and Una McLean. They were trailblazers, working under the wire in an industry that at that time mostly saw women as the glamorous assistants, they shone.

Janet told me a wonderful story about how Peter loved a practical joke and one of his favourite things was that he had a three cupped bra, that he would hide amongst the clothing at jumble sales. They’d stand back and watch as people pulled out the bra and wondered as to what mythological creature it would fit and giggle. She had funny bones.