has not been funny for a long time

in Billy Connolly's case he seems to get less funny the happier he is.

Jasper Carrott

Ben elton
Adrian edmonson
Harry Enfield

Feel really mean now.

..new cruel persona is brilliant.
My favourite line of his recently..
"You know how Al Gore can solve the energy crisis?..shut the fuck up for five minutes"

at least a hour and half with hardly a joke so we can add Steve Mangan , Tamsin Greig and Sadly Matt Le Blanc.

I know there are other examples (for me, the most conspicuous is Harry Enfield, who just seemed to lose "it" completely, but what makes Cleese such a special case is that he was at his peak so damned brilliant, and then suddenly he seemed to forget how to do it & just became a shouty old ham. From one of the very best in the business, he became one of the worst. I remember reading an interview with Terry Jones recently in which he said something like "The trouble with John is, he's got no sense of humour." Seemed an odd thing to say about one the world's funniest men, but I think it just might be true.

Honestly, in the late 70s, Cannon and Ball were hilarious. No lesser authority than Eric Morecambe identified them as the best double act around (apart from him and Ern). Yet as the 80s progressed, they became Not Funny Anymore.

In recent times though, I was delighted to see Bobby Ball deliver a fine acting performance as the agent for the fattest man in Britain (Timothy Spall). He seemed to be playing himself - and doesn't seem to have aged that much. I particularly loved his Alan Partridge-like entrances, singing pop songs at the top of his voice, directly at people.

He's definitely been going downhill for some years - I remember seeing him live in the 90s, or watching Definite Article, and hardly being able to breathe at some points. But his last couple of DVDs are rather poor by comparison.

And at the risk of opening up the "what's funny vs what's offensive" debate all over again, let's not forget that Frankie Boyle in his hey-day was genuinely funny - his take on the Glasgow Airport bombers, or his comment about the labelling on Sunny Delight - "This counts towards your five-a-day ... as minus two". He's been getting more sadistic and less funny over time, but his last DVD gave a bad name to misanthropy.

Rehashing the same old tired observations from yesteryear. Yawn!

.

Vic and, I'm afraid, Bob...

Smug, annoying, self-satisfied - yes. Funny - no.

Harry fucking Hill.

to the shocking decline of Sean Hughes.
It was in the cosy environs of the upstairs at the Hen and Chickens in Islington where I have seen many a comedian try out there new material before embarking on a tour. It only seats around 50 and when someone dies that close in front of you it makes it even sadder.
Hughes raised maybe a light chuckle from the room in an hour. His ad libbing when he riffed with the audience to save himself from the poor material was just plain sad.
I hope the experience meant he tore it up and started again before the tour.
RIP.

Jack Dee - was he ever funny?

Alexei Sayle - absolutely brilliant at his peak. Now he just seems jaded and too serious

Rik Mayall - also a comedy genius back in the day. Now just a little odd, post accident. Especially unfunny when performing material written by others - eg The New Statesman

Billy Connelly - can still be funny when the mood takes him, but tends to be too precious and self absorbed. A classic example of what can happen to a comedian who rubs shoulders with royalty

I find it hard to connect the comedy troupe I loved growing up with their recent output.

Cleese: Always very open and clearcut when it came to monetising his talent via commercials, etc, it has led to diminishing returns: Will & Grace and touring Scandanavia to pay off his ex-wife.

Idle: The biggest sell-out of all. Lazily recycling old MP through his own rubbish filter where he assumes what people loved about Python in the first place was wackiness. WRONG! it was the smart stuff.

Jones: Done anything funny recently? No.

Gilliam: Never not likeable and talented, but when was the last bellylaugh?

Palin: Overall the most successful ex-Python because he was able to find something else to put his talent to. Interestingly has been the one person putting the kybosh on a proper Python reunion over the last 10 years.

Chapman: Hasn't been funny now for over 20 years. Bastard.

However...

There is a potential triumph waiting in the wings. Gilliam has executive produced an upcoming animation which features Python voices, it's called 1884:

As if to prove your thesis correct, Ben Elton's first live standup comeback show on Australia's Channel Nine this week was perfect example of a comedian who just isn't funny anymore. Just read the comments on this story.

this morning on the tube I had the Hale & Pace parody of R.E.M. in my head for some reason & got to thinking about comedians who are no longer funny! As a 12 year old I thought they were fantastically funny but looking back it was really quite poor! Maybe they should go in the 'never actually funny' list.

Bob Monkhouse

His latest film looks utterly puerile, with endless knob jokes. And his sidekick is the very definition of someone getting lucky. Not funny at all.

Don't like Connolly either, or Izzard, or Vic Reeves or anyone really. Can't stand anyone on the panel of Mock The Week or HIGNFY, etc.

Armstrong & Miller at a push, Miranda Hart, but no stand-ups. Lee Mack's alright.

I agree re:Cleese and every one of the Pythons.

But I gotta say... I don't find Lucas & Walliams or James Corden funny either.

Been about 20 years since he was funny.

Also: French, Saunders, Allen, Edmonson, Mayall (as mentioned previously) - years since they have been remotely amusing. Coltrane, Fry and Laurie too, though in fairness they aren't really comedians anymore.

Are any of the alternative comedy brigade still funny?

any comedian in the world who is actually still funny.

I think that half the problem is that, like musicians really, you get a lot of comedians who are very much of their time and of that particular moment. Reeves and Mortimer are a classic example. What they were doing was genuinely fantastically funny and innovative at the time for a lot of people, but revisiting it makes you wonder what the fuss was all about in the first place and whether it really was all that. The Young Ones is another example.

But the fact of the matter is, a lot of stuff was genuinely funny at the time, but has just fallen foul of the passage of time. The same goes for comedians ploughing the same furrow deep into their careers: it’s probably just as good as it ever was in a lot of cases: it just ain’t new anymore….

Tommy Cooper or Sandy Powell did variants of the same trusted routine throughout their career. They were doing it live and then, in Cooper's case at least, in short bursts on TV. Nowadays, due to their high media exposure, comedians original material is getting stale within a year or so. So then they have to find a whole new routine. The music analogy is exactly right Archie. Most artists have 1 - 2 good albums in them at the best, after that they are just reliving their old glory to diminishing returns. Ditto comedians.

I've been thinking along similar lines recently - some paired examples (all subjective of course):

Laurel & Hardy v. Chaplin
Fawlty Towers v. Monty Python
Alan Partridge v. Vic Reeves

The RHS is probably the more "important" (groundbreaking, innovative etc.) of each pair but ... are they still funny? Chaplin for example, I can admire what he does but rarely do I laugh like I still do with Laurel and Hardy. The LHS of each pair are still funny largely (or at least partly) because the characters have not dated - we all know a Hardy, a Fawlty, a Partridge..

The problem with comedy is it's over exposed. When I see the same faces constantly switching between panel shows I can feel my brain shutting down.

the problem with TV comedians is they're too smug. Certainly the panel-show ones (apart from Miranda, Lee Mack and a couple of others) are. Plus they seem to be constantly sneering at a kind of vague target -'aren't celebrities stupid?' 'aren't footballers thick? 'aren't tories horrible' type routines. I mean I hate the tories as much as the next northerner but I'd rather go for a beer with Ken Clarke than Andy Whatever(the bald one on Mock The Week) or the tall, blond one (Russell Howard?).
Mind you it's no wonder they're smug, they're getting paid a lot of money (presumably) for feck all. If they're aware how stultifyingly average the are they must feel like they've won the lottery.
And don't get me started on these new crisp ads with Jimmy Carr, Linekar, Steven Whore etc etc
"All for charidee!" Yeah righto. Fuck off!

these days is they are everywhere. Can't turn on Five Live without a comedian being on, Richard Bacon hardly has anything else on his show. Radio 4 is the same. They're even on Question of Bloody Sport.

Have to agree with most of the other posts here - seems like many comedians have a limited "shelf life"

Was recently watching the most recent (? the one shown on TV at Christmas at least) Eddie Izzard show and it barely raised a smile. Also, a lot of swearing, which I hadn't noticed before (maybe I'm just getting old).

Remember going to see a Rik Mayall tour about 25 years ago and barely being able to walk when we came out - now seeing him as an "actor" in other TV shows (like Midsomer Murders) is sad becuase he really can't do it. Btw on that tour, his support was Ben Elton who none of us had heard of before and was brilliant - and now look at him.

Seems like M Palin had the right idea - quit while you're ahead and find something different to do.

I laugh at the most at the moment is Not Going Out. The jokes don't always hit the mark but they come thick and fast and there are plenty that have me laughing heartily throughout the half hour to forget about the weak ones. Lee Mack has a way with words that goes straight to my funny bone and the great thing about that is, he doesn't expect me to analyse it to find the humour: it's as the crow flies comedy!

He's quite old school in many ways, comes across as the one who made it out of the club circuit, rising to provincial theatre gigs and then onto the telly. It is his banter with David Mitchell on Would I Lie To You? that I look forward to when I watch that show. Unlike Alan Davies on QI Lee Mack's realisation that he's ignorant of something or has completely the wrong end of the stick seems genuine and he doesn't overplay it or underplay it. He's quite fearless in that respect, because he has a funny line to switch people from laughing at him to laughing with him. To me he's edgy simply because he surprises me with how funny he can make pretty much any situation he's presented with. I watch the way Mitchell laughs at what he says as well and Mitchell doesn't strike me as someone who laughs unless he things it's funny. I just think Lee Mack has a natural and common touch that works seamlessly between low brow and high brow without feeling that as a viewer you're moving between the two.

Black Books and Father Ted are the other shows that had me creased up from start to finish. I miss both of those shows very much just because I looked forward to them so much when they were on and they never failed me.

The culpable misanthropic - Mack, Moran, Morgan - stretches back to Hancock and I think it must be my favourite form of comic character because that seems to be the connection between these shows that have me laughing out loud (not just wry smiling).

For "sketch show" type humour I still think Scotch and Rye was the best and for stand-up/audience performance you don't get much better than Dave Allen and Bill Hicks in my book. Imagine that as a double bill? Wow

I liked Spike Milligan, which is why I sat through many of the various Q series. However Spike was most definitely not always funny. If you were lucky an episode of Qn would have 2 minutes of wildly inspired, lunatic humour and 28 minutes of half baked or self indulgent or so, so insane it was impossible to connect with unfunny dross.

Sharp writing with gags honed and honed again by a group of good writers, and Andrew Collins, plus a cast of comedians who know how to deliver a line properly. Unfortunately, the last episode made it look like Lee was about to cop off with Lucy. I Spy A Shark. The key to sitcoms is unrequited sexual tension.

that episode of Not Going Out, where they make a porn film in the flat, I'm sorry I thought it was truly dreadful. I've never watched it before and I've given it a wide berth since.

On a more positive note, I can think of a comedian who has been consistently funny on tv and radio for over 20 years, and that's Paul Merton. He can still reduce me to hysterics on HIGNFY and he seems like a genuinely nice man.

An interesting case. I truly think the fact that he's stuck with the Comedy Store Players for his entire career is the secret of his success. He probably hasn't needed to do it for ages but he keeps doing it. He has quietly kept to a really high standard for yonks.

Never seems to be mentioned anywhere. I've never heard him doing anything else apart from the News Quiz, which certainly isn't what it used to be with its endless parade of interchangeable comedians I've never heard of, but he's unfailingly hilarious every week. Also doesn't appear to have lost an ounce of his lefty bite and anger despite his advancing years, which is refreshing...

aren't very funny any more, either.

new album is hilarious, a real return to form.

He's the wanderer

(I'm still here)

Extremely funny stand-up in the 70s (look out for the footage) but then spent 30 years trying to become an actor.

Seriously not funny.

Doesn't know whether to be Mark Thomas or Bill Hicks and skids into the abyss between.

Oh, and David Baddiel. Stand up, author, film maker - nada. Good in Horrible Histories though. My kids thought he was Alexei Sayle's son.

"They say money can't buy you happiness, but I'd gladly pay £50 to see Noel Edmonds mauled by a tiger."

see below...

I'd argue that he's much funnier than Simon Pegg, who is a decent bloke, but has never been funny.

Shaun of the Dead was a good idea - when was the last time you saw a decent zombie movie in the UK (and 28 days Later doesn't count - it could have been anywhere), with a few good laughs, Hot Fuzz less so, and I've been told it's best to wait for Paul until it comes out on dvd.

Someone who's no longer funny? Lenny Henry. Hasn't been funny since the 80s.

but Al Murray has been flogging a dead horse for way too long now. I caught him a few times about 15 years and he was absolutely brilliant as the Pub Landlord. His speed of thought, interaction with the audience and ability to improvise were a joy to behold. I saw him at the Bearcat Club in Twickenham around this time and it was genuine, unbridled, ROTF laughter all round. Now he's a total frigging embarassment.

... that as a lot of writers and performers - and I think it's true of musicians too - get older, they perhaps can't reach the same heights of inspiration that they might have done in their youth. And if you've got a healthy back catalogue of material behind you, the temptation is always going to be there to make use of it. Let's face it, if you're a musician, people expect it. And if you're a comedian, people don't always remember jokes years after they first heard them, so you're on pretty safe ground dusting them off again.

I've got tickets for John Cleese's forthcoming UK tour because ultimately, I'm such a big fan of the man and his work that I didn't want to miss the opportunity of seeing him live. I'm well aware it possibly won't be that good, and that the tickets will have been overpriced, but I know I'd have regretted it all the more if I hadn't gone.

enough to hear Phil Jupitus say something funny once.

So, anyway, I must get back to writing my will.

but I'd leave out the 'anymore'.

with his wacky, surrealist and sometimes dark humour used to be a favourite, but when I've seen him recently he's still using what is now tired material from years ago.

This suggestion probably falls down on two counts 1) does he fulfill the dictionary definition of comedian 2) was he EVER funny

it's a beautifully concise destruction of Cleese's "funny". As forensic as Cleese used to be in his heyday, somewhat ironically.