I want to tell you about my Comedy Heroes. They’re not famous, haven’t got a Live Stand up DVD and if they walked pastyou in the street you probably wouldn’t bat an eyelid.
My Comedy Heroes are my Grand – parents.
Growing up, I didn’t see an awful lot of my Nanna and Granddad, they owned a hotel in Blackpool, as kids we would see them on the odd holiday and break from school, but I never really realized how funny the pair of them were, the added pressure of the Hotel, but it meant that the time we spent with them was whilst helping to clean and organise things for that’s nice guest and whilst we had a laugh, it wasn’t the main issue on our mind.
They retired, and moved closer, to be with us. It was whilst at my Grandparents flat, drinking tea and eating biscuits and just generally being spoilt that I realised it was the best comedy show I had ever been to. I don’t mean they where purposely being hilarious, but they have been married for so many years and spent near enough every day with each other, they have both developed this comical duo
I’ve always said that the best comedy comes from every day situations, my love of comedy, and main source of it for my own material is real life. If you didn’t laugh at life, in the face of the dark times I’d go mad.
If you where to sit in my Grandparents lounge and listen to them have a conversation you’d probably hear this:
GRANDDAD: What are you doing? Leave that, I can cut those Carrots
NAN: Oh, alright thank you
After a slight pause and the sound of chopping, you would here this:
N: No… Barrie, those carrots are too thick now! You’ve done too many and I don’t even like Carrots.
G: Shrrup you’ll eat them and be grateful
They never try, to be funny, they just are.
Nanna gets the name of conditions wrong, She calls an OCD an AC/DC..
She doesn’t refer to Celebrities by name, but by description Graham Norton, for example is ‘that, small little irish puff’
Nan loves example, the musician
She swears, and still thinks that I think ‘Wonka’ is a term to use when you’re exasperated
Granddad is even funnier, the other week I popped in to find my Gramps belting seven bells out of the digi box because the TV had gone funny and was ruining his enjoyment of the Football.
He believes that Sellotape fixes everything and at one point, the cordless phone, TV remote and Nanna’s curling tounges where all held together with the stick stuff.
He one broke a light fitting with the hoover, that was quite a day
A few years ago for Christmas, I brought my Granddad a diary and told him to fill it in. and since then he has, every day made an entry, these range from Ann (my Nan) has been causing me issue today, I couldn’t get her porridge the right consistency at all… to I picked my new reading glasses up today, have the anti glare was an expensive mistake.
One day, I’ll get them published, they’re both a tonic when I feel low. It would sure help anyone who was struggling to find a smile
You can keep Lee Evans, and Sarah Millican, because Ann and Barrie Archer are the best in the business… I’m so lucky to have such a lovely set of Nanna and Grandad, who are so entertaining
I love them to pieces and I hope they know what an inspiration they are to me.
