British Comedy Guide
Michael Grade & The World's Oldest Joke. Image shows from L to R: Ken Dodd, Michael Grade
Michael Grade & The World's Oldest Joke

Michael Grade & The World's Oldest Joke

  • TV documentary
  • BBC Four
  • 2013
  • 1 episode

Michael Grade traces the history of the joke with a little help from a host of historians, academics, comedy experts and comedians. Features Michael Grade, Colin R Campbell, Ken Dodd, Tim Vine, Barry Cryer and more.

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Key details

Genre
Documentary
Broadcast
2013
Channel
BBC Four
Episodes
1
Features
Michael Grade, Colin R Campbell, Ken Dodd, Tim Vine, Barry Cryer, Robert Orben, Ann Featherstone, Oliver Double and Paul Mcdonald
Directors
Lucy Kenwright
Producers
Lucy Kenwright and Caroline Wright

Fart gags, toilet humour, sex, nagging wives - no, not the set list for a Bernard Manning gig, but subjects that the Sumerians, Romans, Anglo-Saxons and Victorians all made jokes about.

In Michael Grade And The World's Oldest Joke, the presenter traces the history of the joke with a little help from a host of historians, academics, comedy experts and comedians including Ken Dodd, Tim Vine and Barry Cryer.

Along the way he discovers what tickled the Tudors, ribbed the Romans and made Renaissance wits roar as he sets out to discover whether jokes come and go with the rise and fall of civilisations or whether we're still laughing at the same things our ancestors did.

Additional details

Production
Studio
Picture
Colour

Broadcast details

First broadcast
Wednesday 6th March 2013 at 9pm on BBC Four
Episode length
1 hour
All previous repeats
  • Wednesday 19th February 2014 at 11:40pm on BBC4
  • Thursday 20th June 2013 at 12:30am on BBC4
  • Thursday 7th March 2013 at 2:45am on BBC4

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