Some People With Jokes. Copyright: BBC
Some People With Jokes

Some People With Jokes

  • TV stand-up
  • BBC Four
  • 2013 - 2014
  • 10 episodes (2 series)

Series in which different sections of the public tell their favourite jokes to camera. The groups include Vicars, Scousers and Football Managers.

Press clippings Page 2

Based on the Old Jews Telling Jokes format - an American web-series, shown on BBC Four recently, that is exactly what it sounds like - this new series sees men and women of the cloth trying their hand at standup. Like the old Jews before them, there's certainly a rich vein of subcultural comedy for the vicars to mine (the afterlife, confession, generally hilarious misogyny). Delivery-wise they really aren't bad either, despite most of the set-ups being about 20 times longer than is strictly necessary.

Rachel Aroesti, The Guardian, 10th July 2013

A faintly awkward follow-up to the tremendous Old Jews Telling Jokes, with British clergy in place of streetwise Americans. The vicars simply take turns to stand against a plain background and tell a joke. Not all the gags are classics - in a couple of cases I'm not sure they even make sense - but it's a likeable set-up. There's the odd racy punchline and the fascination of seeing what vicars choose to wear on TV. Jazzy dog collar? Amusing waistcoat? No-nonsense bomber jacket? Or cassock with colourful knitted trim?

Jack Seale, Radio Times, 10th July 2013

In the '70s, the parish vicar was a staple sitcom character. Steptoe & Son would regularly be thrown into paroxysms of nervous guilt by the prospect of the local god-botherer coming round to tea, while Terry & June were forever tying themselves into unlikely knots in the run-up to a dinner party with the Reverend Austin Doyle (note to younger readers: Terry & June was like Him & Her with milky tea and stairlifts).

Now we get to find out why these men of the cloth were in such demand at social functions with the baldly titled Some Vicars With Jokes, a half hour of genial clerics cracking wise and acting the goat. And that's pretty much all there is to tell. The wisecracks themselves are, shall we say, of a certain vintage, and all sound as if they've been ripped from the Dave Allen jokebook, but there are at least couple you might find yourself slipping into your own repertoire.

The decision to place the drollery against a flat, putty-coloured, computer generated backdrop is rather offputting, but the saintly stand-ups are good enough company to give this a look. Pick of the bunch is Reverend Paul Turp of St Leonard's in Shoreditch who comes across like a depressive Micky Flanagan by way of Harold Pinter.

Adam Lee Davies, Time Out, 10th July 2013

BBC Four commissions age 60+ joke telling series

BBC Four is making four episodes of a show in which members of the public aged 60 and above tell jokes to camera.

British Comedy Guide, 13th July 2012

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