Does one need to go to Oxbridge to stand a chance Page 3

Quote: joebloggs69 @ September 30 2012, 11:52 AM BST

although I always knew that lots of people in comedy come straight from Footlights or Oxford Revue, I was still surprised at just how many. For example - I didn't realise that Lee & Herring went to Oxford.

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It is shocking. Here's a list of some. There are many more - and many more behind the camera and pushing pens.

Jimmy Carr
Mark watson
Andy parsons
Al murray
josie long
john cleese
armando iannucci
david schneider
sacha baron cohen
david mitchell
john bird
laura solon
john fortune
katy brand
robert webb
lucy montgomery
Richard Ayoade
David Baddiel
Alexander Armstrong
Clive Anderson
Barunka O'Shaughnessy
Hugh Dennis
Stephen Fry
Matthew Holness
Tim Key
Ben Miller
Steve Punt
Griff Rhys Jones
Katherine Parkinson
Sue Perkins
Sandi Toksvig

I include Robert Webb who isn't really a comedian, just to make that joke.

You find that those comedians who didn't go to Oxbridge went to equally prestigious universities like Bristol or UEA rather than polys or second tier places. And most went to public schools.

There are established 'working class' performers - though fewer than you would imagine. For example Paul Whitehouse - who you might expect to have had no higher education went to the University of East Anglia and his mum was an opera singer.

Al Murray is probably the poshest out of that lot, bizarrely.

'Murray was born at Stewkley, Buckinghamshire, only son of Lieutenant Colonel Ingram Bernard Hay Murray (a great-great-great-great-grandson of John Murray, 3rd Duke of Atholl who married Charlotte, Baroness Strange) and Juliet Anne Thackeray, née Ritchie (a great-great-granddaughter of William Makepeace Thackeray). His grandfather, the diplomat Sir Ralph Murray, was a scion of Scottish nobility who married into the von Kuenburg family, aristocrats from Austria.'

Quote: Godot Taxis @ October 2 2012, 12:23 PM BST

It is shocking. Here's a list of some. There are many more - and many more behind the camera and pushing pens.

Andy parsons

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What went wrong Andy? You had every chance in the world Andy.

Never one to get in the way of a good conspiracy theory but isn't a base explanation for this that to be a decent comedy writer, you've got to be quite bright and bright people tend to get into Oxbridge.

I know people who went there who are mainly lawyers and journos. They didn't get to be lawyers and journos because they went to Oxbridge, but because they're quite bright.

Quote: Godot Taxis @ October 2 2012, 12:23 PM BST

It is shocking. Here's a list of some. There are many more - and many more behind the camera and pushing pens.

Jimmy Carr
Mark watson
Andy parsons
Al murray
josie long
john cleese
armando iannucci
david schneider
sacha baron cohen
david mitchell
john bird
laura solon
john fortune
katy brand
robert webb
lucy montgomery
Richard Ayoade
David Baddiel
Alexander Armstrong
Clive Anderson
Barunka O'Shaughnessy
Hugh Dennis
Stephen Fry
Matthew Holness
Tim Key
Ben Miller
Steve Punt
Griff Rhys Jones
Katherine Parkinson
Sue Perkins
Sandi Toksvig

I include Robert Webb who isn't really a comedian, just to make that joke.

You find that those comedians who didn't go to Oxbridge went to equally prestigious universities like Bristol or UEA rather than polys or second tier places. And most went to public schools.

There are established 'working class' performers - though fewer than you would imagine. For example Paul Whitehouse - who you might expect to have had no higher education went to the University of East Anglia and his mum was an opera singer.

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I like most of them

Quote: Trinder @ October 3 2012, 4:27 PM BST

Never one to get in the way of a good conspiracy theory but isn't a base explanation for this that to be a decent comedy writer, you've got to be quite bright and bright people tend to get into Oxbridge.

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And yet most stand-ups did not.

If you read the thread though, I think you will find that people are offering explanations of the phenomena that do not amount to conspiracy theories.

Quote: Pingl @ October 3 2012, 5:38 PM BST

I like most of them

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Quite, if they are good I don't particularly care how they got there.

Though the list does include Tim Key.

Quote: Tursiops @ October 3 2012, 6:10 PM BST

Though the list does include Tim Key.

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Responisble for one of the best live shows I've ever seen, just sublime, he held the auduence like few I've seen; thumbs up from me!

working class, isn't that an oxymoron in this day and age and that bloody Whitehouse with his Opera singing mum! GRRRR

Quote: Pingl @ October 3 2012, 6:19 PM BST

working class, isn't that an oxymoron...

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The Oxbridge boys would call it a paradox.

Sandi Toksvig

The only talentless cunt that makes you think 'conspiracy'......

Quote: Trinder @ October 3 2012, 4:27 PM BST

Never one to get in the way of a good conspiracy theory but isn't a base explanation for this that to be a decent comedy writer, you've got to be quite bright and bright people tend to get into Oxbridge.

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No. That would only follow if you had to be of high intelligence to be a comedian (which you don't), Oxbridge only took people with ten litre brains (which they don't) and everyone in the country had tried to get into Oxbridge.

Quote: Trinder @ October 3 2012, 4:27 PM BST

I know people who went there who are mainly lawyers and journos. They didn't get to be lawyers and journos because they went to Oxbridge, but because they're quite bright.

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I doubt if anyone ever got a job because of their intelligence, whether they went to Oxbridge or not. Your friends got their jobs through networking and because they went to Oxbridge. There are almost no jobs that could not be done by someone with an average IQ, assuming training. The myth of exceptionalism that materially-lucky people tout is simply that - a myth.

Name me a thick comedy writer?

David Bussell.

F**king good though.

Quote: Marc P @ October 4 2012, 8:40 PM BST

David Bussell.

F**king good though.

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People only think I'm thick because of my killer good looks.

Quote: Trinder @ October 4 2012, 8:29 PM BST

Name me a thick comedy writer?

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Well you don't have to be 'thick' if you are not 'bright' - there is 'average intelligence'. I would say that definition covers almost all comedy writers, so there's your answer.