Moray Hunter

Scotland's funniest 60 people

As the Glasgow International Comedy Festival prepares to launch with a gaggle of giggles later this month, we count down Scotland's funniest 60 people.

Two Jacobite soldiers from 1745, a clan chief and his bard, have been found alive and well in a cave. A visiting English academic (of no great status but hopes of it) leaps at the chance to integrate them into modern Scottish society. Carl Gorham (of Stressed Eric cultish fame) is the author and this is very funny, especially if you (as I do) like Scotsmen plus a bustling conjunction of the real with the surreal. There's a marvellous cast too, David Haig, Gordon Kennedy (who also directs), Jack Docherty, Moray Hunter, Morwenna Banks and Rebecca Front.

Freedom - TV show written by an Edinburgh lad

Edinburgh boy (made good!), Moray Hunter, has written a new TV show which is to be aired on BBC2 Scotland on 7th December 2010.

I see that Channel 4 have posted large amounts of their archive on YouTube, including this one treasure that had a considerable effect on me, Mr Don and Mr George. It was a spin-off series from the sketch show Absolutely, and starred Moray Hunter and Jack Docherty, who also both wrote it.

The show was transmitted in 1993, when I was about 18 (and a serious comedy geek). I totally loved it and the show demonstrated to me what was possible comedically in the modern era. Pythons, Goons and Goodies are all great, but they were all some time ago (even in 1993). I wanted something that was positive, genial, silly and knock-about. And I found it in Mr Don and Mr George. Lots of wordplay, daft, self-defeating conversations and surreal turns. The plots made sense, but it wasn't about the story - much more about the gags. Perhaps this was the problem with the show (though not for me) and why it never quite got a big enough audience. That said, I seem to remember it was scheduled for Friday night at 10.35pm - and this sort of comedy never really seemed suited to the slot (althoughPaul Merton had had some success in that slot a few years earlier). It's worth noting that Mr D & Mr G, this much forgotten jewel, was broadcast two or three years before Father Ted and, I believe, paved the way. I'd be interested to hear the views of others on this subject.

I taped the episodes off the TV onto a VHS back in 1993, and then a few years ago scrubbed them by mistake. The realisation I'd lost them was awful at the time, as I was pretty sure they wouldn't be re-released on DVD. And they haven't been. But they are on YouTube. Joy of joys.

Coach Blackley fixes the players of Ashburn United with a stare so fierce it might make Sir Alex Ferguson quiver. If you lose today, he rants, you will spend the rest of your lives in shame! But the squad cowering in the changing room are small children, competing in the North and Midlands Under 11 Cup. Their insanely competitive parents are even worse, trying to relive their lives through their offspring, and carrying it to an obsessive extreme.

Written by the Absolutely veterans Moray Hunter and Jack Docherty, the humour in this mockumentary is often desperate and is based on a Canadian show about a junior ice hockey team, which suggests that these desperate impulses may be hard-wired into the human brain.