Greatest Stand Up Comedians

A three-hour compilation called Greatest Stand Up Comedians proved this to exhaustion, by butchering the stage routines of 50 famous comics.

Without the build-up, the timing and the audience rapport, most of the gags weren't even recognisable as jokes. It was like listening to five-second snatches of songs - pointless and frustrating. One of the rare moments worth a laugh came from Lily Savage: 'I've got a brother, our Archie. I hate him. The only reason I speak to him is you never know when you'll need a kidney.'

Shows like this are mostly padding, waffle from talking heads with just a taste of the real thing. That's usually because short clips can be broadcast under 'fair usage' agreements, with no fee; longer clips cost money.

So most of the three hours boiled down to different ways of saying something was funny: 'He's just an incredibly brilliant comedian'; 'Hilarious, I mean hilarious'; 'He is one of the comedy greats, no doubt.'

In case we hadn't noticed how incredibly brilliantly hilarious this all was, narrator Meera Syal kept saying, 'There's more merriment, wit and hilarity on its way,' or, 'We've giggled, tittered and guffawed our way to the end.'

But the real reason for the one-star rating is that Michael McIntyre was rated the seventh most uproarious comic ever . . . 37 places above Frankie Howerd. That's not even funny.

Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail, 1st January 2014

Greatest comedians ever? Channel 5 launches top 50

Peep Show creators Objective Productions to compile clip show of the 50 best - but will any women be on it?

Matt Trueman, The Guardian, 21st October 2013