Some People With Jokes

Radio Times review

Ho and, to an extent, ho. Brace yourselves for the favourite gags of men from around the country who like to don baggy red trousers and an elasticated beard at around this time of year. Some of the jokes are merrily hovering just below cracker standard, and several are only fit for repetition once the kids are in bed and everyone's had five cooking sherries.

If your Christmas has been a thankless whirl of herding, fixing and organising, this sort of grown-up silliness could be the perfect way to let off steam.

Radio Times review

If you were wondering what kind of wisecracks a funeral director would come up with, then here's your answer. Yes, it's a seemingly unstoppable flow of jokes involving hearses, churches and St Peter at the Pearly Gates.

It's a hit-and-miss affair, with the best cracks coming from Paul (who wears a leather jerkin as befits his role as an organiser of motorcycle funerals) and Mark (who does the classic amateur gag-teller's thing of laughing uproariously at his own punchlines).

But the most successful one-liner concerns the difference between the English cricket team and an undertaker. I won't spoil the ending for you.

Radio Times review

"Paddy walks into a chemist and says, 'I want some deodorant please.' The assistant says, 'Ball, aerosol..?' 'No,' says Paddy, 'for under me arms'." Some gags just sound better in an Irish accent, so this is the obvious follow-up to previous episodes showcasing Jewish and Liverpudlian humour. And Irish comedy shares some vital characteristics with those other groups: a rich heritage of storytelling, a gift for self-satire and a prominent target in the shape of the Church.

The older generation's jokes are especially enjoyable. You can easily imagine them being shouted across dining tables at family gatherings, or told in the pub over a bag of Tayto and pint of the black stuff.

Some Football Managers With Jokes review

There were moments when the director-general may have felt a shudder down his spine. Martin Allen's intimidating Cockney trill in a gag about a bloke picking up this 'bird' in a pub...

The latest genus to earn a People With Jokes compendium, a smattering of football managers serve up a series of groaners in this one-off special, which features Graham Taylor, Alan Curbishley and Phil Brown trotting out zingers on behalf of Sport Relief. The gags may barely be schoolyard standard and about as entertaining as someone else's Championship manager anecdotes, but at least the blank background and crew laughter evoke memories of The Kenny Everett Video Show.

Radio Times review

Inspired by the Old Jews Telling Jokes franchise, this no-frills parade of gags has so far delighted us with the amateur stylings of various vicars, Scousers and boffins. Now it's the turn of some football managers, in this one-off edition for Sport Relief.

Framed against a plain background, they rattle through their repertoires of zingers and groaners as the production crew laugh spontaneously off-camera. Some of them seem slightly self-conscious, but that merely adds to the charm.

Highlights include former West Ham manager Alan Curbishley's quick-fire pun about a sleepwalking nun, and a shaggy dog story from Luton Town's John Still that suggests he won't be invited to Buckingham Palace any time soon.

Higgs Boson walks into a church. The vicar says, "You can't come in here, you'll upset the congregation." Higgs says, "Why? You can't have Mass without me." If you liked that, you'll possibly enjoy the following half-hour, in which assorted scientists seek to shake off their stuffy image by standing in front of the camera and telling one-liners; some science-based, some not; some terrible, some even worse than that. Neurobiologist Dr Karli Montague's unrepeatable joke is ruder than anything you'd hear on The Comedians.

The title conjures up memories of A Bit of Fry & Laurie's classic Open University spoof but, as The Big Bang Theory proves, science and humour are happy bedfellows. Here, chemists, neurobiologists and one "Science Viking" exercise our temporal and frontal gyri with cheese gags, cheesy gags (some are awful), shaggy-dog stories and a few inspired puns (the one about Omega 3 tablets is a joy). It's The Comedians with IQs.

With comedians opining on ethical issues now a virtual fixture on Question Time, why shouldn't the clergy reverse the professional land-grab and try their hand at stand-up? Perhaps that was the thinking behind the first episode of Some People With Jokes (BBC Four) but the procession of vicars emphatically demonstrated that they really shouldn't give up the day job. The women in dog-collars came out of it rather better, for the most part endearingly apologetic as they shared sweetly silly puns you might hear in a playground (a piece of toast resembling the face of Jesus leads to 'I can't believe it's not Buddha' - take a bow, Rev Cindy Kent of Whetstone). But the boys in black were worryingly sex-obsessed and, with their slick patter, seemed to be under the illusion that only the pulpit had robbed the stand-up stage of their talent. You hope - and pray - this isn't what their congregants have to suffer every Sunday. Pure purgatory.