Delayed in transit with Mr Z, I was looking for a way to fill precisely one minute. I’d scoped out my responsibility in the crusade against boredom, and put it at 60 seconds, I can’t remember why. Anyway, I showed him this comedy routine by Ryan Goodcase, known as “the 60-second countdown joke” . I thought it was hilarious to the point of beauty when I first saw it, but immediately remembered why you should only pass comedy on, never supervise the watching of it, and definitely never describe it. (Although, for the benefit of those who can’t watch Goodcase’s routine, I will: it involves him asking an audience member to count down from 60 in their head and call out whatever number they’re at when asked to at various points in the gag.)
It will never be as funny as the first time you saw it; in standup especially, a joke is indivisible from its context. It has to walk the perilous line between funny and not-funny, so that part of the laughter is sheer relief that nobody died.
