Mail On SundayGRAHAM DAVIES Among beams and brasses, after gravadlax, venison or boef en croute, with the port and brandy on the move, a packed room of 60 fleet-car men (and two women), convivial, boisterous and all set for fun, decide to heckle their speaker. "See what happens when cousins marry?" says Graham Davies. You've never heard of Graham Davies, but you will, you will. Like Clive Anderson, he's a young, baby-faced barrister moving in the direction of showbiz. Like Anderson, he's quick as a rattlesnake. He is also equipped with a stock of insult-jokes which he can adapt to all occasion. "Thank you", he says to another heckler, "but when I do a ventriloquist act, I bring my own dummy". He's done his research, too and knows who can take a joke. "What's the difference between Charles and a coconut? You can get a drink out of a coconut". Or, of one man who fancies himself with the women: "he told me, if he had a pound for every woman he's ever had, he'd buy himself a small sherry". Or, of a moustachioed guest: "The last time I saw a growth like that on an upper lip, the whole herd had to be put down". They love it. They howl with laughter so much that he has to raise his voice to be heard. He tells them he went to a school where rugby and homosexuality were compulsory, where bullies would beat you up and make you stand barefoot on the radiators. "Then they'd go back in the classroom and teach", he adds. "But that's nuns for you". Unsmiling he rattles them out and when he finishes - "They laughed when I wanted to be a humour after-dinner speaker, but they're not laughing now" - they are almost asphyxiated with laughter Marks out of ten: 9 |
Copyright Graham Davies 2008, All Rights Reserved
