Young people don't own comedy – and nor should they

How dull would our lives be if we, in effect, introduce a mandatory retirement age for wisecracks?

as Ronald Reagan once remarked when a reporter asked him how it felt to be 73 years old, it’s better than the alternative. (TEXAS, UNITED STATES - OCTOBER 1984: President Ronald Reagan giving speech while standing at podium under American and Texan flags blowing in the wind during rally for his re-election campaign at Texas Southmost College. (Photo by Dirck Halstead/The LIF)

It is the ultimate in ageism: the idea that anyone over 60 can’t be funny. Or at least so says the actor and comedian Rowan Atkinson, who, admittedly knows more than most about timing.

True, being old isn’t that great. But, as Ronald Reagan once remarked when a reporter asked him how it felt to be 73 years old, it’s better than the alternative. Usually.

Then there is the much missed old showman and, as it happens, rough Reagan contemporary George Burns, who was still wise-cracking as he died shortly after his 100th birthday. Extreme old age gave him a fresh line in shtick (“First you forget names, then you forget faces. Next you forget to pull your zipper up and finally, you forget to pull it down… If you live to the age of 100 you have it made – because very few people die past the age of 100.”)

Some of our greatest comic talents are only reaching their prime as they reach what might be politely called late middle age: Mark Steel, 55; Jo Brand, 58; Alexei Sayle, 63; Graham Fellows, aka singer songwriter John Shuttleworth, 56; Victoria Wood, 62; Lenny Henry, 57; Dawn French, 58. Their combined age? Four hundred and nine. There must be a joke in there somewhere.

How dull would our lives be if we, in effect, introduce a mandatory retirement age for wisecracks? Of course, that is no reason why we shouldn’t make reasonable adjustments, as they say in equality circles, as the comedians advance in years.

Stand-up would be more a case of “I could do with a sit down”, we might have to help them look round for that punchline they’d mislaid, and younger comics should be made to give up their spots if an elderly entertainer needs it.

No, seriously...