# Northern humour



## miss giggles (Apr 4, 2006)

My boyfriend was trying to explain the difference between northern and southern humour to me the other day, but I still don't really understand it. 

We often find completely different things funny. We both love Peter Kay, but I only really enjoy his stand up, I don't get "Paddy and Max" at all. 

Whenever he hears "ding dang do" he collapses into hysterics, while it does nothing for me at all. 

Can someone explain to me what exactly is Northern humour?


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## bfg (Apr 4, 2006)

Explain 'southern humour' first, please.

Then, and only then, I might enlighten you a little bit


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## miss giggles (Apr 4, 2006)

Dry, cynical, sardonic, and largely topical.


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## citygirl (Apr 4, 2006)

miss giggles said:
			
		

> My boyfriend was trying to explain the difference between northern and southern humour to me the other day, but I still don't really understand it.
> 
> We often find completely different things funny. We both love Peter Kay, but I only really enjoy his stand up, I don't get "Paddy and Max" at all.
> 
> ...



i have a feeling it might also have summink to do with boy/girl humour aswell    

because i have one of them aswell, only this one is also northern.


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## davesgcr (Apr 4, 2006)

Refer to Alan Bennett - 

"customer to Morecombes only prostitute (in an alley) l- put some passion into it Nelly - cant - am eationg my sixpennorth.." (or something similar)


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## citygirl (Apr 4, 2006)

davesgcr said:
			
		

> Refer to Alan Bennett -
> 
> "customer to Morecombes only prostitute (in an alley) l- put some passion into it Nelly - cant - am eationg my sixpennorth.." (or something similar)



think it loses a bit in translation


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## Epico (Apr 4, 2006)

Alan Bennett? Humour? Don't make me laugh. Then again I'm from the South West, not the North East so I accept I may have been conditioned.

There's something very particular about Peter Kay that makes a lot of people in the North West absolutely adore him. I do like him, but found some people to going OTT on the idolizing - my ex loved him, she had Peter Kay posters  . Outside of the NW most just don't get it.


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## miss giggles (Apr 4, 2006)

There's definately something particular about northern humour, I just can't quite put my finger on it.


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## Part 2 (Apr 4, 2006)

miss giggles said:
			
		

> Whenever he hears "ding dang do" he collapses into hysterics, while it does nothing for me at all.




It's dinkdankdo. Some announcer used to say it at football I think.

</pedant>

I don't find Max and Paddy very funny myself, while my London chums love it. In fact Peter Kay's had it, his material is well old, he's done the same routine for years. Good businessman though, must've made a mint once he hit the big time and realised how short lived his fame was gonna be. He probably has a career as an actor on telly yet though.

And that Paddy McGuiness, he's doing a tour too. Now that is taking the piss.


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## moose (Apr 4, 2006)

I don't think the fact that someone is Northern or not makes a difference - OK I howl with laughter at Peter Kay, Eric Morecambe, Les Dawson, Johnny Vegas, but equally I loathe Bernard Manning, Chubby Brown and Cannon & Ball.


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## miss giggles (Apr 4, 2006)

moose said:
			
		

> I don't think the fact that someone is Northern or not makes a difference - OK I howl with laughter at Peter Kay, Eric Morecambe, Les Dawson, Johnny Vegas, but equally I loathe Bernard Manning, Chubby Brown and Cannon & Ball.



There is a subtle difference in the style of humour though. Stand up is a bit of a hobby of mine. I once did a gig in Birmingham, and all my best gags died a death. The crowd weren't hostile, in fact they were quite polite, they just didn't think I was very funny.  One of the comics was chatting to me afterwards, and he said it's a different type of humuor. I wish I'd pressed him on it a bit more now. I like some of Johnny Vegas's stuff, but there is some of it I just don't "get". 

edited to add, there's alot more puns in northern humour. Can anyone point out any other subtle differences?

<begins to wonder if she should have put this in the books forum>


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## Wookey (Apr 5, 2006)

I think there's a lyricism, and a cadence in northern working class comics' speech, from Kay to Wood to Dawson, which appeals to the north-west, I like to think because we're nearly all Irish in some way, and we have an ear for it!  

I can hear a lilting tension in northern comics voices, it's a poetic balance; I think it was Thora Hird who was credited with telling Victoria Wood how one the greatest things she ever learned in comic theatre, and which stood her in good stead through her career, was that funny lines didn't go: Dum-dum-dum-dum, at the end - they had to go: Dum-dum-DI-Dum.

It loses in transcript, obviously. But it's like the meter of a poem, it has an internal resonance that feels pleasing to the ear, warm and recognisably human. Surprisingly, those are the kinds of words used to describe this popular type of Northern humour...

Also, I think there's a willingness to experiment more with vocabulary. Just finding words funny just for the sake of them, Alan Bennett and Vic Wood and Peter Kay do that a great deal, you could list them.  

And there's a pathos about northern working class humour. If I think of southern comics like Mike Reid, Harry Enfield, Jim Davidson, they have brashness and entrepreneurialism that isn't as common up north, ime.

The north's circuit of clubs has meant comedy has hothoused here for years. That's why we can throw up someone like Johnny Vegas, who's club act is hyper-lyrical, hyper-pathetic, often combative and orgeastic - and magnifies the strands that traditionally comprise northern humour to the max. His stage show is a revelation in improvisation, it's scary, and I think any scene that stretches from Cannon and Ball to Johnny Vegas has to be healthy.


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## stereotypical (Apr 5, 2006)

miss giggles said:
			
		

> Can someone explain to me what exactly is Northern humour?



Takin the piss outta southerners


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## citygirl (Apr 5, 2006)

stereotypical said:
			
		

> Takin the piss outta southerners


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## big footed fred (Apr 5, 2006)

stereotypical said:
			
		

> Takin the piss outta southerners



That's what we do in Barnsley


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## miss giggles (Apr 5, 2006)

Wookey said:
			
		

> I think there's a lyricism, and a cadence in northern working class comics' speech, from Kay to Wood to Dawson, which appeals to the north-west, I like to think because we're nearly all Irish in some way, and we have an ear for it!
> 
> I can hear a lilting tension in northern comics voices, it's a poetic balance; I think it was Thora Hird who was credited with telling Victoria Wood how one the greatest things she ever learned in comic theatre, and which stood her in good stead through her career, was that funny lines didn't go: Dum-dum-dum-dum, at the end - they had to go: Dum-dum-DI-Dum.
> 
> ...





Top post Wookey! Thanks mate, there's a lot of food for thought there. I agree about the brashness and entrepreneurialism not being as common up north. I liked what you said about finding words funny just for the sake of them. I think sometimes, they're the bits that I don't "get". Some of that stuff verges on the surreal. I'd like to spend a bit of time up north checking out the comedy scene.


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## Firky (Apr 5, 2006)

"Wu went into the restaurant an' asked for a coffee. The waiter asked if wu wanted black or white. She says 'I'll have black wi' milk in'."

There is a BIG difference between north and south, the problem is it is little things - that add up to make a big thing. It is hard to explain unless you have lived for any great period in the north or the south. 

Up north people seem far less concearned about class, well, rather what you do for a living etc. People seem to be more interested in you as a person. It can take a bit of adjusting to. I also think that people are more inclined to take the piss out of themselves and their situation in life. 

I don't know if I could return to the north now - each time I do it frustrates me. It seems to be about five years behind the rest of the country. Having said that, I have met people down south who have been centuries behind the rest of the country! Portsmouth for example, racist xenophobic backwater town.


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## miss giggles (Apr 5, 2006)

Yeah, I agree. I think in London people are more inclined to see what they do for a living as an extension of who they are. I don't hear many northern comics joking about working as an estate agent, say. I think that might come from a general sense that what you do is kind of irrelevant to who you are. And I've met loads of northerners who hate the way people in London ask you what you do for a living when they meet you.

I think often people in London do that as a way of making conversation, but I know often it's taken that the person is trying to "decide your value". And it's fair, cos sometimes they are, but more often than not, they aren't.

There's definately cultural differences in humour as much as there is in anything else, but they're subtle, and difficult to put your finger on untill you examine them closely.

I think in observational stand up, the focus of a northern comics observations are often different to that of a southerner.

Doing a gig outside London was a really interesting experience. I reckon I've got a hell of a way to go before I could ever work the northern club circuit


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## kakuma (Apr 5, 2006)

i think it's all to do with the amount of front that people have in the south east. I don't think it's 'northern humour' it could be applied to any part of england out of the reach of london. it's like irish humour. it's just the amount of front in the south east, ripping the piss is like a duck shoot when you come from somewhere where nobody comes to make it.


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## angel up north (Apr 5, 2006)

We northerners have a more down to earth attitude to life and all it throws at us, we take people for who they are not what they are or how much money they earn. we find it very easy to take the micky out of ourselves and each other because its not meant in a nasty way its just funny. Southerners sometimes just don't know how to laugh at themselves ( no offense meant) they see it as someone getting at them. to totally fit in to northern humour you'd have to live here you're born with it, and although some possibly could make the jump its very difficult. the only way i can describe it is northeners doing northern humour laugh at themselves with everyone else, southerners doing northern humour just laugh at northerners.


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## miss giggles (Apr 5, 2006)

angel up north said:
			
		

> We northerners have a more down to earth attitude to life and all it throws at us, we take people for who they are not what they are or how much money they earn. we find it very easy to take the micky out of ourselves and each other because its not meant in a nasty way its just funny. Southerners sometimes just don't know how to laugh at themselves ( no offense meant) they see it as someone getting at them. to totally fit in to northern humour you'd have to live here you're born with it, and although some possibly could make the jump its very difficult. the only way i can describe it is northeners doing northern humour laugh at themselves with everyone else, southerners doing northern humour just laugh at northerners.



This is very true. In comedy I think it's very important to be true to yourself and not try to fit in. I kind of know what you mean about southerners doing northern humuor, there's nothing worse than listening to a comic doing a bunch of gags that don't ring true. Men are quite capable of writing gags about women that are hilarious, but when they're not, it's often because they're working on an assumption that simply isn't true. However, if you want to write comedy that will appeal to more than just one section of people, you have to try and find the common ground, look for the universal human experiences that bond us all. And I must admit, it's much harder than I thought.


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## miss giggles (Apr 5, 2006)

Ninjaboy said:
			
		

> i think it's all to do with the amount of front that people have in the south east. I don't think it's 'northern humour' it could be applied to any part of england out of the reach of london. it's like irish humour. it's just the amount of front in the south east, ripping the piss is like a duck shoot when you come from somewhere where nobody comes to make it.



That's interesting. It kind of fits in with something a northern comic told me. He said I needed to understand the differences between people who live in a sprawling metropolitan city, and those that don't.

The thing is, and I'm being really honest here, I suppose I don't.


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## kakuma (Apr 5, 2006)

miss giggles said:
			
		

> That's interesting. It kind of fits in with something a northern comic told me. He said I needed to understand the differences between people who live in a sprawling metropolitan city, and those that don't.
> 
> The thing is, and I'm being really honest here, I suppose I don't.



you'll never live like common people.....


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## miss giggles (Apr 6, 2006)

Ninjaboy said:
			
		

> you'll never live like common people.....



  

Certainly not in Richmond.


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## northernhord (Apr 6, 2006)

Hi Giggles
Peter Kay is an unusual case I didnt get some of his stuff until I ended up living in Bolton, a lot of Kays more indigenious stuff appeals to people who either use certain bits of lingo or else bits of humour such as 'Put the big light on' which is a phrase around Bolton and the north in General.

However Northern humour in its sophisticated mode is stuff like Leaugue of Gentlemen which was written by Northerners and filmed in the North.
And even stuff like Shameless which is more Mancunian than Northern is different again.


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## HarrisonSlade (Apr 7, 2006)

riot sky said:
			
		

> "Wu went into the restaurant an' asked for a coffee. The waiter asked if wu wanted black or white. She says 'I'll have black wi' milk in'."


So that's white then?


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## girasol (Apr 7, 2006)

Peter Kay will never top Phoenix Nights, IMO, that's a work of genius, one of the best TV comedies I've ever seen.     

Max and Paddy: I never got into it, only watched a couple of episodes, so I cant' really comment.

(Although I don't think I'd have loved/understood Phoenix Nights as much if I hadn't gone out with a northener and spent some time around there)


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