Fastest comic sets world record - and tells us 7 jokes in 10 seconds
Clive Greenaway is a laugh a minute. Actually, he's 26 laughs a minute, as certified by the Guinness Book of World Records.
Hear Greenaway's attempt to tell As It Happens host Carol Off seven jokes in ten seconds:
The UK comedian accomplished the record-breaking feat in front of an audience last June. After months of deliberation, officials at Guinness have finally awarded him the record for most jokes told in sixty seconds.
Greenaway took the title from German comic Markus Weise, who only managed to blurt out twenty-one jokes in the allotted time.
"I've smashed it. Let's not mince words. Absolutely cracked it,'' Greenaway says.
'I ate a ploughman's lunch - he was not happy.'- Clive Greenaway
The most challenging part of the feat is the rule that each joke must elicit a response from the audience, but it doesn't have to be laughter. Greenaway says, "A reaction can be they laugh, or groan."
Greenaway doesn't have time to wait for his audience to get his jokes, or pause for effect.
"If you've got two or three hundred people, you can't have them laughing at every single one. So one might be still laughing at the first one while I'm on the fifth one."
Here are some samples of Greenaway's one-liners, from the Telegraph newspaper:
- 'My wife and I were happy - then we met'
- 'My wife dresses to kill - and cooks the same way'
- 'My wife and I haven't spoken in years - I don't like to interrupt'
- 'Pollen count - that's a tough job'
- Went to the paper shop - but it had blown away'