The Best Ever Scouse Comedians

The Best Ever Scouse Comedians

All scousers think they’re funny. In a lot of cases, they actually are. There are certainly plenty of other people who would agree, which is why Liverpool will often be voted as the funniest city in the United Kingdom.

The result of this is that the Merseyside region seems to have produced more stand-up comedians than a lot of other areas, with many people making their name on the stand-up tour.

Of course, just because they’re known to those who like to go to stand-up gigs doesn’t necessarily mean that they’ll be known to everyone else.

Here is a look at some of the best comedians Liverpool has ever produced, in no particular order.

Ken Dodd

Any list about stand-up comedians from Liverpool simply has to include Ken Dodd. Born in the Knotty Ash area of the city, the comedian made a name for himself as an entertainer in the mid-1950s. His jokes were sometimes surreal, but even if you didn’t find them that funny then it didn’t matter because another one would be along just moments later.

Rapid-fire and incessant was his comedy style, to say nothing of long-form. It was not unheard of for a Ken Dodd gig to go on well past midnight, to the point that some members of the audience would choose to leave rather than endure any more of his non-stop desire to make people laugh.

In 2017 he was knighted, which is some going for someone who spent his entire life living in Knotty Ash. He was famous for his ‘tickling stick’, which was a red, white and blue prop that was prone to changing colour on occasions such as St Patrick’s Day. When he became particularly famous in the 1960s he was often known for the characters of the ‘Diddy Men’.

It will go some way to explaining his comedy stylings to explain that he was known as the ‘last great music hall entertainer‘. Occasionally his comedy would be interrupted by a song, which was a rare opportunity for those in the audience to catch their breath before the laughter inevitably resumed.

Paul Smith

There is a strong argument to be made that no comedian in the modern age has enjoyed a meteoric rise to fame quite like Paul Smith. The Scouse comedian once claimed on a podcast that he has more unique material online than any other stand-up, which is a fact that is hard to argue with.

What makes his success all the more remarkable is that he never really sought it. Smith was happy to work at the Hot Water Comedy Club in Liverpool and forgo the opportunity to go on tours and ‘do the circuit’ as other comedians were wont to do, instead working as a compare for his home-town club and staying close to his family.

@hwccliverpool The Forklift Instructor 😂 #hotwatercomedy #standup #fyp #funny #paulsmithcomedy #uk #foryoupage #foryou #silly #hilarious ♬ original sound – Hot Water Comedy Club

What he didn’t reckon for was the manner in which his crowd work, where the compare chats to members of the audience and gets material out of them, would become so beloved on social media platforms like TikTok. Most comedians don’t like to put material online because it ‘burns it’, meaning that they can’t use it in future gigs.

Smith’s crowd work ran no such risks, however, as it was unique every time. As a result, the person behind the social media of Hot Water put it out there and suddenly he became one of the best-known comedians in the UK, ironically ending up doing huge tours to areas around the country.

Chris McCausland

Perhaps the only comedian who could rival Paul Smith when it comes to becoming a virtual household name overnight is Chris McCausland. The man himself would no doubt point out that his stand-up career began in 2003 when he took part in a ‘new act’ comedy night in Balham, winning the Jongleurs J2O Last Laugh Competition within a year of performing.

He did the usual stand-up route of heading to Edinburgh with a show and would go on to perform in the likes of the Middle East and Asia, appearing on Live at the Apollo on the BBC on the fourth of January 2018, hosting it nearly exactly four years later.

Delighted that Chris McCausland & Dianne Buswell have reached the #Strictly Final. What a remarkable partnership they have – Dianne teaching Chris dance moves, without him ever seeing a single step.

Whatever happens next week, Chris & Dianne are my winners!

#StrictlyComeDancing

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— John Harvey (@mrjohnharvey.bsky.social) 8 December 2024 at 20:49

For all that the comedian had had plenty of work in the past, however, there is no question that his appearance on the 22nd series of Strictly Come Dancing saw his career go supersonic. Partnered with professional dancer Dianne Buswell, the pair made steady progress through the episodes and soon became one of the favourites to win the entire thing.

What made all of that even more remarkable was the fact that McCausland is registered blind, meaning that Buswell had to lead him through all of the dances that they performed. It was his humour before and after the dances as well as on shows like Strictly: It Takes Two that won him many admirers, though.

John Bishop

Born in Everton, ironically enough for a well-known Liverpool supporter, John Bishop mostly grew up in the Cheshire towns of Runcorn and Winsford. He studied English at Newcastle Polytechnic before switching to obtain a BA in Social Science at Manchester Polytechnic, going on to become a medical representative of a pharmaceutical company called Syntex.

Not exactly the typical route into the world of stand-up comedy, it is entirely fair to say. In fact, he didn’t leave his job there until 2006 when, at the age of 40, he decided to become a comedian on a full-time basis, having first performed it in the October of 2000.

A year later and he made it to the final of several new act competitions, including the likes of So You Think You’re Funny and the BBC New Comedy Awards. In 2009 he was the first act to perform on Michael McIntyre’s Comedy Roadshow, with his career going from strength to strength from there.

Having done charity work before he became a famous face, including in 1992 when he cycled from Sydney to Liverpool as he raised £30,000 for the NSPCC, it is hardly a surprise that he has also raised huge amount since become well-known. A Liverpool fan, Labour Supporter and vegetarian since 1985, he has plenty of material to work with.

Kenny Everett

Tell most people that someone was known for a ‘zany’ comedic style and there is a very good chance that they’d sooner turn the channel over than watch them perform. In the case of Kenny Everett, however, who was born Maurice James Christopher Cole, he became one of the best-loved comedians in the country.

This was in spite of the fact that he was an open supporter of Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative Party, even going so far as to make an appearance in front of the Young Conservatives in 1983. This obviously made him less than popular in the city that he was born around five miles away from in the area of Sefton.

A closeted gay man, Everett faced criticism from fellow LGBTQ+ people for his support of the part that enacted Section 28. He began to become known to television viewers thanks to appearances on Top of the Pops as a presenter and as a guest on Blankety Blank, but it was when The Kenny Everett Video Show became a feature on London’s Thames Television that he truly became a houseful name.

He was diagnosed as being HIV positive in 1989, eventually dying of an AIDS-related illness on the fourth of April 1995, aged just 50. His legacy was to live in through numerous television series and books, with numerous modern comedians referencing his talent.

Adam Rowe

Like John Bishop, Adam Rowe was born in the Everton area of Liverpool in 1992. As with Bishop, Rowe is a Liverpool supporter, which bears some irony considering the area of the city he comes from. He was brought up in Dovecot and West Derby, attending the Cardinal Heenan Catholic High School in Knotty Ash.

That would later give him material to work with, detailing the number of murderers who went to the school and were in his year. His work as a comedian saw him named the Comedian of the Year by the Hot Water Comedy Club in 2011, with the man himself taking his craft incredibly seriously and constantly looking to hone his often controversial work.

@adamrowecomedian Can fat shaming ever be a good thing? 🤔😅 #comedy #standup #liveattheapollo #adamrowe #adamrowecomedy #haveawordpod #weightloss #gym #fyp ♬ original sound – adamrowecomedian

In 2018 he performed a show called ‘Undeniable’ at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and actually won the Funniest Joke of the Fringe award; something that he was actually unhappy about. He won it for the joke, “Working at the Jobcentre has to be a tense job – knowing that if you get fired, you still have to come in the next day”, but felt that it would give audiences the wrong idea about his routine and that some people might watch him expecting him to be a one-liner’ comedian.

His Have a Word podcast, which he produces with Paul Ince and Dan Nightingale, arguably helped him to find an even bigger audience than his comedy alone.

Freddie Starr

Born in Ulster Road in Liverpool, Frederick Leslie Fowell would move with his family to Huyton at a young age. The son of a bricklayer with a Jewish mother, he had a twin brother who died at birth. He was a teetotaller throughout his life, mainly on account of the fact that his father was an alcoholic who would regularly beat him.

It isn’t outrageous to suggest that this wasn’t the ideal start to life for someone who would go on to become a stand-up comedian. It was his mother who encouraged him to perform, working in clubs and pubs from the age of 12. He was originally a musician, not turning to comedy until 1967.

Well, I, for one, am glad that a strong leader has finally emerged to save the world from the scourge of people that eat pets

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— Coates (@oddthisday.bsky.social) 11 September 2024 at 11:40

That was when ‘Freddie Starr and the Delmonts’ appeared on Opportunity Knocks and won the popular vote for six weeks. Soon he was performing on some of the biggest shows on television. Tickets for his live tour in the 1970s were selling slowly before a tabloid paper, that isn’t sold in Liverpool and hasn’t been since 1989, produced a headline entitled, “Freddie Starr Ate My Hamster”.

It was, according to the comedian, a complete fabrication, but after its publication his tour began to sell out. Thanks to the likes of The Freddie Starr Show and An Audience with Freddie Starr, he became much-loved in the latter years of his career.

Paul O’Grady

Some of you will know exactly who Paul O’Grady was, whilst others will have absolutely no idea. You might, however, have more of a clue who Lilly Savage was. The drag queen was the character that helped O’Grady to make his name at a time when LGBTQ+ people were hardly looked on with a huge degree of love or respect by the British authorities, yet O’Grady was able to break through the noise in the 1990s via the medium of his Lily Savage character.

Born into a working-class family on the Wirral, he moved to London in the 1970s and worked for Camden Council, developing his drag act towards the end of the decade.

He turned solo in the 1980s, gaining popularity amongst the capital’s gay scene as he regularly spoke out for gay rights. He began to attract mainstream attention in the wake of his Perrier Award nomination in 1992 and went on to present shows such as The Big Breakfast, Blankety Blank and his own show Lily Live.

In the early part of the 2000s, O’Grady made the decision to begin to phase Savage out and work in his own name, eventually going on to have his own radio show on BBC Radio Two. Appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire in 2008, O’Grady was an animal lover and worked with closely with the likes of Battersea Dogs & Cats Home.