I’m going to make my fortune as a star of radio and TV comedy drama. It’s been decided, all I need to do now is to make it happen.

Maybe I should leave this post right here.

How on earth can somebody with no experience and a mediocre command of the English language suddenly become the next big thing? Well, I’ve heard Milton Jones on the radio and he’s utter shit, so if he can make a living out of it, anybody can.

Something that brings confidence is the knowledge that no matter what the situation, somebody will find it funny, whether appropriate or not. In addition to this, I have a ready made comedy partner who can actually read and that’s got to be worth something.

So where do we start? We need a setting and we need think of something funny happening in that setting.

Setting: Tina’s bedroom, almost sleepytime, school day tomorrow.
Players: Tina, Tina’s imagination, the little dog and… where the fuck has that massive spider gone that was on the ceiling above my bed a minute ago?

I’ve already moved the sleeping dog from on my feet once and now he’s lying beside me, snoring loudly. He makes a noise like a pig, he must be fast asleep, so I take the opportunity to see if I can get to his ingrowing dew claw. Our telepathic link kicks in and before I even touch his foot, he jumps off the bed, flaps his ears indignantly, and goes to sulk underneath the bed.

Somebody who has a dog with a troublesome dew claw might recognise this scenario, nod knowingly, and smile. Others might think, why the fuck don’t you just drug the dog and get him when he’s unconscious?

Of course, situation comedy requires very clever people and teams of writers and lots of other things that I haven’t got a clue about. I’m going to leave that to my comedy partner to find out about while she’s sat twiddling her thumbs, pretending to be looking for a job,

Job Centre Plus person: “So, Miss Unemployed Executive Type, what have you been doing to look for work since you last came in?”

Miss Unemployed Executive Type: “Well, I’ve signed up to this site, searched here, here, here and here, looked at these positions and approached these employers, but I have a very specialist background and I’m actually looking for part time work as I’d like to try to set up my own business.”

JCP: “Tesco are recruiting in your area, they have lots of part time positions.”

Miss UET: “Did you take the blindest bit of notice to what I just said to you, have you read my CV?”

JCP: “We’re not here to take notice of people. Unless they don’t show up, then we notice that they haven’t been in to be signposted.”

Miss UET: “Signposted? What does that mean?”

JCP: “You know, S-I-G-N-P-O-S-T-E-D!”

Miss UET: “Saying it slowly doesn’t really help, please explain what you mean.”

JCP: “Well, it’s not really my field of expertise, you have to speak to your personal adviser, but I think they show you where to look for jobs, how to put your CV together, tell you how to attend for an interview, what to say, what not to say – you know like, don’t swear – that sort of thing.”

Miss UET: “Do you think my specialist adviser will signpost me to these job searches and employers that I’ve already done?”

JCP: “Oh no, they’re really thorough, they take you through all the jobs in the Evening News.”

Miss UET: “Really. Has anybody ever told you that you’re a useless waste of space?”

JCP: “Yeah! How did you know that? My HR manager told me, they put me on retraining, that’s why I’m on the front desk now!”

Stand up
There’s always stand up of course. I’ve been to an open mic session at the women’s comedy night at the local comedy club. The audiences are VICIOUS. There is no way a novice would get a laugh at that sort of event, unless they managed to get some audience members fighting.

It’s a worse scenario than when you have to give a presentation at a mandatory training event: as soon as you ask “has anybody been in this situation/seen this/done that?” you are toast. They’re wanting whoever has the mic to make them laugh with as little effort from themselves. Do not rely on audience participation.

So without that, you fall into the safe sort of areas that are deemed to be funny for women, or were in the 1980s: men bashing; willies; sex; periods; shopping; being fat. Oh, that’s still Jo Brand’s routine today.

Or you could dress like a dwarf wearing a latex Mrs Doubtfire mask, talk like Stephen Fry and call yourself Sandi Toksvig then Radio 4 will be jumping over itself to drag you onto its oh-so-funny-here-are-the-same-Oxbridge-types-again panel shows.

Comedy isn’t for me. If was to do comedy, it would have to be at least as good as Frasier and nothing, absolutely nothing I could think of could ever come within a million miles of that genius. Although the idea of being a Sandi Toksvig impersonator who goes to bingo and shops at Aldi might have some legs, even if she doesn’t.