Comedy Hall of Fame

MANCHESTER Metropolitan is the main rival to Cambridge University in producing comedy talent!

That’s according to The Guardian in a weekend article ‘The University of Laughs’ which states that MMU has made a “greater comedic contribution” than any other barring Cambridge.

The Cambridge comedy society, nicknamed ‘The Footlights’, gave birth to modern British comedy in the 1960s and 70s with the likes of Peter Cook, John Cleese and Monty Python and latterly Griff Rhys Jones, Rowan Aktinson and Fry & Laurie.

But by the 1980s alternative comedians from Manchester rose to challenge the well-heeled wits, with Manchester Met or Poly as it was, leading the charge.

Alumni comedians

Ex-students include Steve Coogan and John Thomson, who emerged together on the Paul Calf shows, Richard Griffiths (Withnail & I), Graham Fellows (John Shuttleworth), Julie Walters, Jenny Éclair and David Threlfall (Shameless).

“Calf is a prime example of the sort of authentically flavoured regional character which the Footlights, with its permanent middle class fixation, could never have conceived,” says The Guardian.

In one episode of The Young Ones the housemates of “Scumbag University” go up against the “Toffs” (Footlights) with Ade Edmonson (University of Manchester) putting a Dr Marten boot through the floor and showering the Toffs in plaster!

The Manchester Poly/Man Met comics are graduates of the university’s School of Theatre. www.theatre.mmu.ac.uk.