Doreen Tipton: Beware the Walking Dead. . .

The reactions were mixed – from deafening cheering to sighs of relief. I’ve met some amazing people on the tours over the past six years, the memories are priceless, and I think it’s fair to say we’ve done a lot of loffin’.

But there’s an old saying: ‘a change is as good as a rest’ – and you know how fond I am of a rest. So you haven’t quite seen the last of me (oh, the deafening cheering just stopped. . .) and I will be launching a few new ventures in the coming months – one of which you’ll hear about quite soon.

But in the meantime I wanted to go off with a bang, if that doesn’t sound too rude, and I think the new live show gives me the chance to do just that. No, I’m not being fired from a cannon, but I will be launching a few verbal cannonballs of my own on stage.

We live in strange political times. And I truly believe that humour is one of the most important weapons we have to fight back. For me, humour as a commodity is right up there with love. But unlike love, going around spreading humour doesn’t make you sound like some sort of weird latter-day hippy who’s sniffed too many Beecham’s Powders.

But there’s no doubt that one of our fundamental human rights – the right to find something funny – is under attack from a certain sector of apparently humourless politicised zombies. I just ask this. Imagine if they win. Imagine a world inhabited only by humourless politicised zombies. What a grey wasteland that would be. And it wouldn’t be the first time in British history this has happened. Just check out the rise of Puritanism in the 16th and 17th centuries. Not a world that many of us would care to live in. But don’t think that it couldn’t happen again. Because in some subtle but sinister ways it already has.

Everybody’s sense of humour, of course, is as unique as a fingerprint. No purveyor of comedy can ever please everyone, and quite a few seem to please no-one, but they battle on regardless.

So yes, humour can divide folk. But it can also connect them, in a way that no other activity can. It can find a way through social class, sporting rivalries, political and racial divides – it can even, on certain touching occasions, find a way through grief and tragedy.

Soldiers, of course, often turned to humour to alleviate the stress of life in the trenches. It was an important weapon in their armoury – a coping mechanism, allowing them to deal with the stress. Jokes, puns, and satirical songs were a part of the soldiers’ oral culture, which to this day we still call Trench Humour. That, you see, is where humour really lives. Not on the telly, not in the latest lame sitcom written by trainee zombies, but in people’s everyday lives, their workplaces, their interactions, their shared experiences and shared problems. That’s why the best, most honest humour is always to be found in the gritty working class towns, and not in the synthetic, sanitised, PC-obsessed, latte-sipping world of the metropolis.

Luckily, I don’t believe for a second that the zombies will win the battle for hearts and minds. Real people will always outnumber the walking dead. But we must remain vigilant and make sure they don’t chip away at the edges any more. Because zombies have an advantage. They are far more obsessed than real folk are with infiltrating positions of power – in political parties, the media, local authorities, pressure groups and the holy grail of Government itself. Zombies, you see, don’t have anything better to do. They’re not really interested in family values, simple human pleasures, individual freedoms, or earning a modest, honest living.

Their drug of choice is power. They like to control. And they save about three hours a day by not laughing, so they have time to devote to the cause. We need to remind them constantly that they don’t speak for us.

And beware – they’re not always easy to spot. They’ve recently learnt to smile, like a crocodile. They believe it can fool the intended prey. And when called upon they can also shed crocodile tears to match.

In my new show, I openly declare war on the zombies. So, for those of you who’ve bravely marched out to see the live shows over the last six years in search of some much-needed trench humour, thank you. And for my final rallying cry, to those of you who defiantly intend to come and have the last loff with me live on stage next month, I will reluctantly turn for inspiration to a Brummie – William Shakespeare. Yes, I feel a bit of misquoted Henry V coming on:

“Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more; Or close the wall up with our walking dead.”

Tarra a bit x