Ben McFarland and Tom Sandham make up comedy duo The Thinking Drinkers, and ahead of their time at this year's Edinburgh Festival Fringe, we got the pair to tell us 10 funny things that make them laugh...

Will you be watching The Thinking Drinkers in Edinburgh this year?

Will you be watching The Thinking Drinkers in Edinburgh this year?

  1. Watching each other take our clothes off. Seriously. We think this is funny. So funny in fact, we have managed to engineer a moment in our new show where we get to watch each other doing this, on stage. We’ll leave audiences to determine whether or not this is actually funny, or distractingly sexy.  
  2. Donald Trump. Classic comedy bants. We know, controversial, eh? Don’t worry, we can do political, we’re really versatile. Whatever, Trump is so alarming we are nearing the point where you can only laugh at him. This will make many shows at the Fringe a challenge, since, no matter how topical Trump is, it’s almost impossible to parody the ridiculous. On reflection though, he’s actually quite dangerous.
  3. Larry David. A benchmark.
  4. Man walks into a bar jokes. We have six of them in the show. Six. They are, and always will be, the backbone of drinks based comedy.
  5. People falling over. Highly unoriginal, but an honest addition to this list. Not old people though, we’re not monsters.
  6. Step Brothers. What a hugely overlooked piece of comedy gold this is. Will Ferrel is still a very funny man.
  7. Netflix comedy specials. Right there you have a lot of very funny people, with a lot of very funny jokes, telling them to you direct through your laptop while you lie in bed. It’s a very convenient way of getting to laugh. That said, all comedy should be enjoyed live, it’s the best experience of comedy.
  8. The John Kearns ‘capisce’ joke. We appreciate this is a little niche, and we can’t find footage to share, but he delivered this joke a few years back when we saw him at the Fringe, and we wet our pants laughing. It was one of the highlights of seven years at the Fringe. If you take nothing else from number 3 on this list, understand you must go and see John Kearns.
  9. A sketch we wrote about a horse called Geoff. This was a useful experiment in comedy. We came up with it while driving our ex Royal mail tour van up the M6 to Edinburgh. We were in tears of laughter as we finessed it, it truly was so funny to us and it was our gift to the world. We delivered that bit for the 26 shows at the Fringe, then on a 30-date UK tour, to thousands of fans. I don’t think we got a single laugh. What we say in the van now stays there. Sad really.
  10. We have a joke in our show based on a real fact about juniper, the botanical that is essential in all gin. We have this fact and joke, because our show is about drink and we taste the wonderful Four Pillars Rare Dry gin with our audiences, so if you come, you get to taste it too. Anyway, we digress. Here’s the fact and joke combo: During the 14th century, amateur doctors walked around London burning juniper at the end of beak-like masks. The juniper was supposed to protect people from the plague, the masks made them look like ducks. But it didn’t really work, so from these amateur doctors we get the phrase ‘quacks’ still used today. That’s the fact. This is also why the French for ‘I am ill’ is ‘je sui mallard’. And that’s the joke. If you made any noise, ranging from laughter to snort, or even groan, you are welcome in our shows.

See The Thinking Drinkers: Pub Crawl at the Underbelly throughout the Edinburgh Festival Fringe from 1st – 26th August. For tickets visit www.edfringe.com