Top 10 Scottish comedy quotations

Peter Capaldi as the PM’s advisor Malcolm Tucker in Armando Iannuci’s political comedy The Thick of It has all the best - and be warned, very sweary - lines. Here’s one of the cleanest, to a pair of rival advisors: “Laurel and Hardy! Glad you could join us. Did you manage to get that piano up the stairs OK?” referencing Stan and Ollie’s bumbling attempts to shift a piano in their classic Music Box.

Janey Godley’s random anecdotal style and easy charm mean she can switch between sharing the nitty-gritty details of her eventful past – gangster paramours, murdered mother, childhood abuse – and discussing the minutiae of everyday domestic life yet still make it funny: “I can’t cook, I can’t clean, and the last time I tried to do soup it ended up in sex, because sex is quicker than soup” she quips in her Domestic Godley show.

“If the Good Lord had wanted us to know about cuisine, he would never have given us crispy pancakes.” Rab C Nesbitt: string vest wearer, street-philosophiser, Buckfast-imbiber – and budding gourmand? Many’s the Scot of a certain age who will have memories (possibly fond, possibly not) of tucking into these lava-like-innard-spewing, bright orange delicacies.

Of course, no round-up of Scottish comedy quotations would be complete without contribution from the banjo-bothering, banana slipper-wearing raconteur himself, Billy Connolly. “There are two seasons in Scotland: June and winter” on that perennial Scottish favourite, the weather. Funny, because it’s true.

Frankie Boyle has a particular brand of PC-baiting jokes which can get pretty close to the bone. But let’s not get into all that; instead, here he is talking about his uncanny resemblance to certain other famous Scots: “Someone told me I look like one of the Proclaimers. One of them? They’re twins...”

And Frankie again, on the most Scottish thing he’s ever seen: “I was going through this town called Bathgate at around 11 o’clock at night. And there was a guy leaning and p***ing against a front door. He then took out his keys and went inside”.

Kevin Bridges is the relatively new kid on the comedy block. He has a laconic and confident - yet humble and man-of-the-people - observational delivery style. Anecdotes of small town life include anti-bigotry, and shopping: “I was in a clothes shop called Duns. It’s pretty reasonable, pretty cost effective. Somewhere between Primark and shoplifting.”

Sticking with the sartorial theme, Billy Connolly has this to say on the inner workings of the male psyche: “Never trust a man, who when left alone with a tea cosy...doesn’t try it on.”

Proud Scot Stuart Mackenzie teases his son William, or ‘Heid’, about the size of his head throughout the Mike Myers film So I Married an Axe Murderer. It’s cruel, but Stuart’s brusque Scottish manner, perfect delivery and sheer persistence mean lines such as “Look at the size of that boy’s head! It’s like an orange on a toothpick” hit the comedy sweetspot.

And finally, Billy Connolly again, teaching us about compassion towards others: “Before you judge a man, walk a mile in his shoes. After that who cares? He’s a mile away and you’ve got his shoes!”