Be Funny Or Die

Joel Morris

Further thoughts about comedy and how it works... EXCLUSIVE to PAID SUBSTACK SUBSCRIBERS joelmorris.substack.com

Episodes

  1. 07/31/2025

    Switching to stand-up - with Madeleine Brettingham

    This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit joelmorris.substack.com It’s Edinburgh festival time, so I’m going to share some chats about the craft of comedy with a festival flavour. This is a natter with highly experienced comedy writer Madeleine Brettingham (Harry Hill, Have I Got News For You, The Kumars) about her surprise decision to start doing stand-up, never having wanted to go on stage before. (She’s just won the …

    2 min

  2. 06/04/2025

    The Lavender Hill Mob

    This bonus Comfort Blanket podcast was originally made for a select few of the top patrons for the crowdfunder for the Be Funny Or Die book. In the end, that meant only a very select handful of the world’s most excellent people heard it, and since it’s a film that I love so much, and since I loved putting this episode together, I thought (a reasonable enough time after the book launch) it might be nice to share it a little more widely. Given the terrible situation that all Unbound’s authors have been left in, following the shameless theft of our earnings, and all the distress surrounding that, maybe this could be seen as an attempt to lift the mood a little, by celebrating a film about an audacious theft by seemingly nice middle class people, and the terrible mess that follows. I make no comment on why that might have occurred to me. Regardless of the shitshow at Unbound, and the dire position it’s left us all in, everyone who supported the release of Be Funny Or Die did a lovely thing. You helped a book exist, one that I’m really proud of, and which lots of people have enjoyed. So here’s something back. Maybe it can remind us of three things: ONE: Making stuff for people who like it is always a good thing to do. TWO: Supporting the things you love is a generous and noble act (thank you). And most importantly: THREE: Crime doesn’t pay.Cheers!Joel x PS: This bonus episode is being put out as part of my Be Funny Or Die podcast project. If you want more bonus podcasts like this, including thoughts on comedy, analyses of funny stuff, and some fairly unguarded chats with mates in the comedy world about the state of it all, then simply become a paid Substack subscriber. Ta. To support my work, do consider becoming a paid subscriber. Otherwise, simply subscribe to be kept up to date… This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit joelmorris.substack.com/subscribe

    30 min

  3. 05/11/2025

    Top Secret

    This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit joelmorris.substack.com Some thoughts about the 1984 Zucker Abrahams Zucker follow up to Airplane! starring Val Kilmer…

    3 min
  4. Scooby Doo: What Are You?

    04/17/2025

    Scooby Doo: What Are You?

    This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit joelmorris.substack.com This is a short audio essay that I made for Tim Worthington’s ‘Looks Unfamiliar’ podcast, now with added illustrations and bells and whistles (and guest facts). Celebrating how Scooby Doo works. The clever blend of fear, formula and fun, and what we can learn from it.

    2 min
  5. Agendum: Banking Crisis (outtake)

    02/04/2025

    Agendum: Banking Crisis (outtake)

    This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit joelmorris.substack.com I was looking for a sketch that I remembered us doing for Agendum, because it seemed to match the mad mood of the world this week, and I found that we’d never put it out. But I had some fragments of it on the hard drive, and they really made me laugh. So this is a quick chat about how we made these fake current affairs packages for the show, and then an …

    1 min

  6. 01/28/2025

    Closing The Factory

    This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit joelmorris.substack.com The second part of our Be Funny Or Die podcast chat with Adam Tandy (Detectorists, Inside No 9, Thick of It) about the state of British comedy production, and why it’s so hard to make funny stuff… even though television’s biggest recent hits (Gavin & Stacey, Wallace & Gromit etc) have been exactly that, and, when surveyed, we all tend to choose comedy a…

    1 min
  7. Al Campbell: The Barry Shitpeas Story Pt 2

    12/29/2024

    Al Campbell: The Barry Shitpeas Story Pt 2

    This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit joelmorris.substack.com In the second part of my chat with top directing bloke Al Campbell, we learn why unexpected TV star Barry Shitpeas took an eventual backseat on Wipe (thanks to the actor Kevin Eldon), and how Philomena Cunk was born…

    2 min
  8. The Muppet Christmas Carol

    12/23/2024

    The Muppet Christmas Carol

    A quick podcast with some ideas about how a Christmas classic weaves its comedy magic by playing it almost straight… This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit joelmorris.substack.com/subscribe

    20 min
  9. Tales of Geoff

    12/17/2024

    Tales of Geoff

    This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit joelmorris.substack.com Geoff McGivern originated the role of Ford Prefect in Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy and has been in everything from Ghosts to Blackadder, from Back to A Bit Of Fry and Laurie, and here the legendary British comedy titan shares with us a tale of how he got over his fear of acting on camera… by working with Noel Edmonds and Mr Blobby.

    1 min
  10. Al Campbell: The Barry Shitpeas Story

    12/05/2024

    Al Campbell: The Barry Shitpeas Story

    This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit joelmorris.substack.com The smashing Al Campbell – directing supremo behind everything from It’s Kevin to Man Down, from Inside No 9 to Cunk – talks about how the original dimbulb pundit Barry Shitpeas came about, and reveals the answer to the mystery of Barry’s trademark bandaged hands…

    2 min
  11. Chatting to Adam Tandy: sitcom & budgets

    11/27/2024

    Chatting to Adam Tandy: sitcom & budgets

    This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit joelmorris.substack.com I’m going to record some pub-table style eavesdrops on chats with people in comedy who know stuff. Loads more of these to come… Adam Tandy is the hugely successful producer behind Inside No9, Detectorists, The Thick Of It, The Armando Iannucci Shows, Alan Partridge and countless other brilliant bits of comedy. I recorded us talking about what could be see…

    1 min
  12. The Dead Parrot sketch

    11/09/2024

    The Dead Parrot sketch

    This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit joelmorris.substack.com In this first edition of the Be Funny Or Die podcast, I’m looking at Monty Python’s Dead Parrot Sketch, broadcast for the first time 55 years ago in December 1969, and wondering what on earth’s going on in there. I want to look at how the sketch’s accidentally perfect balance of familiarity and absurdism made it the unexpected signature sketch of the gro…

    4 min
  • 12 Episodes

About

Further thoughts about comedy and how it works... EXCLUSIVE to PAID SUBSTACK SUBSCRIBERS joelmorris.substack.com

Information

  • Creator
    Joel Morris
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2025
  • Episodes
    12
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Joel Morris
  • Show Website
    Be Funny Or Die