This article comprises spoilers for the ultimate of ‘Last One Laughing’ collection two
The finale of Last One Laughing’s second collection needed to be seen to be believed. After six hours of suppressed laughter and subdued smirks, the sport ended with comedians David Mitchell and Sam Campbell – each masters of dry, deadpan humour – force-feeding each other eclairs, jelly and chips. “It was very, very odd,” says Mitchell, the eventual winner of the present. “It had the quality of a dream. I was frightened that it would turn out that everyone outside that room had gone.”
Mitchell and Campbell didn’t break throughout their feeding frenzy. “By the last phase, I wasn’t so much worried that I would crack as that neither of us would, and we’d be stuck in there for ever,” says Mitchell. “As it is, that nearly happened and I’m sorry if we damaged the format.” Eventually the winner was topped based mostly on what number of different gamers that they had made snigger and subsequently eradicated. And so, it was Mitchell who lifted the second ever Last One Laughing trophy.
Not laughing in a room stuffed with comedians – together with Romesh Ranganathan, Alan Carr, Diane Morgan and final yr’s winner Bob Mortimer – might sound unimaginable, however for Mitchell (who didn’t chuckle as soon as and accomplished the collection with out even a yellow card warning), it was moderately simple. “As I remember it for the first few hours, I barely could laugh. It’s like when you hold a wee in too long, and your bladder sort of seizes up,” he says. “I think that actually killed a man at the court of Emperor Rudolf II.”
Mitchell describes his approach as “nervous watchfulness” – “like at a dinner party where you’re worried you’re going to say something offensive”. Though he was nearly caught out a few occasions by his fellow gamers, notably in the course of the jokers, when every comedian would carry out a pre-prepared skit designed to make their contenders break.
“For me, it was during Diane, Alan and Romesh’s jokers that I came nearest to cracking. They were difficult moments,” he says. Those performances concerned Morgan studying Dylan Thomas’s Do not go mild into that good night time usually interrupting herself with loud farts, a new recreation present “Concentration or Constipation”, the winner of which gained a sausage made by Carr himself, and a cathartic spherical of throwing insults at Ranganathan, largely regarding his “gammy” (his phrase) eyes.
Once Mitchell had survived these onslaughts, nevertheless, they grew to become gas for his victory: “I think maybe something inside me died as a result of that and, actually, in the last phase I don’t know if I could have laughed if I’d tried.” Mitchell’s personal joker efficiency – which noticed him carry out an extremely full of life model of “Flash Bang Wallop” from Half a Sixpence – was a spotlight of the whole collection, largely as a result of it was so out of step with the mental pedant we’ve come to know over his 20 years on TV.
A laughless world doesn’t bear fascinated with, and now Mitchell is free to giggle once more – if certainly he nonetheless can. After six hours sequestered away with a number of the nation’s finest comedian minds with out letting out a lot as a titter, has he realized something priceless about himself? “I learned that I am willing to be fed on TV if contractually obliged.”
‘Last One Laughing’ is obtainable on Prime Video
