The funniest standup I’ve ever seen

Kevin McAleer. In the late 80s his slide show, mainly of owls, during which he describes inaccurately a succession of bland images, reduced me to tears, and years ago his then current show, loosely derived from Dostoyevsky, made me fall off a chair in actual pain. I think he is the most naturally funny person alive. I wish he was much better known so it would be worth him producing a lot more work.

The funniest TV show I’ve ever seen

That probably remains The Young Ones, but that is in part about being a pissed-off teenager in the early 80s who was zapped by something that felt like it was “ours”, at a time in history when comedy belonged very much to “them” and not “us”.

The funniest book I’ve ever read

Undoubtedly Lint by Steve Aylett. Each sentence seems more absurd than the last until you are finally and irredeemably overwhelmed by its relentless meaningful meaninglessness. It is a work of towering comic genius.

The funniest dream I’ve ever had

It was about a safari park which only had worms in it. I wrote it up as the sketch Wormworld, which ended up on the Radio 4 series On The Hour with Chris Morris and Armando Iannucci.

The funniest word

Wool, according to the Australian standup comedian Greg Fleet. It has a damp, undramatic clamminess to it, and sits uneasily in any stream of words, the ultimate onomatopoeic dead end, free of connotations, meaningless, banal.

The funniest thing that shouldn’t be funny

Van Morrison performing his instant composition Ring Worm on his contractual obligation Bang Records recording session.

The funniest sketch I’ve ever seen

Roger Mann and Kevin Eldon’s “Australian clowns” dialogue in Simon Munnery’s live show Cluub Zarathustra, from 25 years ago, in which the duo described the clowning process in painful detail in stoned Australian beach-bum voices.

The funniest person I know

Roger Mann, who gave up comedy in the mid 90s to live in rural France and play in a Beatles covers band. His raised eyebrow is funnier than most people’s whole act.

The funniest item of clothing I’ve ever owned

Probably an orange monkey costume with long arms made out of poles used in Harry Hill’s Channel 4 series in the 90s, and which I then bought to dress Johnny Vegas in when he was playing a version of the legendary Hartlepool monkey in a workshop I wrote for the National Theatre, which never led to anything. I lay on the cold floor in tears of hysterics at the costume and Johnny in it. It was funnier than anything I ever wrote.

The funniest meal I’ve ever had

An undefrosted piece of frozen meat at The Hart Inn in Hartland in North Devon six years ago, served with indolent arrogance by a bored woman.

The funniest film I’ve ever seen

Spinal Tap. It gets better every time you watch it. Very little of the critically acclaimed comedy of the last 30 years – Alan Partridge, The Office, The Thick Of It – would be the same without it.

The funniest number

28, which is the perfect funny age in any joke, which works only as a result of the age of the character in it being revealed at the end of the sentence.

The funniest joke I’ve ever heard

The comedian Ted Chippington told essentially the same terrible joke over and over again throughout the 80s but the deadness of his delivery and the sheer audacity of daring to offer this joke up as entertainment in an environment where people had a reasonable expectation of more polished content made it hilarious: “How far is it to the railway station mate?” “One mile,” said in a growly voice. “One mile?” “Yes, one mile. Roughly speaking.”

The funniest hairstyle I’ve ever had

In Edinburgh in the late 90s I went to a barber’s I had always gone to, in an alleyway off Cockburn Street, run by an old Italian man, but he wasn’t there, and in his place were two threatening, scowling young men. They sat me in a chair and just shaved most of my hair off in weird concentric rings so I looked like a tonsured 14th-century monk who had had brain surgery.

Stewart Lee: Content Provider is at Leicester Square Theatre, WC2, to 28 Jan; touring to 21 Jun