Jokes have often been made about how on earth researchers manage to get grants for bizarre topics and whether they shouldn’t be trying to cure some disease…but THIS research we can get behind.

In 2021 it was announced that researchers (commissioned by OnBuy.com) had conducted a study to try and find out how many minutes of laughter, per hour, UK stand-ups could get. They assembled an hour of footage from recent stand-up shows and showed them to 120 volunteers, in their own homes. The volunteers were mic’d up and every laugh over 60db or more was recorded.

LadBible felt that they should point out that this test favoured Jimmy’s quick-fire style – but he can still say that, scientifically, he’s the funniest British Comedian.

The Top 20

1. Jimmy Carr: 4min 46 sec
2. Peter Kay: 4min 38sec
3. Jack Whitehall: 3min 59 sec
4. Michael McIntyre: 3min 53sec
5. Ed Gamble: 3min 44sec
6. Billy Connolly: 3min 37sec
7. Jason Manford: 3min 20 sec
8. Romesh Ranganathan: 3min 11sec
9. Bill Bailey: 3min 7sec
10. Ricky Gervais: 3min 1sec
11. Frankie Boyle: 2min 58sec
12. James Acaster: 2min 49sec
13. Nish Kumar: 2min 35sec
14. Russell Howard 2min 22sec
15. Eddie Izzard: 2min 18 sec
16. Tom Allen: 2min 17sec
17. Kevin Bridges 2min 14sec
18. John Bishop: 2min 5sec
19. Sarah Millican: 2min 4sec
20. Rhod Gilbert: 1min 50sec

In the clip (below) from The Jonathan Ross Show Jimmy says that Michael McIntyre sent him a text to say “my lawyers are looking into this”.