The Bricklayer's Lament - by Gerard Hoffnung 

"I was now heavier than the barrel". The listener knows exactly what is going to happen. Hoffnung, in his "making a formal report" style, uses very simple language, absolutely perfect timing and other peoples imagination to produce a piece of PURE genius.

I remember my dad playing this for us when we were kids. Even though I've heard it a million times, it sill makes me laugh -- especially when I hear his stentorian delivery of "THE BARREL...."

Hoffnung's delivery, the pauses etc. are what make this old chestnut hilarious, and a classic. I defy anyone to deliver it better!

First heard this more than 60 years ago... I've often tried to remember what it was called and now I've rediscovered it. Very special moment.

Absolute genius! As hilarious as when I first heard this 50plus years ago! A masterclass in delivery and timing.

Marvellous bit of business. I have vivid memories of our English teacher playing this to us in class, it must have been about 1968. He pointed out Hoffnung's wonderful timing, the way that he put the listener ahead of the story, so that you anticipated the punchline. Thus he got two laughs for every joke, one when you guessed what was coming, and one when it came.

I first heard this on the radio in the car and had to pull over I was laughing so much. Brilliant.

I don't know if I have ever heard a speaker with better control. Hoffnung isn't just telling his audience a funny story, he is feeding it to them one delicious morsel at a time :-)

Amazing, and sad, to think that he died so young. There is a maturity in his voice and delivery that sounds more like a man in at least his fifties, if not older. He achieved a lot in his thirty-four years.

My mum told me this story when I was younger. Absolutely cracked me up. Every time I hear it I still do. He was a genius and had the ability that even though you knew what was coming it still made you laugh twice. Thanks for posting x

This used to be on the "wireless" and I listened to this as a young boy with my Dad. You can't explain this humour.....you don't need to. Thanks Dad x

I've known this recording since I was about 15, which is longer ago than I care to think about. It still has the ability to make me weep with laughter - it is mostly in anticipation of what you know is to come, and you can hear the audience doing exactly the same thing, which makes it even funnier. Humour at it's very best - subtle, intelligent, and requiring genuine concentration by the audience.

I heard "The Bricklayer's Lament" for the first time on the radio while driving along in my car. I laughed so hard I had to stop the car and compose myself. This was in 1960 and I had just arrived in Sydney from Norway. That was really my first exposure to english humour. I have never forgotten it. Pity Hoffnung died at such a young age. He was up there with the best.

...."at this point, I must have lost my presence of mind"....one of the best comedy lines in the business!! A brilliant, brilliant piece that shows anticipation is as funny as the event!

I found this whilst searching for something regarding Bob Newhart. I have a large piece of circular black vinyl that includes Gerard's Oxford University address. I haven't listened to it for 20+ years. I can remember after the first time I heard it, I was rolling around on the floor laughing uncontrollably. I must find that record. No swearing, no sex, no racism, just real clever humour. FANTASTIC.

I heard this first in the 50's on BBC radio. It has lost nothing over more than half a century. His delivery is absolutely magnificent,

I first heard this in the 60's. When you listen to this you really need to have your eyes closed. One of the funniest things I've ever heard. Thanks for posting this gem.

I've loved this for near on 30 years. It's one of the things I press on house guests whenever I get the chance: pssst! Come and listen to this! It's story telling at its best! and we slip off quietly away from the kitchen crowd.

I have to say that this original recording beats anything which has subsequently been reinterpreted and put to music. This is simply the best. Had me in tears !

It must have been at least thirty years ago when I first heard this on Radio 4. I have wondered what it was ever since. Last night I was listening to 4 extra and they were trailing a programme about the "bricklayers lament" I knew immediately what it was and so was able to find it here. Brilliantly funny

I heard this when I was about 15, and have always loved it! Absolutely the best, and the definitive version of this story! His brilliant timing is what makes it so perfectly funny!

A classic, one-off, and absolutely SUPERB performance!

Remarkable delivery. His accent and olden colloquialisms make it so, so special.

I believe that this is the funniest act of comedy in history and will take a lot to beat. Even though I know what is coming next it still leaves me in tears of laughter

How delightful this is, I first heard this on the radio when I was about 11, I loved it then and I love it now. Thank you poster

It doesn't matter how many times I hear this, it cracks me up every. Single. Time.

I heard this years ago, but by Blaster Bates and had searched for that recording but never found it, it wasn't until the other day I came across something that pointed the way to this. Thanks for posting, it is comedy at it's very best.

Nearly 50 years since I first heard this and it doesn't loose any of its magic!!!!

Every speech class should be required to listen to this.

My late father used to play a record of this to my sisters and me in our childhood, and of course, The Corries went on to make a song of it. Still cracks me up to this day.

You can almost anticipate John Cleese and his escalating annoyance monologues here. Anna Russell's opera stories. Or marvelous Victor Borge. It takes a flawless ear and real gift to do this type of recitation, but, when the performer hits his stride, the result is absolutely hysterical!!

Brilliant. I have been listening to this for years, and have never got tired of it. What a genius!

Love it! When I was very young my father forced me to listen to this is the car. I think I just laughed harder now that I did when I first heard it :D !!!

My Dad introduced this to me in the 60's. It used to have us in stitches. I have never been able to find it until now! Thanks so much for posting! 😁

Wonderful story. I remember listening to it in the late 50's on a children's Saturday morning radio show.

Thank-you. I have two limited edition LP sets of his recordings, including this one. His cartoons were used by the BBC until the mid-1960's to make children's programmes. And he also did a series of advertisements for Independent Television, which were still being run, years after his demise. My favourite childhood comedian. Such a shame that he died so young. Congestive heart failure led to a brain haemorrhage which killed him in 1959. Look out for his music festivals and his radio interviews, made for the BBC Home Service. His timing, stress and modulation were perfect. I wish that more of our modern comedians would learn lessons from the greats of yesteryear.

Total genius. One of the funniest perfomances I have ever heard. Thanks so much for posting. Wonderful. Brian. New Zealand

Thanks for that Colin. I've got a double LP (remember them?) with that and several other gems somewhere, if I could only find it, and something to play it on. I still find it funny after 60 years - positively timeless humor. Thanks again.

Excellent! I still have the original LP vinyl, but its great to listen to a 'clean' recording of this classic parable. Thanks for posting.

OMG THANK YOU SOOOOO MUCH! i HAVE BEEN TRYING TO FIND THIS FOR AGES! I remember I heard this delightedly for the first time as a kid, when my dad returned with it from an Open University summer course in engineering-The physics of pulley's! Thx

Hoffnung's timing is immaculate and the laughter as people start to realise what's coming next is priceless. It's a shame the first few seconds are missing but it's hilarious nonetheless.

I've heard this many times on CBC Radio, and it never gets old. So brilliantly funny. Thanks so much for posting this, and I'll be certain to check out his full address to the Oxford Union.

I was stuck in traffic yesterday and turned radio 4 on just in time! I haven't heard this in years and years and years. Other people in other cars were laughing as hard as me, we must have all been listening!

Wonderful, I remember hearing this as a teenager, and still think it the funniest monolgue ever, Thankyou sooo much for posting.

I heard this many years ago and it was told by either Soupy Sales or George Carlin. My Mom and I laughed so hard. Great memories and glad to have found this!

Heard it on radio 4 this morning. I remembered it when it stared - had me in stitches

The story is excellent, the delivery is fantastic. I still have the record in my attic given to me by my late Uncle.

an absolute classic! I've had the vinyl recording for years but now nothing to play it on! Thank you so much for posting this.

Thanks for sharing this. It has been adapted into a very popular Irish traditional song that goes by the name the sick note.

childhood memories, revived in the 70's and re-remebered now - very funny

As I looked out of the bedroom window this morning, I noticed that the building behind our cottsage is having some worked done on their roof. They have rigged a pulley and rope at the top of the scaffolding presumably to raise building materials to the roof level.This lament which I have not heard for many years immediately came to mind.

A Buddy has this on a 45rpm Record. When coming home from the pub, we would play it. This would result in us in hysterical laughter. We would often play it AGAIN.

I got here through an 1984 (or 1985) interview (on BBC's Saturday Superstore) with Simon Lebon. High grade slapstick this is. Merci Monsieur Lebon. Always knew you had great taste:-)

many many thanks for posting . amazing stuff , way ahead of its time.

I heard this many years ago too. Classic. Thanks for posting it.

My Dad, a self-confessed and proud Anglophile, played this for me several times. It is a piece of absolute genius!

I've been trying to recall anything that might help me locate this tale I'd heard fifty-five years ago. Alas!

Absolutely priceless! Hoffnung is one of my two great heroes (Edward de Bono being the other).

Superb timing...the great Gerard Hoffnung👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

Many thanks for posting this! Absolutely brilliant! Not one single swear-word! (Impossible in the world of today) - his timing was always perfect, and it was such a shame he died so young! (…quem di diligunt, Adolescens moritur…)

Thank you Colin for this upload. I've been looking for this for quite a while. I first heard it in 1968 and it is just as funny now as it was then.

I was born in the year the record was made and it was always in the house. I have no idea how many times I have heard this and it still raises a smile. The song that somebody made of it just annoys me, especially as everybody that sings it has a different 'origin' story.

i am a health and safety executive, and will be investigating this case in due course

OMG, I heard thos one sunday night on National Public Radio about 20 years ago and have been searching for it ever since! Ty Ty Ty :D

If you get a chance, listen to 'Murphy and the Bricks'. Noel Murphy, a great Irish folk singer, took Hoffnung's story and made it into a song. Definitely worth a listen. B)

Just rediscovered this after many years. Genius.

Heard this tale many times and in many different versions, this is by far the best rendition.

I first heard this in school in 1975. Just as hilarious 39 years on.

This actually happened to me, while i was in hospital, a friend visited, got their tape deck out, (remember those?) and played me this, which had the consequence of re cracking my five broken ribs, i also wet myself and the other

I have the Gerard Hoffnung CD collection and this is in the collection. Bloody hilarious !

This is a reminder of the days when stand-up comedy was actually funny, didn't have a constant flow of obscenity and was enjoyed by audiences who listened to the words and were capable of applying anticipation to enhance both the performance and their own enjoyment.

Only Gerrard Hoffnung could pull this off. Bloody funny for a Monday morning

Excellent. Hoffnung was brilliant. A real polymath. We need his like today. It's 50 years this year (2009) since his early death. It was good to see him recognised at the BBC's Last Night of the Proms, with a concerto for vacuum-cleaners and orchestra.

I can't remember hearing this before. It had me crying with laughter - brilliant comedy.

Such a brilliant man. His musical compositions and drawings are also fabulous.

I've loved his cartoons for years, never heard this before. Hilarious.

I never realized this joke was so old! Brilliant!

Brilliant - first heard this many years ago but it is every bit as funny now. Thanks for uploading. The other funny one I remember was his ironic guide for foreign tourists - "Upon entering a railway carriage it is the British custom to shake every passenger by the hand" and "every brothel displays a blue lamp" (from the days when police stations did so, of course!) Lovely stuff, I shall seek out more!

Thanks so much for posting. Still so funny after all these years.

This is a priceless as it was the first time I heard it.

I heard this too on Radio 4 this morning and laughed out loud through my housework! Very funny indeed.

I didn't think that it was possible to marry science, physics and humour but this does it perfectly to my amazement. Pardon my literary ignorance.

Listened to this lament many times since it was first aired, and it still makes me laugh until it hurts.

I'd never heard of this until I read Ian Messiter's obituary - the creator of One Minute Please and Just a Minute. Thanks for uploading :)

My sides ache with laughter. Glorious stuff.

I have just remembered I have this on a vinyl record. This is just wonderful.

it does not matter how often i hear it, but i laugh every.time.

My dad heard this as a young boy on the radio over 50 years ago. He says its as funny today as it was then.

Have laughed till I hurt for nearly 60 years at this/

I dare anyone to keep a straight face listening to this absurdly silly story. BRILLIANT!

We had a chap when I was in the army who used to do a rendition of this, standing on a table in the NAAFI after a few beers. Absolutely hilarious.

Still sounds so good today..totally brilliant

an old favorite - great to hear it again

I remember hearing him on the radio as a child. He was ALWAYS entertaining and hilarious. The only other raconteur of great value, like him, was the wonderful Peter Ustinov. I can not think of anyone today with the talents of these two men ........... that isn't to say that they do not exist .......... its just that I can not think of any!

showed this to my physics teacher and he absolutely lost it XD

My mother still has this on a vinyl 78

Great Stuff, Gerald was 33 when he recorded this at the Oxford Union, sadly he died from a brain hemorrhage a year later

Superb. Every time I hear it, it always makes me laugh :-)) Thanks for posting.

Absolutely hilarious - Gerard Hoffnung was an absolute genius. As jrg135 noted he died too soon, but masterpieces such as this remain to remind us of this German-born artist, musician and humorist who in some ways was more English than the English. Annetta's biography 'Gerard Hoffnung' is well worth reading and has a special place on my shelves, alongside autobiographies by Peter Ustinov 'Dear Me' and Patrick Moore '80 Not Out'. Wonderful.

This used to be played frequently on "Family Favourites"which aired every Sunday lunchtime.We almost choked on our Roast Beef and Yorkies!Other faves were Sellers doing his Irish ceilidh recording,and his version-much later-of "A hard Day's Night".Great memories!