Last One Laughing: Halloween review – still a total treat, despite the new twist

No screaming is allowed in the spooky spin-off, but the stars are only in danger of cracking up over these golden comedy moments. Even Jack Dee looks delighted to be there!

British comedy is a broad church united by a simple adage: less is more. The most acclaimed and beloved shows – Fawlty Towers, The Young Ones, Brass Eye, The Office – tend to be exceptionally short-running. Compared to the Americans, our series are brief anyway, but we also seem anxious to bow out well before a premise is squeezed dry. We don’t milk it, we don’t money-grub. In a weird way, comedy is viewed as a precious finite resource liable to become exhausted at any moment.

Which is why I feel slightly sceptical about this Halloween special of Prime Video’s Last One Laughing, the reality gameshow that involves a group of comedians competing to see who can remain straight-faced for the longest. The enormous success of the first two series – incredible ratings, healthy media coverage, a pair of Baftas – was well deserved: the show produced some of the most hysterical TV comedy in recent memory. You can understand why the streamer would be keen to capitalise on the interest of the circa 6 million-strong fanbase with this four-part miniseries, which whittles down the usual 10 contestants to seven. But might this snacky stopgap dilute the precious joy of the yearly series proper?

At first, the whole thing does come off a bit half arsed. Why Halloween, except that it falls six months after the last edition? While some contestants do seem specially chosen – series one returnee Daisy May Cooper has authored a book about the supernatural, while Reece Shearsmith (The League of Gentlemen, Inside No 9) is known for his love of horror – others are shoehorned into the theme: we’re told Lou Sanders (who also appeared in the first series) “genuinely believes in crystals” and that Phil Wang once presented a podcast about his hatred of horror movies. Tom Allen, Jack Dee and rising standup Harriet Dyer, meanwhile, are merely introduced with a spooky joke.