There are lots of things we still don’t understand about England: Why they’ve never figured to put fluoride in their water supply, why the Queen bothered to give an audience to Lady Gaga, and why their pubs are always packed full of people at noon on weekdays. However, there is one other alien thing about their culture that we have put in tremendous effort to understand throughout the course of our lifetimes: their sense of humour. We grew up being utterly perplexed by Benny Hill and Monty Python every time they would come on our television sets, but by the time we got to college, our sensibilities had refined themselves to the point that we finally started to “get” their jokes. And through the years, we have done our best to keep a pulse on groundbreaking British comedy series like The Office, Fawlty Towers, The Fast Show, Absolutely Fabulous, The Mighty Boosh, and Spaced. But when we found out today that an 8-year-old comedienne named Ramona Marquez just won the Best Female Newcomer award at the British Comedy Awards, we found ourselves once again feeling, how do you say, gobsmacked.
Now, we have nothing against little ol’ Ramona; she seems like a perfectly precocious little lady. Apparently she’s on a show called Outnumbered, which also won the Best Sitcom award at the same ceremony. But it does make us wonder a bit about the overall level of comedic talent in Great Britain when an 8-year-old is named as the country’s most promising comedienne. After all, it’s not like we branded Jonathan Lipnicki as our nation’s greatest hope to take Lenny Bruce’s mantle after he cracked everyone up in Jerry Maguire, now did we? Either way, we wish nothing but the best for young Miss Marquez and sincerely hope that she doesn’t run into Lenny Henry’s daughter in a dark alleyway.
Oh yeah, before we forget, here’s a clip! Is she the next Amy Poehler or the next Melanie Hutsell? You decide!
Comedy award coup for eight-year-old British actress [Daily Mail UK]
