The comedy world certainly moves fast these days. A couple of years ago Ricky Gervais was number one, then last year the smart money started to say that Stephen Merchant was the real brains behind the operation and that Gervais would be nothing without him. Now there is a school of thought that even says that sidekick Karl Pilkington, the Ringo of the recordbreaking Gervais/Merchant podcasts, is the real comedy genius.

Judging by his one-off Comedy Lab programme on C4 last night I can't see it. In Satisfied Fool Pilkington explored the question, posed by philosopher John Stuart Mill, of whether it is better to be a dissatisfied human or a satisifed pig. Pilkington, the pig in question, travelled around Britain to get an answer, having first taken an IQ test. There were some very funny moments, such as when Pilkington revealed that he couldn't understand the last book he read because it turned out that the pages really were printed in the wrong order, but however much his dumb remarks make Ricky Gervais laugh like a hyena, I'm not sure how much mileage there is in Pilkington's deadpan demeanour.

The experts he met certainly had little time for him. Will Self sent him away with a flea in his ear, Germaine Greer patronised him and then sent him away with a loaf of freshly baked bread. David Icke, however, saw Pilkington as a misunderstood kindred spirit. And when David Icke thinks you and he are alike I can't help thinking you've really got problems.

Incidentally, Pilkington's IQ test came up with a result of 83 - the average is 100. Pilkington used to be a radio producer, which if nothing else, suggests that you don't need to be a genius to work in the media.

It is hard to know where to being when it comes to unpicking the recently announced Top Ten list of Great British wits. OK, let's start with number four. Oscar Wilde (who would have probably called himself Irish rather than British, but let's not even go there), Spike Milligan (who I don't think held a British passport) and Stephen Fry (official national treasure) I can live with as gold, silver and bronze. But Jeremy Clarkson next? Excuse me while I get up off the floor and back onto my high horse.

Admittedly this was a poll to decide who was good with words rather than who looked bad in denim, but Clarkson is often little more than an articulate, over-opinionated pub bore, coming out with the kind of lines you might hear in any Twickenham bar on a Saturday night. During a programme on the USA he said that "in some parts of America people have begun to mate with vegetables." He once called a Daihatsu "gay". To the best of my knowledge he has yet to pen any great literary works, though he did once release a DVD called Motorsport Mayhem.

But if Clarkson is an oddity, the countdown then goes from weird to worse. Winston Churchill comes in at five, but given that he lived to be over ninety you'd expect him to have come up with a few good gags in his time. I like his one about telling the woman who called him drunk that in the morning he would be sober while she would still be ugly, but I don't recall many laughs in his "fight them on the beaches" speech.

Paul Merton is always good value on Have I Got News For You, but then at six should he really be a place above Noel Coward? And two places above William Shakespeare, who never had the benefit of doing retakes. Nice to see Brian Clough at number nine, but then it is nice to see any sporting figure able to string a coherent sentence together. And propping up the chart? Why, none other than eloquent, erudite Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher. I won't say any more about his selection or he might destroy me with his mighty wit. Or twat me.

Still, it could have been worse. Jimmy Carr might have been in the chart.

"Comedy? In Hayes? Best of luck mate." On the way to his gig at the Beck Theatre on Monday night, Russell Howard's cabbie gave him an ominous warning. And he was partly right. Howard went down a storm with most of the people there, but the venue was about half full. This was for a comedian who regularly appears on television and recently completed a one-month sell-out run at the Edinburgh Festival.

I don't know what it is about Hayes, but I've been to a few shows there by big acts and I've never been to one that has sold out. Maybe I've just been unlucky, but the Hayes crowd never strikes me as one whose collective heart is in comedy. People at the back were chatting, some were wandering out to the bar mid-show. It is hardly a part of London that has so much comedy it can take it for granted. So why is it some areas don't go for comedy in a big way?

The venue, a big modern concrete slab of a building, doesn't help, but there is something about the suburbs and comedy – they don't really get on. Croydon's Fairfield Halls, which is my nearest suburban venue, packs them in for the likes of Little Britain and League of Gentlemen, but the atmosphere is still utterly different to seeing these shows in the West End or even at Hammersmith's aircraft hangar Carling Apollo. Hayes and Croydon never strike me as the nicest places to live, which makes me wonder – do areas get the venues they deserve or do venues define their areas?

Gigs further out of town are weird too. The Swan in High Wycombe is another of my less favourite venues. The best thing about it is the handy adjacent car park. And as for Southend's Cliff Pavilion, going to a gig there feels like walking onto the set of Birds of a Feather.

This is not a snobbish metropolitan rant, of course. Central London club gigs can be pretty awful too, full of drunks, ignorant hecklers and stag and hen parties. If I ever see another pair of red devil's horns blocking my view on a Friday night I might just set fire to them. In fact, if it wasn't for the fact that the comedy scene is packed with fabulously talented, constantly inventive entertainers I don't know how I'd manage to do my job. Now, if only I could get them to do all their gigs in my lounge I'd really be laughing.

Russell Brand is at it again. No, not clogging up the tabloids with his sordid-yet-saucy bedroom antics, but making another film. Brand is to play George Wickham in a comedy remake of Pride & Prejudice, also said to be starring Lily Allen as Lydia Bennet. This is an odd bit of casting – if this is a send-up of the literary classic surely Brand would have made a wonderfully sleazy Mr Darcy, emerging from the lake in soaking wet see-through trousers rather than a see-through shirt.

Brand is clearly pursuing a film career – in fact he told me this was one of his numerous ambitions when I interviewed him last summer. He has already shot his appearance as Flash Harry in the St Trinians remake and stars in the American romantic comedy Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

All of this is fine and dandy and Brand did spend a bit of time at drama school before dropping out, so acting clearly courses through his once heroin-clogged veins, but I do wish great comedians would stick to stand-up. Eddie Izzard's determination to crack Hollywood has put the mockers on his stand-up career. He seems to have finally made a breakthrough in the TV drama The Riches and his grandstanding cameo in Across The Universe is the best thing in a terrible film, but onstage he has never recaptured his glories of the mid-nineties and I think this is partly due to spending too much time getting onscreen.

Stand-up comedy is like a muscle which needs constant flexing and exercise. Izzard has shown that it is definitely not like riding a bicycle – however brilliant you are, if you take a break you can't just get on again. Brand should bear this in mind. Do a bit of acting by all means Russell, but keep gigging as much as you possibly can or you'll find that your mighty gag-generating mojo might get rusty. And we wouldn't want that, would we?