Brummies top the laughter charts

Comics with the full range of accents - Brummie, Cockney and RP

A joke is funniest when told in a Brummie accent, according to research.

Experts from the University of Aberdeen have studied the response to a joke told in a variety of regional accents.

The Birmingham accent, linked with Jasper Carrott, Frank Skinner and Lenny Henry, came top, followed by Liverpool, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Wales.

Manchester came bottom of 10 regional accents surveyed, but was still more popular than Received Pronunciation (RP) - so-called "BBC English".

Researchers, commissioned by Paramount Comedy Channel, asked 4,000 people to listen to the same joke in 11 UK regional accents to discover which they found most amusing.

The UK's funniest accents 1 Birmingham (20.8%) 2 Liverpudlian (15.8%) 3 Geordie (14.3%) 4 Welsh (10.5%) 5 Yorkshire (9.2%) 6 Cockney (8.2%) 7 Belfast (8%) 8 South West England (6.6%) 9 Glaswegian (3.4%) 10 Mancunian (2.1%) 11 Received Pronunciation (1.1%)

However the study, led by comedy expert Dr Lesley Harbidge, also found that the funniest accents - Brummie, Scouse and Geordie - were also deemed the least intelligent.

RP was seen as most effective to withering one-liners, in the style of Jimmy Carr.

The Cockney accent was deemed most suited to risque humour, which 1930s Brighton-born comic Max Miller used to vivid effect in the London venues he usually played.

The test joke went: workmen are eating sandwiches, balancing on a girder miles above the ground:

"You ever get that urge, Frank? It begins with looking down from 50 storeys up, thinking about the meaningless of life, listening to dark voices deep inside you, and you think, 'Should I?... should I?...should I push someone off?"'