Has Keith Chegwin been stealing comedians jokes on Twitter?
The standup community’s displeasure at Cheggers recycling gags online shows how comedy’s rulebook has changed Oh, Cheggers. His career has taken some pretty unlikely turns (if not hairpin bends) over the years, from acting for Roman Polanski in 1971’s Macbeth to acting as stooge to DJ Mike Read in The Saturday Superstore. He followed that with a stint as presenter of Britain’s first all-nude quiz show, and even played himself as a rabid anti-semite in Ricky Gervais’s Extras. Now he has been cast in yet another unlikely role – as an unapologetic gag thief. Like far too many stories at the moment, this all started on Twitter. Chegwin decided to use his account, where he has more than 36,000 followers (no, me neither), to broadcast a whole load of gags and one-liners. He claimed that these were either his own work, or traditional gags minted by long-dead comics. Unfortunately, they weren’t. Among the gags retold by the one-time player of pop were identifiable jokes written by a number of
