Double act

The 'double act' is a predominantly British institution, a term used for describing the comedic tradition of a pair of performers. The two would usually comprise of a 'straight man' or 'feed' and the 'comic', the purpose of the feed being to set up jokes for the comic. This would rely heavily on comic timing. Morecambe and Wise are widely regarded as the greatest British double act. Although technically Eric Morecambe was the comic and Ernie Wise was the feed, it was in reality one of the most equal relationships of its genre.

Other such British acts include The Two Ronnies, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson, Reeves and Mortimer, French and Saunders and Fry and Laurie.

The first notable double act were probably Laurel and Hardy. Stan Laurel could loosely be described as the comic, though the pair did not fit the mold in the way that modern double acts do, with both taking a fairly equal share of the laughs. Also, unlike most other double acts, their work was filmed in Hollywood and one of the members, Oliver Hardy, was American. Therefore, though most of the scripts were written by Stan, the American influence could clearly be seen, as their work was produced in the form of short films rather than stand-up routines and sketches.

Whilst the tradition is not as popular in the USA, there are several notable comedy partnerships -including Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, David Spade and Chris Farley, and Dan Ackroyd and John Belushi, however, these acts tend to be consigned to a different genre known as the 'Buddy Movie'.