Laid low with laughter

It was the most eye-catching art event of the year - hundreds of naked bodies lying on the bank of the Thames at the opening of the Saatchi gallery.

Last night came the sequel - a crowd of Groucho Marx lookalikes attracting crowds next to Tower Bridge.

Instead of stand-up comedy, it was lie-down humour to mark the London Comedy Festival, sponsored by the Evening Standard.

And there was more to come as Australian comic novelist Kathy Lette proclaimed that British men are the funniest in the world. She said: "You British are hopeless at sport but you're brilliant at wordplay. If there was a Wimbledon of wit you would win easily. British men are very funny - they are black belts in tongue-fu.

"I think the reason British men are so successful with women is that wordplay is the best form of foreplay."

The writer, who deals with what women say when the men are not there and whose most recent book , Nip n' Tuck, was published in 2002 to widespread critical acclaim, said it was the British man's "dry" and "delicious" sense of humour that allows him to woo women so successfully.

Wearing a Moschino cream dress plastered in mock design labels, she told the festival's launch party at City Hall: "The British sense of humour is so delicious - it's dryer than an AA clinic.

It's one of your great exports and from Jane Austen to Oscar Wilde, through to Stephen Fry today, you have some of the funniest comedians in the world. I think it comes from all that repression and wearing stripey underpants all the time."

The festival runs from next Thursday, 15 May, to 25 May and will feature hundreds of events including the 90-metre World's Largest Cartoon Strip in Trafalgar Square. Organisers have placed a particular emphasis on comedy writing and have teamed up with 300 London libraries to hold promotions to encourage people to read more humorous literature.

Representing the stand-up circuit, Stephen K Amos explained why the capital has so much young talent. "People don't talk on the Tube and if you smile at someone they think you're a nut case.