#TheakstonsCrime: Criminally Comic at Theakstons 2017

There is a long tradition of  humour at Theakston's Old Peculier crime writing festival... and the 2017 one was no exception.  Here's a few of the humerous oneliners delivered with aplomb by your fave crime writers over the weekend.





Lee Child: 'If I went to the Caribbean with Scarlett Johansson, when I got back nobody would ask me what sort of car I drove'  (Wishful thinking there methinks!!!)

BBC News correspondent, James Naughtie, when the lights went up on the audience : 'Ooh you look like a black mass of living death on a Friday morning.'

Steve Cavanagh: 'He pulled himself up with the cheeks of his own arse.'  (might need to steal that for one of my own books.)

Steve Cavanagh: 'armed robbery with a dead seagull!'



In response to Lesley Thomson's 'I'ts a well known fact that it's dog walkers and joggers who find most dead bodies'  Simon Toyne couldn't resist quipping, 'Are you sure it's not doggers and joggers?'

Ian Rankin on writing rebus 'Forgot I'd given rebus a bloody dog in last book... had to go back and write the dog in for this one.'

Val McDermid on the New Blood panel: 'Jane Harper left the UK to go to Australia... a bit like the Bee Gees'

Fiona Cummins discussing why she took up writing: 'I was a show biz journalist, but there comes a time when being in a hotel room with Geroge Clooney just doesn't cut it any more.'

Val's response - 'Do you know George Clooney personally then... because if you do, do you think you get an espresso machine for the green room?'

Melanie Raabe confides about the origins of her new book, 'When I had that idea there was a lot of wine on the table.'





In response to Peter May's insistence that Enzo MacLeod has definitely retired, Danuta Kean said 'We should have a word with Ian Rankin about that!'




Julia Crouch on the subject of people taking over your PC camera, 'Imagine the reaction of a young boy when he gets the face of a 55 year old writer.'