PURE SMUT

REVIEWED - THE ARISTOCRATS: THIS disgusting documentary takes as its subject an obscure tradition from the world of show business and, over 90 scummy, effluent-sodden minutes, worries it to pieces.

It is a small film about a small thing but, in its way, close to perfect. A series of variations on a simple theme, The Aristocrats gets to grips with most of the questions worth asking about comedy without ever taking its foot off the funny pedal.

The tradition in question is the world's filthiest joke. We will not reveal that joke here, but, suffice to say, it is not, of itself, particularly funny. For close to 100 years comics have enjoyed working the most obscene details into the vacancy at the gag's centre. Each comedian finds his own route to depravity, but most pass through bestiality, incest and sexual emission along the way.

Paul Provenza and Penn Jillette - he of comedy conjurors Penn and Teller - have gathered together an impressive collection of comics to muse upon a joke that has, until now, rarely been performed outside show-business circles. George Carlin is matter-of-fact. The South Park team risk alluding to 9/11. Robin Williams and a mime artist inadvertently prove that each may be the only thing less funny than the other.

After 10 minutes one does begin to wonder if the premise can possibly justify a feature film. But, as the swell of filth threatens to become intolerable, the film-makers lead their interviewees into pondering some interesting problems. Why exactly do we find the unacceptable hilarious? What motivates the characters within jokes? What subjects - race, religion, smoking - can still shock an audience raised on Eminem? Then the comics begin stripping the joke down to its component parts and rebuilding it in intriguing ways.

Arguably the funniest moment in the film comes when Wendy Liebman delivers a version of the gag that might be described as the original story's negative image. Such comic deconstruction forms part of a rigorous semiotic autopsy that could provide the material for several academic careers (some, admittedly, in abnormal psychology).