Lauren Sneade

The three Dafereras brothers can’t remember how they learned to throw stones. Niko, Harry and Ross are all annual competitors in the World Stone Skimming Championship on Easdale Island in Argyll, Scotland. ‘I reckon I just picked one up and started throwing,’ says Harry. But Niko reckons they had help. ‘Dad taught us to throw. On Paros, looking at Antiparos.’ We are by a bonfire in the rain on the eve of the championship. It is dark and stormy without a star in the sky, and I can barely see their faces for wood smoke. Different conditions, then, to summer on the Aegean. I ask Niko if he ever hit Antiparos. ‘You can’t hit Antiparos,’ he says seriously. Niko is a fisherman and razor-clam diver who spends most of his time on fishing boats around the Hebrides.

The comedians have bolted. Once, they were confined to underground clubs, scheduled radio, sitcoms and panel shows. But no more. They buck across our feeds, whinny down podcasts and nuzzle our thumbs for ‘likes’. The old stables are falling into disrepair. Television comedy is contracting. British broadcasters commissioned 41 per cent fewer scripted comedies in 2023 than the year before, making it the most in-decline scripted genre. The BBC has been retreating from comedy for a decade: its first-run comedy output fell from 225 hours in 2010 to 108 in 2022-23. As television’s doors close, comedians are being driven elsewhere. At the end of July, the British television institution, Live at the Apollo, which launched a thousand comedy careers into the mainstream, was axed.