gagster

Stompanato and the gagster slid silently out of the booth.

Davey the gagster collapsed on the table, convulsed with laughter.

What the philosopher calls an insight, the gagster calls a zinger."

Recent conquests: B-movie hulk F.T; gagster M.B.; laconic cowboy star G.C. Breathy sax, heartbeat bass.

"I'M no gangster, I'm a gagster," crows Giacomo (Jackie Dee) DiNorscio, the goombah antihero of Sidney Lumet's gripping courtroom drama "Find Me Guilty."

He'd crack jokes written by gagster Davey Goldman, slip fat envelopes to the bagmen from the Sheriff's Department and do a wicked Lindy hop with his squeeze Audrey Anders or the other comely quail sashaying on the premises.

At the Daily Telegraph, Boris Johnson biographer Andrew Gimson has been dumped as sketch writer (as his wife, a Labour councillor, laments in the Spectator) in favour of Michael Deacon, a younger utility gagster who also writes TV reviews and op-ed page columns.