It must have been a tragi-comic experience for him: part side-splitter, part horror story.

It was his dead-pan delivery that turned even the daftest joke into a side-splitter.

Yes, sir; a reg'lar side-splitter at the Haymarket.

Yesterday was a side-splitter.

It'd be a side-splitter.

Mekeisha Madden Toby for The Detroit News found the episode a "side-splitter".

Spurs sold winger Gareth Bale for a world record £86m to Real Madrid over the summer, prompting Gazidis to deliver a side-splitter at the meeting.

Other publications were collections of Lower's articles, selected by others, e.g. "Lennie Lower's Annual: a Side-Splitter", published by Smith's Weekly.

Sometimes even a topical side-splitter goes no further than dress rehearsals -- even one as good as the following sendup of Guy Fieri's recent New York Times restaurant review woe.

It laughs less uproariously at every exhumation of that side-splitter "Come On Tim," and applauds less lustily when an umpire asks them, as a courtesy to both players, to switch off mobile phones.

The program's finale, "Business Lunch at the Russian Tea Room," becomes a side-splitter as Chris, Mr. Durang's surrogate on the stage, is romanced by a high-powered Hollywood production executive.

Her friend Ethel Barrymore thought the song was a lovely, serious one, but Miss Lillie made it a side-splitter, especially when she sang it garbed in a long formal gown, then raised her skirt and roller-skated off stage.

The notion of a man known to have deployed creative, though entirely legal, methods to avoid paying tax becoming a Tory peer and an important figure in the party is just the sort of outlandish, satirical side-splitter to render the tickling stick redundant.

The autumn international series was not exactly a side-splitter for England, so Martin Johnson and his colleagues were in dire need of something to smile at as the draw for the 2011 World Cup in New Zealand unfolded in London yesterday.