"...And totalling up the points, I see this week's winner is NOT Tony Slattery..."

Matt, as unabashed and uncensored as the UK WL itself, reacts to the fervent hailing of Tony Slattery as the sole God of the British improvisers, and points out that it's as much who you know as what you know...

Don't panic. This isn't a crudely-worded attack on Tony Slattery, instigator of many a gross-out piece of WLiiA? vintage - saliva darts, floor jackets, snotty cereal. It's about the rest of them.

The rest of whom, exactly? After all, Tony could fit into any sub-category of participants on the show - legends, veterans, consistent performers, name-makers, scene-stealers, regular winners - they all come to mind.

But the clique in question is more partisan and less highbrow than that - it's actually the rest of the Brits.

Tony was an outstanding and memorable performer whose longevity and consistency on a personal level went some way to enhancing the longevity and consistency of the show itself. It made him a star. It made him a heart-throb. It made him rich.

When the show peaked in its world-conquering run (and it did - despite those who claim it can still get better) and the archives were stripped down to bare bones and the glittering icons of WLiiA? were laid before us, only Tony was in possession of a UK passport.

Like a winning football team places its most creative and prolific stars ahead of the journeymen who glue things together on the pitch, the WLiiA? fraternity have placed only a handful of players on its higher pedestal. Colin Mochrie, Ryan Stiles, Greg Proops and Tony Slattery have received more plaudits than the rest put together, whatever their flag. Those who argue for Wayne Brady should remember he never came to London. And Brad Sherwood doesn't get a look-in.

There's nothing about the nature of Tony's popularity which isn't understandable. Tony was a dominant force throughout the show's early years, and one of the few British survivors as the show progressed into a non-UK dominant format with Colin, Ryan and Greg now regulars.

Tony was competent at some games, brilliant at others, always funny, regularly cheeky, frequently crude and sometimes insolent towards the host. Extra traits also heightened his standing, such as his occasional lapses of sartorial tastes and his boyish good looks.

He has deserved every plaudit he has received, and the fact that he hasn't appeared on an episode for more than five years further exploits his status among the programme's fans, who still talk constantly about him, bemoan his absence as a guest star on the US show and incessantly relive some of his funnier or filthier or sicker moments.

But it remains a shame that for a British show, conceived, made and performed by British people, there has never been enough respect afforded to other British participants, many of whom stood by Tony on the appearances and impact scale until the Ryan and Colin era - high-class but repetitive - began.

In the early days, every WLiiA? fan looked towards John Sessions for the major entertainment factor. John has often been hugely misunderstood by critics and fans alike when his old performances have been re-run. The idle observation which appears each time is that he was selfish, a scene-stealer, and egotist and an elitist.

But John knew this. He was a well-travelled, well-informed, well-educated and highly-skilled, rounded man and performer. He was also a luvvie, an actor first, an actor in the classic comedy mould, in that he wasn't concerned about achieving a certain number of laughs as long as what he did was appreciated and understood. He enjoyed being funny, but it wasn't his role, his job, his purpose behind doing the programme. The show was new, needed a following, and therefore needed an instant star, and they got one. He was a world-class improviser within the less agreeable world of dramatic improvisation, yet when wit was required, it came in bundles.

One of the great pairings in the early episodes was when John was called down to the stage to perform with Paul Merton. Here you had an actor first, making up a sketch with a comedian first. Their sharp contrasts were further heightened by their improvisation policies, styles and their own backgrounds. A university-educated thespian alongside a working-class comic, a stage actor adjacent to a comedy club raconteur.

It was an outstanding duo because the summits they both aimed for were the same, yet their methods in doing so were so different. John would ramble and elucidate prose for what seemed an eternity in skit stakes, setting up a punchline which Paul's sharp brain would quickly assess, assemble and deliver. Paul appreciated John's work, John adored Paul's humour. The way to prove that lies in their separated sketches when on the same episode - John onstage, Paul in his chair smiling and nodding, transfixed; Paul onstage, John anatomically folded in two, helpless with laughter.

Which brings us to Paul himself. The wittiest man on television, as he has been frequently and deservedly described amongst the UK press. His HIGNFY heritage is now a British comedy institution alongside those of Hancock, Steptoe, Python, Fawlty, Hacker, Delboy and Meldrew. He is never unfunny, never has an off-day and never goes about his role without ruthless research, practice and professionalism.

His WLiiA? performances show him acting in a deliberately woody manner. In a sense, he was a scene-stealer in much the same way as the accused John, but Paul was never in the dock for it because he constantly pinched the glory with outright humour, with lines so skilfully delivered that even out of context they are funny - "her arse'll be through it in a fortnight"; "I'm 34"; "does it come with batteries?" - and yet he never acted. Great acting works in improv, great comic skill works too. Paul was told to act scenes but he was a ham and remains so, and that earthy style, with brain concentrating on words rather than actions or rhythms, made wonderfully visual, verbal, life-enhancing television.

Performing with Josie Lawrence always saw Paul inject an air of psychological and sexual tension into his work, even though he wouldn't have had a clue he was doing it. Long-standing friends and co-performers, the two of them constantly tried to outwit each other by use of sexual shortcomings, or gender-related put-downs, and Paul generally won, though competition wasn't the order of the day. It was how they worked best. Two vintage games show this - Paul translating Josie's Swedish lecture on Volvos became a bestiality lecture and Josie, as a 'foreigner', could do nothing about it - yet in a Props game in the same episode, Josie managed to infer, using a wind-up key, that Paul was not blessed in a certain physical region. There had been a previous similar claim by Paul in that game too, but not with such devastating meaning.

Josie herself was a bit of a curate's egg at times - brilliant at making up songs, lacking often in the actual humour stakes, more notably in speaking games. Yet she developed a good, strong following and can put her successful career down to being the first woman ever on television to make up songs on the spot.

Her songs were clever, incisive, well-thought out and well-delivered, but not always that funny per se. Laughter still came, but more of admiration for the amazing way she got through the rhymes in one piece - rarely, if ever, did she lose her way and start again. Pressure always seemed unbearable on her when asked to do Song Styles, or provide the opening verse to a Gospel, March or Hoedown, but she always came up trumps.

When really on form, however, her songs were awesome. She got the funny stuff done - her songs about an electric drill, a rubber duck, a strimmer, Andy the account manager; all of them got funny stuff in to heighten the brilliance of the quickfire rhyming. Yet one of her most appreciated songs - the Drunken Auntie performance on snails - was linguistically unamusing, but received the plaudits because of the way she performed it. This shows a crucial element to the skill of the improviser - those who are not natural comedians can still get the laughs if they are seen really making the effort to put their own surname's stamp on performances. John's was with his outlandish, long-winded monologues; Josie did it with characterised songs. Therefore the humour existed, but not in all-out jokes, put-downs and insults.

John, Paul and Josie were British improvisers without whom it is hard to imagine WLiiA? ever being a success. John is almost always criticised, in a grossly unfair manner; Paul is overlooked because of his British eccentricity which is an acquired taste; and Josie gets appreciated through admiration rather than humour. Without any of these three, however, it is hard to imagine Tony Slattery getting as far as he did - his best games, his rise-to-fame games, were often alongside these particular three.

Other Brits who get underrated include Steve Frost. He always seemed isolated in his later appearances because he was invariably performing with the iconic Ryan and Colin, but his total unwillingness to take it too seriously shone like a beacon. He has a long comic heritage, but is also a trained, skilled, polished and experienced actor. Yet he never acted once in the show, which did him great credit. He laughed a lot, joked a lot, fooled a lot and made mistakes a lot, and the audience loved him for it.

Jim Sweeney seemed to be supporting material only when he first arrived on the scene, but the introduction of his long-time performing partner Steve Steen brought together a twosome to rival Colin and Ryan when it came to knowing exactly how the other would approach a scene, and therefore exactly how to exploit one another's gifts and create something truly memorable. The Scene to Music they did at the greengrocer's - one of the most exciting, slowburning scenes in the whole show's history - was a perfect indication of how good they were as a pair. Yet in separated games, they could also perform. Steve never appeared without Jim, while Jim seemed just a tad off colour in his days without Steve there. But the other's very presence, even if he was sitting in his seat while his pal was onstage, proved a vital catalyst in bringing their undoubted improv skills to the fore.

Sandi Toksvig, cerebrally brilliant and comically biting, was another who never took it too seriously and was the closest to Paul Merton in terms of just concentrating on the punchline. She always seemed a loner type within the studio setting - happy to do her own thing but always ready to follow the leader if performing with a limelighter like Tony, Paul or Mike McShane. She provided the female wit where Josie couldn't, allowing the first two females to appear on the show to cover all the possibilities, and encourage further recruitment of female improvisers. In many ways, Caroline Quentin was a combination of the two - she could act like Josie, she could amuse like Sandi, she could make up songs with both humour and rhyme like Josie and she could get basic in the humour stakes like Sandi. She was as professional as Josie and as cherishable as Sandi, and she never once had an ordinary episode.

So the applause, the applause, the show must go on. It does go on of course, with barely a Brit in sight these days. Those who watch earlier, happier days of WLiiA? will appreciate the full value of every Brit on board, whether or not they were there as seatfillers alongside Ryan and Colin. But while Tony Slattery gets the praise, the ovations, the starring role in saucy dreams and the numerous website shrines, it's worth remembering who else was there when he was, and whose own displays helped propel him to the top of the ladder.

As for Tony himself, he was hugely funny. Very likeable. Massively coarse. But without the required appreciation from his fans of those who built the show with him, he will always be totally overrated.

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