I didn't know I was screaming. Turns Out It's Me - Scary Mysteries Last One Laughing: Halloween

The sitcom is back - and now the stand-ups aren't allowed to laugh or scream! Lou Sanders, Tom Allen, Phil Wong and others reveal what left them - and what happens when they go too far. - Doesn't make anyone else in the room laugh? I tell you. Try all of the above on a sunny summer weekend while pretending it's Halloween. Then the comics are forced to open

This hat can make a comedian laugh more than he can - he'll be stranded for 9 hours! - Doesn't make anyone else in the room laugh? I tell you. Try all of the above on a sunny summer weekend while pretending it's Halloween. Then have the comics return to a scene that one of their numbers, Phil Wong, calls "a cross between a game show and a psychological experiment," and relive the whole ordeal for a guy from the Guardian. Is it any wonder that Wong, Lou Sanders, Tom Allen and others are in a slightly drunken state 24 hours after being released from TV captivity in the super comedy Last One Laughing?

A day after filming, at Elstree Studios, the show's Halloween special sees a unique twist on its winning formula: contestants must not only refrain from laughing, but also refrain from screaming. "Which I thought might be unrealistic, but it's actually harder," Wang says. I didn't know I was screaming. It turned out that I am." Participating comics — including paranormal-obsessed Daisy May Cooper and comedy-horror master Rhys Shearsmith — seek not only to entertain each other, but also to scare them. Host Jimmy Carr says it makes sense. Laughter and screams come from the same place. There is surprise in a joke and there is surprise in a jump scare. Comedy and horror are mixed in the same area. This is the particle of your brain.

Not that Last One Laughing is making any serious moves into chiller territory: Why tamper with a format given such a massive Prime Video hit? With over 2 million viewers per episode, the series was the platform's biggest launch in the UK. The show later won the BAFTA Award for Best Entertainment Programme. "I don't want to overplay the jump scares," Carr says. "There's nothing to offend anyone. It's not that kind of show. It's just fun. It's 'event TV' — especially when it's tied to something like Halloween — it's great for bringing people together."

And to bring together comedians too – more than that, LOL has joined Taskmaster as the perfect storefront for stand-ups making the leap from the fringes to the mainstream. Alongside veterans of national fortunes (Bob Mortimer in series one; Mel Giedwick in series two), Last One Laughing also has spots for up-and-coming actors - see recent Edinburgh Comedy Award winner Harriet Dyer here. Getting involved, he says, "was a whirlwind, to be honest. But it was a dream." All participating comics agree, note that you can't treat LOL like a job opportunity. "You can't play like that," says Tom Allen. "You have to immerse yourself in the moment. And it shows people's true character. There's something so vulnerable about laughing. We feel so open when we do that."

Few comics have been more shared than Lou Sanders, a late casualty (red carded by Carr in episode six) in series one and now back. There's a strict ban on spoilers for series 2.5 today, but when I ask Sanders if previous experience has given him an advantage on Halloween, his answer doesn't suggest a triumphant return. "I thought I was better," he says. "But I immediately got on the back foot. And Reese went to me early." Then there's the knowledge that millions of people are watching. In the first series, "Joe Wilkinson said to me, 'Nobody's going to watch this,' and I believed him. And then it went well. This time, you know the eyes will be on it."

Sanders has been accused of giving me a tour of the LOL house, once complete with an art deco living room and theater, like a 1920s prefab ocean liner built into a massive Elster hangar. Here is the fruit machine that is used to create new challenges. A scene where the contestants perform their 'Joker' party pieces - around which there's more rigor going on than you'd expect. "I thought the fire on my head was funny," says Harriet Dyer. But they told me: There is no fire. Then I wanted long hands, but I wasn't allowed…”) There are also creepy dolls, just for Halloween. I ask Sanders, is it getting claustrophobic in here? "I haven't been around long enough to know," comes his wistful reply.

But if Sanders' tactics weren't enough, others are getting in on the Last One Laughing with sophisticated strategies. "My tactic was to fashion Maggie Smith in Downton Abbey," says Tom Allen. "Too far, too loud. So I channeled everything through my eyebrows, instead of a lot of people trying not to laugh while biting their mouths. Wang took a more aggressive approach. My motto was: A good defense is a good offense. Get on the front foot, try to reach people. Focus on those you know first, because you know what makes them tick. You don't know, watch to see what makes them laugh."

Dyer entered the house wondering what not to do. “I think Sam Campbell said in series two that he thought the kids were going to die so he couldn't stop laughing. So I thought: Should I focus on the worst thing that ever happened to me? "But I'm not sure that watching someone get traumatized by what life throws at them makes for very good television." Campbell is the no-nonsense Aussie comic who last tested the show's arrogance to breaking point, staying square from start to finish. He eventually lost to David Mitchell in a tiebreak. "We almost broke David," says Jamie Carr. "I don't think I'll ever laugh again," he said at the end. "I've lost that part of me forever."

The other low point of series two was when - huge controversy, this - comic Amy Goldhill was red-carded by Carr for smiling instead of laughing. My own family could not be alone in their outrage at this disregard for the show's central conceit. But there is no regret. "I mean, we were getting to that point in the day," he says. He says: We had to give something. "And that cool water cooler: as long as people are talking about it and having fun, it's all the better."

For work, the show is as much sport as entertainment: that's the key to its success, he says. “There's a narrative to sports where you have to watch until the end because you don't know what's going to happen. And that's what this show is about: It's competitive, and you want to know who's going to win." Phil Wong adds, "And every episode ends on a really effective cliffhanger, which is very hard to achieve with comedy."

Another key point, for work and comics, is how accurately the LOL is produced. "Other countries don't do what we do," says Carr: The guest appearances, the challenges, the props and tricks contestants can bring to the table — much to Lou Sanders' chagrin. “Reese Shearsmith is Mr. Halloween, isn't he? He has everything at home! It's not fair that I don't have a cut off hand at home, is it?'

According to Wang, “Shows that prepare more than they need always succeed. And this show definitely prepares more than it needs." Each contestant has a camera trained on them at all times, and a dedicated "looker" hangs over their every grin. "Yesterday I presented it in the room for nine hours," says Carr. "But I haven't seen it all yet. When you go into editing, there's another show there. There's all the conversations people have on screen that I'm not watching. I remember discovering all these incredible moments with Diane Morgan in series two that I didn't know were there."

The line-up has already been announced for the third series of LOL which will air next year. Harry Hill, Kathryn Ryan and Lee Mack are all in this movie. What advice or warnings do you have for Halloween attendees? "You'll be there for a long time," Wang says — lucky for some! - "That your mood changes from confused and excited to paranoid and nervous. I did a lot of pinching, breathing, meditation, and mindfulness. Tom Allen says, "An intense experience, trying to hold back two emotions and not let them out of the bag. It's boring."

But it's all in service of what we need in these not-so-happy times, Allen says. "This series talks about the childish sense of play, a sense that reminds us of being in the assembly or a class at school and we don't let ourselves laugh. There is nothing more exquisite than the burning desire to laugh while having to keep the lid on, the steaming pressure that comes with it. Last One Laughing brings us back to that youthful joy. "I think that's what people really want."

Last One Laughing: Halloween is on Prime Video from Friday.