When I was about 9, I turned on the TV late one evening and saw two ugly men, dressed in ill-fitting clothes, stapling parts of each others’ bodies to a kitchen table accompanied by riotous laughter. I shut off the set in horror and tottered upstairs to relate the scene to my parents as though it were a hilarious joke.
The men I had glimpsed were, of course, Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmonson, and the programme was Bottom. Over time the shock developed into curiosity, and I began to savour the horror; eventually I laughed along at the blood spurts and cracking bones.
On Monday I’ll be going to a comedy night called Laughter/Pain. It’s in aid of Reprieve, a charity which supports the human rights of prisoners on death row and in places like Guantanamo Bay. Not a laughing matter? Much of the best comedy works on our empathy and sense of complicity.
British comedy has an excellent pedigree in sadism, humiliation and tyranny, in shows where conscience alone dictates the point at which one stops laughing and starts to wince. Some of the most successful British sitcoms, like Bottom, deliberately push compassion offstage in the pursuit of silliness. Others, like Blackadder, have kept the malefactor likeable by making his victims too evil or stupid to sympathise with; Peep Show is sometimes unwatchably cruel; Fawlty Towers strikes a golden balance.
Laughter can marginalise and undermine one’s enemies—sharing a joke binds people together and alleviates conscience, inducing them to lay aside their compassion. Because of that, it can be a political weapon.
But just how grim must things get before you stop laughing? For the evening to be worthwhile, the stand-ups at the Lyceum on Monday night will have to at least flirt with the boundaries. I look forward to being appalled—and delighted—all over again.
Tickets are available for the Laughter/Pain night on June 7th featuring Stewart Lee, Tim Minchin, Phill Jupitus, Shappi Khorsandi and others at http://www.reprieve.org.uk/laughterpain
Laughing until it hurts
June 03, 2010
