Case File 6: Is It a Relief To Laugh?

This week, The Comedy Bureau team continue their mini series looking at popular comic theories. Last week they explored Incongruity, and this week they move on to Relief Theory (sometimes called Release Theory). The offices have an oniony scent this week due to some delicious sandwiches (shout out to Lavash in Brighton) but that doesn’t stop Oliver Double and Laura Lexx getting nerdy. They begin with Kant, and work through several theories of the purpose and physiology of laughter. From Kant, Freud and other philosophers and psychologists right through to modern day academics. They discuss laughter as a fluid running through the body, as an oscillation of the gut and as the answer to all of our structural racism issues. Today’s episode ends with a discussion between Laura and Olly on the nature of jokes as a tool to boost agreement or dissension in groups. Is joking used to lance complicated feelings and stop bad feelings spilling out into the world or are they in actual fact for binding people and reinforcing a world view? Do we use laughter to dispel feelings that have been building up that could otherwise come out in harmful behaviour, or is it actually the complete opposite? The sources we used in this episode are: • John Morreall (1987), The Philosophy of Laughter and Humor, Albany, NY: SUNY Press.• Martin, Steve “a Comic’s Life: Born Standing Up”, (2008) Simon & Schuster Ltd • Freud, Sigmund (1976) The Pelican Freud Library Vol 6, “Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious”, Penguin Books Ltd • Comedy Studies, Volume 3, Issue 1 (2012) - “Max Miller Plays With Freud’s Obstacle: Innuendo and performance technique in variety comedy” Oliver Double• Jacobson, Howard (1997) “Seriously Funny: From The Ridiculous to the Sublime”, Penguin Books Ltd"Podcast cover art by Adam Richardson Artwork for The Comedy Bureau is by Matthew Grant at Tiny Worlds Workshop @tinyworldsworkshop.Our video editor and credit sequence designer is Lucas Orme.Music was devised and performed by Olly Double.Huge thanks to the whole team at Podspike for invaluable advice and help launching and marketing the show.All media enquiries via Julian Hall [email protected]