Bard jokes

Comics examine Shakespeare's humour

Ken Dodd and Armando Iannucci are to join the Royal Shakespeare Company – to help explain the Bard’s humour.

The company has organised a series of talks called The RSC Laugh-In to discuss the topic at their Stratford-upon-Avon home.

The four-day programme  starts off on September 21 with  The Comedy of Madness, in which RSC actors,  comedy performerSimon Greenall and a mental health  worker discuss lunacy as a source of laughter.

 Ken Dodd, who has appeared in such Shakespeare plays as Twelfth Night in Liverpool and Kenneth Branagh’s film version of Hamlet  gives a talk on comedy technique also on September 21.

On the same day, Armando Iannucci hosts a debate about comic timing with Dodd, academic Carol Rutter and Time Out writer Michael Hodges on the panel.

On September 22, comedy writer Alan Plater about his life and work.

And on September 23, comedian Richard Herring joins two discussion on the physics of playwriting and the humour of  cross-dressing.

There are a number of other events, including comedy workshops and late-night cabarets featuring the likes of Andy Zaltzman, John Oliver, Alex Horne and Mark Watson

An RSC spokesman said: ‘The aim of the festival is to find resonances of Shakespeare’s own approach to the business of being funny in contemporary works and in unexpected places.’

For full details, visit the RSC website

 

Published: 8 Aug 2005

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