So... what is a joke?
Dave Cohen tries to answer a simple question
31/10/2019 … What is a joke? Considering this is key to comedy, there are remarkably few attempts to answer this question.
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Thu 31 October 2019
Fri 25 October 2019
© Ricardo Liberato/CC-BY-SA 2.0 The mystery of what makes a joke funny
25/10/2019 … How do you like the following joke from Sumeria in about 1900BC? "Something which has never occurred since time immemorial; a young woman did not fart in her…
What's it like to perform comedy in a hospice?
Toni Kent on an unusual daytime gig
25/10/2019 … When my friend Bel was in the final stages of cancer, her husband busted her out from hospital and took her to an end-of-life hospice – in doing so she spent…
Thu 10 October 2019
In sickness and in health
Dave Cohen on the mental health issues surrounding comedy
10/10/2019 … This article was first published on Chortle last year, but as World Mental Health Day comes around again, Dave Cohen's thoughts on the toll a career…
Mon 30 September 2019
The last will and testament of Casual Violence
The sketch troupe have some bequests as they prepare for their last show
30/09/2019 … Beloved friends, enemies, frenemies and enefriends, By the time you read this, sketch comedy will have already been dead for about a decade.
Tue 20 August 2019
A comedy show that felt like a political rally
Russell Hicks offers an analysis of fellow stand-up Lee Camp's show
20/08/2019 … On Sunday night I went to see Lee Camp, above, at the Backyard Comedy Club.
Mon 19 August 2019
LOLs in translation
Adapting humour for an international audience
19/08/2019 … The Edinburgh Fringe attracts an international audience and an increasing number of comedians from overseas.
Thu 15 August 2019
I'm invisible in Edinburgh
Cally Beaton says she's being overlooked because she's a 50-year-old woman
15/08/2019 … I did my first gig at the behest of Joan Rivers; I was 45, she was 81.