With Laura Lexx and Dr Oliver Double

Stand-up Laura Lexx and comedy historian Dr Oliver Double are to launch a video podcast about comedy. 

The Comedy Bureau aims to ask genuine questions about the nature of comedy such as :

• What is a joke?
• Why do we laugh at others?
• Who was the first stand-up comedian?
• Is ‘woke’ killing comedy?
• Are women funny?
• What was a court jester?
• What's the deal with stand up and brick walls?

Lexx describes the show as ‘nerdy in a leather-bound way: libraries and dust motes, and poring over long-forgotten playbills and reviews, with thick rimmed glasses, subterranean skin and one thousand Post-it notes’.

Double, once dubbed by Stewart Lee as 'the Charles Darwin of alternative comedy’, runs a comedy module at the University Of Kent and has written books on the topic including Getting The Joke and   Stand Up! On Being a Comedian. He also curates also curates the British Stand-Up Comedy Archive, based in the university.

The series is filmed in Brighton’s Komedia and is set in a fictional academic department within UNI, The University of Niche Interests.

The Comedy Bureau launches in September here, and this short clip from the 'are women funny?' episode has been released as a teaser: 

Published: 17 Jul 2025