Case File 2: What Is Laughter?

Welcome back to the office of The Comedy Bureau, here you will find Reader in Popular Performance and Comic History Olly Double, alongside comedian and author Laura Lexx. They are the employees at The Comedy Bureau – a department in The University of Niche Interests where the analysis of all things comedy takes place in meticulous detail.

In this episode Olly and Laura are focusing on a simple question with an extremely complicated answer… what is laughter?

Laughter is such a fantastic feeling that we pay strangers to make us do it. Laughter is so intoxicating that when someone causes you to do it you like them more, if not begin to love them in some cases.

But what is it? Why do humans do it? Do we know why we like it? And, are we alone in doing it?

In this episode we explore the three leading humour theories – superiority, release and incongruity as well as discussing evolution of laughter. We then move on to dissecting some of Laura’s current stand up jokes to look at why we are laughing in each joke.

If you have any thoughts or subjects for future episodes you can email us at [e-mail]

Our Sources for the research for this episode were:

• Robert Provine (2000), Laughter: A Scientific Investigation, London: Penguin.

• John Morreall (1987), The Philosophy of Laughter and Humor, Albany, NY: SUNY Press.

If you would like to watch Slinky, the show which Laura shared extracts from then you can join her mailing list here to be notified of when it’s available:

https://www.lauralexx.co.uk/mailing-list

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 [e-mail]