The Comedy Bureau

Welcome back to The Comedy Bureau! In the third episode, Laura and Olly open the doors of the office just in time for Laura to pose Olly another impossible question… what is a joke?!

Laura and Olly first met at The University of Kent where Laura studied stand up comedy under Olly’s tutelage. Now, 20 years later they are reunited to examine the gory details of the world of comedy. Even when there might not be a definitive answer.

Firs...

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 ...

In the very first episode of The Comedy Bureau, stand-up comedian, author and podcaster Laura Lexx poses comedy academic Olly Double an impossible question. It sounds simple when you ask it... who was the first stand up comedian? But, as Olly passionately and carefully explains – there's no way to answer because stand-up comedy didn't leap out of the ether fully formed as an entertainment format.

Olly puts forward five candidates f...

Welcome back to the cosy offices of The Comedy Bureau. Staffed by comedian Laura Lexx and academic Olly Double, it’s the go to place for all the comedy discussions and analysis you could ever want.

This week, in their most provocatively titled episode to date Laura and Olly explore the rage-inducing issue of women in comedy. As a stand up comedian, Laura is often forced to deal with people who, for their own personal reasons, canno...

Welcome back to the offices of The Comedy Bureau, staffed by comedian Laura Lexx and tame historian and comic lecturer Olly Double!

This week Laura and Olly decide to knuckle down and really focus on something that keeps rearing its head during their discussions of other aspects of comedy… comic theory. Why are things funny? What is funny? What is humour EXACTLY?

Now, it’s sort of another one of those impossible questions to answer...

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 ...

Finishing up our mini-series in Comic Theory, this week Laura and Olly turn their attention to Superiority Theory.

This is the idea that people laugh because the stimulus made them feel better than or good in some way. They enter the chat with a brief discussion on status, particularly in double acts between a higher status straight man and a lower status funny guy.

Then we move on to the theorists and philosophers and we head righ...

Stand-up comedian Laura Lexx brings this case file to the table to address one of the top questions she’s presented with when telling strangers what she does for a living… “Oh but you can’t say anything these days…” Or can you?

Academic Oliver Double sits down with Laura to discuss a history of censorship in stage comedy in the UK and USA. From the early years of front cloth comics and monologists, through the legal battles of Lenn...

What an exceptional episode we have for you today… in 2023 Laura Lexx appeared on Celebrity Mastermind with her specialist subject being The History of Alternative Comedy. One of the most helpful books she read was Alternative Comedy: 1979 and the Reinvention of British Stand-Up by none other than Dr Oliver Double.

Cut to 2025 and she’s just a girl sitting before a lecturer begging him to tell her everything he knows about 1979 and...

If you’re a fan of standup comedy then you will be absolutely familiar with the stereotypical depiction of stand up happening in the basement of a club in front of a bare brick wall. But why are you so familiar with it? Why is that the signature style for stand up comedy?

In the final episode of this series, comedian Laura Lexx and academic Oliver Double discuss the specific circumstances that led to stand up and bricks becoming li...

The offices of The Comedy Bureau are currently closed, with strict instructions from the caretaker not to disturb a single leaf on the peace lily until we begin series 2. However, we have had so much feedback from all of you since you listened to series 1 that we felt we really ought to address some of your concerns, enquiries and suggestions.

We begin by delving into the mailbag and looking at a suggestion from stand-up comedian an...

Merry Christmas from everyone at The Comedy Bureau! To celebrate the season of rest and love we are bringing you a very special episode recorded away from the famous offices of The Comedy Bureau. We went on a wonderful nerdy day out to The University of Kent, specifically to The Special Collections, to look at their incredible archives.

As it is Christmas, we thought what better subject than Pantomime! Joining us for the episode, as...

In this very special between series Working From Home episode, we welcome another guest to The Comedy Bureau. Wayne is based in LA, and is basically the Comedy Bureau’s American cousin, we think. We’re so glad to have him on the show.

He started performing comedy in New York, in the 1980s before moving to LA to continue performing comedy and from there he’s gone on to do almost everything it’s possible to do in comedy. From acting, ...

Welcome back to The Comedy Bureau! The office is now open for a fantastic second series with ten upcoming episodes all about different fascinating niche aspects of comedy.

In this episode we are discussing jesters and myth busting some of the assumptions you might have about the role of jesters in medieval courts in England.

In a Comedy Bureau first, Laura takes the lead on the research and tells Oliver Double all about jesters. In t...

Welcome back to the second episode of series two from The Comedy Bureau!

In this episode we step slightly outside of our own expertise and explore some science of humour in great apes. Neither comedy academic Oliver Double, nor comedian Laura Lexx are experts in animal behaviour or apes so they are calling on as much research as they can find in this episode to explore what evidence has been presented from the science community to s...

Hello and welcome back to The Comedy Bureau! On the podcast this week academic Oliver Double and stand-up comedian Laura Lexx have a look back at the development of comedy on television. We predominantly look at the UK comedy scene, with a brief hop across the pond to see what's going on in the United States of America.

Oliver reveals to Laura that the first broadcasted Variety shows was in the 1930s… featuring sketch acts, comedian...

Welcome to the latest episode of The Comedy Bureau. The Comedy Bureau is a passion project from comedian Laura Lexx and academic Oliver Double. The pair are OBSESSED with comedy and so have joined forces to make a show where comedy is taken incredibly seriously.

Right from the inception of the show, they had an idea that some episodes could be about singular people and the impact they have had on the comedy world. Today's episode is...

Welcome back to The Comedy Bureau - your one stop pod for all things deep dive comedy nerdish!

Every week academic Oliver Double and comedian Laura Lexx choose a different aspect of comedy to pull apart, dissect, study and present to you. This week Oliver has chosen the subject and he has picked the art of MCing.

If you've been to see a live comedy show then you will have seen the host comedian, the MC, the compere appear at the star...

This week on The Comedy Bureau Laura and Olly turn their attention to the biggest thing in the British comedy calendar... The Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Since the early 1980s the festival has been THE go to location for comedians new and established. Whether it's a month of practise, a month of polishing new ideas or a month to show off your latest gem it is never ignored by the comedy scene.

We focus this week on the history of the...