What is a joke? What makes us laugh? Laura Lexx explores...

SussexWorld

Brighton-based Laura Lexx isn’t just a comedian. She’s also a student of comedy.

Transcript

00:00It's all right.

00:01Good morning. My name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor at Sausage Newspapers.

00:06Lovely this morning to speak to Laura Lex in Brighton.

00:09Now you are a stand-up comedian, but you are also a student of comedy

00:13and you have a fabulous new YouTube series starting in September,

00:17running through to November with the prospect of a second series at some point.

00:20It's the Comedy Bureau in which very ambitiously you attempt to explain comedy

00:26and to chart its history.

00:28Yeah, it's a lot. It's a lot to get your teeth into.

00:34And what made you do this?

00:36I studied stand-up comedy when I was at university.

00:40I did a drama degree with an undergraduate master's in stand-up comedy.

00:44And ever since that, I've just had the bug for the history of comedy,

00:50how it developed through the 50s, 60s, 70s into alternative comedy in the 80s

00:55and how it came to be what it is now.

00:59I think comedy is so in the very fabric of all day long of our being,

01:07and yet we very rarely stop to think about what it is and why we do it.

01:11Right down to laughter.

01:13We think we know what laughter is, but you'd be really shocked to learn that in most conversation,

01:18a huge proportion of the laughter done in a conversation is done by the speaker, not the receiver.

01:24We laugh far more to show our intentionality than to show that we found something funny.

01:30So we laugh as an encouragement, do we?

01:32Yes.

01:33I might say to you, oh, I love those medals.

01:36And I would say it to show I'm being friendly, I'm being kind.

01:40Right.

01:40And that is...

01:41You wouldn't laugh if I gave you the full story of those messages.

01:46The vast majority of laughter is used conversationally.

01:50And we don't even hear most laughter that occurs in our everyday life.

01:56And it's a kind of reassurance when you're speaking, isn't it?

01:58It shows the intention, I suppose, doesn't it?

02:01But if you ask the average person what's laughter, they'd say, oh, you do it when something's funny.

02:05Right.

02:06Because we're barely noticing.

02:07You're saying one of the things you tackle in this is what is a joke?

02:10I'm going to put you on the spot.

02:11What is a joke?

02:13So a joke is, for me, and obviously there is no hard and fast answer,

02:19but I would argue that a joke is something that was intended to be a joke.

02:26And I know I sound like a politician avoiding an answer.

02:29They don't want to give for fear of offending the wrong side.

02:32But I don't think there are hard and fast rules for what grammatically makes a joke

02:38or what differentiates between a riddle and a joke or a sentence and a joke.

02:44A joke is something that has been offered with humorous intention.

02:49Deliberately.

02:49Whether or not it's received as a joke is a separate entity.

02:54So where does being accidentally funny come into London?

02:58Well, I guess it's being accidentally funny.

03:01But was it a joke?

03:03And is being funny always a joke?

03:07So which is the umbrella term?

03:10Is humor an umbrella term under which jokes exist?

03:14Or is all humorous behavior and intention a joke?

03:19Right.

03:20Goodness.

03:21That's one to think about.

03:22But what do we gain?

03:23What do we gain when we attempt to understand humor, do you think?

03:26For me, I think you understand a thing that we adore as a species.

03:37We love humor so much.

03:39We fall in love with complete strangers if they can make us laugh.

03:43We invite the same comedians into our living rooms night after night to entertain us because

03:48they make us feel good.

03:49There is something in our evolution and our society and our genetic makeup that just adores

03:55the feeling of laughing.

03:56And if you break down laughing to its scientific components, you really enjoy expelling an out

04:02breath from your diaphragm into broken up staccato beats so much that you go to comedy

04:09clubs at night and sit in the dark and let a stranger tell you stories so that you can

04:13go, ha, ha, ha, ha.

04:15And I find that fascinating.

04:17And I can't imagine why more people wouldn't want to examine why we like that.

04:23You've persuaded me.

04:24It's a brilliant series.

04:26It sounds terrific.

04:27It's Laura Lanks and Oliver Double.

04:29It's the Comedy Bureau on YouTube from the end of September.

04:36Yeah.

04:36Lovely to speak to you.

04:38Good luck with it.

04:38And let's chat about the second series when it happens.

04:41Yes, please.

04:42Thank you so much.

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