Be Funny or Die

Be Funny or Die by Joel Morris (2024 Unbound eBook 364p)

 

Joel Morris is a successful UK comedy writer responsible for many of the comedic television hits of recent years. Working with creator Charlie Brooker he brought the character of Philomena Cunk to life and has seen her go from a local UK sensation to a global hit thanks to distribution via the global streaming service Netflix.

He then is well placed to know what comedy is all about and in this book, he makes it his mission to explain it in minute detail whilst having a laugh along the way.

This was going to be a longer review however life events overtook me and meant it seemed to take forever for me to read this book via the handy iPad Kindle app. I think some of the subtleties of the text were lost on me in the process so I really only have my general impressions left at this late stage.

Early on Morris says he fears “killing frogs” in the process to dissect comedy but proceeds to do just that. We start by examining the place of laughter, jokes and humour in human society and come to the conclusion that comedy is an advanced version of grooming in primates, a way of keeping an in-group together and making sure outsiders are excluded.

He does a great deal of analysis on this and what it means then proceeds to boil down all comedy to a few ‘notes’ on a ‘comedy keyboard’ – Construct, Confirm and Confound. He then spends many chapters explaining the combinations, omissions and variations on these.

I’m probably underselling the main text here – Morris can be very, very funny, with constant call-backs and gags. He’s actually very insightful on human nature and delves back and forth through history to give examples of his concepts and whatever others have thought along similar lines.

It might be the circumstances I read this book under but I found it way too long once he had delivered his basic theories, way over three hundred pages seemed excessive to me. Like I said that could just be me.

If you want a giggle while reading about why we giggle at all this could be the book for you, just be prepared for a long-haul journey.