The Evolution of Comedy

18th May 2010; 18:00

Listen to the audio

(full recording including audience Q&A)
Please right-click link and choose "Save Link As..." to download audio file onto your computer.

RSA Debate

Laughter has been long recognised as ‘the best medicine’ – medieval surgeons cracked jokes to distract their anaesthesia-free patients from the pain, and Freud argued that humour released negative psychic energy.   

But what role does comedy have in ‘serious culture’? How has that role evolved, from Shakespeare’s mechanicals to Steptoe and Son and beyond? Dickens’ ‘streaky bacon’ approach alternated comedy and drama – but should they even be regarded as separate genres any more when a character like Tony Soprano terrifies us and makes us laugh in equal measure? And why is it said that dying is easy, but comedy is hard?

The RSA gathers together a panel of leading writers and producers from both sides of the Atlantic to explore these questions and many more.

Speakers: Caryn Mandabach, Emmy-Award-winning US TV comedy producer of ground-breaking shows such as The Cosby Show, Roseanne, 3rd Rock from the Sun, That 70s Show and, most recently, Nurse Jackie; Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong, writers of Peep Show, Four Lions (Feature, Dir. Chris Morris), That Mitchell and Webb Look, The Thick of It; Simon Nye, writer of Men Behaving Badly, How Do You Want Me?, My Family and Other Animals and Reggie Perrin.

Chair: Ralph Simon, CEO, The Mobilium Advisory Group and Chairman Emeritus & Founder, Mobile Entertainment Forum - Americas.

Suggested hashtag for Twitter users: #rsacomedy

Listen Live

You can listen to this event live.

Get the latest RSA Audio

Subscribe to iTunes | RSS | Mixcloud

You are welcome to link to, download, save or distribute our audio/video files electronically. Find out more about our open access licence.