Humour

Fans of that beloved British cultural institution Doctor Who are wont to talk about ‘their’ doctor – that is, which iteration of the character was their entry point to the franchise. The same might be said of fans of Neil Innes, the much loved songwriter, musician and comedian who died in 2019, aged 75. Creating happiness seems to have been one of Innes’s gifts, in public as well as private In the 1960s, Innes was a key member of the exhilaratingly unpredictable Bonzo Dog Band, whose blend of verbal, musical and visual humour remains matchless in its absurdity, breadth and daring. He was the band’s de facto musical director, or,

This is the part of the run-up to Christmas I always look forward to most – the ‘silly’ books, loo books, even non-books produced by serious publishers who may resent the huge piles of money they make every year while delicate, thoughtful literary novels remain unbought and unread. As it happens, I have just finished a wholly unsatisfactory book of short stories – no names, no packdrill – so a few weeks of loo books have proved surprisingly refreshing, like a palate cleanser after a hideously over-thought restaurant meal. They are all recommended for grumpy old relatives, or even yourself. Ysenda Maxtone Graham’s Scream (Abacus, £14.99) comes in the familiar

There are a lot of reasons why something is funny. It’s hard for everyone to agree on those reasons. And it’s virtually impossible to agree on whether something is actually funny or not in the first place. But one thing is incontrovertible: the more you unpick, analyse and dissect comedy, the less funny it becomes. So what is left behind after that? Into this tricky arena – cue tapping on microphone and feedback noise – steps this experimental and sometimes infuriating novel. The Material is, to its credit, fluid, inventive and often, yes, funny. But it’s also confusing and challenging in ways that don’t always feel intentional. It describes a

Garlanded with praise from Percival Everett (‘the real deal’), Michael Deagler’s debut novel Early Sobrieties arrives with a fully formed literary voice best described as hysterical understatement. ‘Like all histories,’ Deagler’s twentysomething ex-alcoholic protagonist Dennis Monk tells us early on, ‘my family’s seemed composed of a series of recurring mistakes that, while theoretically avoidable, tended nevertheless to repeat themselves.’ Back living with his folks in suburban south Philadelphia after seven years of solid boozing, Monk is at leisure to repent his former life – a narrative of ‘utter shock and tragedy, a knee-capped bildungsroman’. The hysteria, while always close to the restrained surface of the prose, never quite breaks through.

The word is Yiddish, and is an expression of disgust. A decent translation of it into vernacular English would be ‘yuck’. Shalom Auslander has been feeling feh about himself for pretty much as long as he has been conscious. Born into a strictly religious family, with a mother given to quoting Jeremaiah and a father whose violence and cruelty were almost literally biblical, or at least strongly evocative of the Old Testament, Auslander grew up to be the kind of Jew who, when visiting the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, writes ‘fuck you’ on a piece of paper and shoves it in a crack. It is more traditional for the pious

Hello, summer! This is it. If you have been waiting for your big holiday read, finally here it is: an immersive, brilliantly structured, beautifully written mega-tome that is as laugh-out-loud funny as it is deeply disturbing. It is never a good idea to begin a review (or indeed to end one) with a round of applause unless you want to sound like a complete pushover or a total patsy, but full credit where it’s due: Paul Murray, the undisputed reigning champion of epic Irish tragicomedy, has done it again. He did it first with An Evening of Long Goodbyes (2003), which read as if a young, Irish P.G. Wodehouse were

A much cited statistic of the modern era reminds us time and again that at some point in our lives one in two of us will get cancer. So routinely is this doled out that its repetition must surely have dulled the threat somewhat – until, of course, we become the one in the two. When chemotherapy leads to virulent mouth ulcers, Patterson reaches for onomatopoeia: ‘Aieeoo’ In 2019, this statistic took on new emphasis for Sylvia Patterson. Then a 54-year-old pop music journalist clinging on for dear life in an industry going the way of the dodo, she discovered a curious leakage around her right nipple. Doctors confirmed Google’s

There were many moments in Early Morning Riser that made me laugh out loud in recognition. An episode where the main character, Jane, coaxes a wailing child to the car with marshmallows and milk after ‘a temper tantrum so severe that it might have qualified as a psychotic break’ so precisely pinpoints the absurdity of life with small children that it is hard to know whether to laugh or wince. ‘Patrice took a sip and yelled, Kalt! Apparently she had returned from psychosis speaking German.’ Yet Katherine Heiny’s new novel isn’t so much about parenting or marriage (a common target of her merciless yet affectionate wit) as it is a

Here are a couple of books that seek to tackle the difficult issue of comedy on the front line. One deals with an increasingly toxic global cultural war; the other plunges into the battle to take on jihadists by laughing at them. In their different ways both ask the same questions: what’s funny and what’s not? And both examine the consequences of challenging those who police what is and what is not considered acceptable. Find yourself on the wrong side of cancel culture and you lose your career. Take on the jihadists and you lose your head. Andrew Hankinson, a journalist and writer from Newcastle, is the author of the