After years of stasis, you could say that times are now a little more turbulent. We are in the throes of a recession, needless wars have been inflicted on the Middle East and China are increasingly becoming the world's largest economy.
What often gets us through tough times is humour. Not just any kind of humour, however. When we are saturated with images of mopey politicians cavorting in front of our television sets, comedy is a useful tool. It can attack and ridicule these figures; it can satirise them.
In the early 1960s, Peter Cook was one of the main exponents of a 'satire boom'. He mimicked then Prime Minister Harold MacMillan in his very presence. Many skits and comedic sketches that satirised various aspects of English society were performed in theatres. This was humour used as a tool to challenge, shock and debase the higher hierarchy.
Whilst we do have a wealth of gifted comedians now (Ricky Gervais, Sacha Baron Cohen, Jack Dee, Johnny Vegas), their work is not really satirical. These comedians aren't really having a stab at the our rulers. Events like the Leveson Inquiry and the Iraq war certainly lend themselves to this type of humour. And whilst the satirical magazine Private Eye does sell in large numbers, it is never really in the public spotlight all that much.
There is a quality to humour that allows you to get away with murder. Whilst a transgressive novel or film may provoke death threats and the like, comedy is sufficiently subtle so as to allow this not to happen. It is frivolous, it provokes laughter but it can still make you think and question. It can be funny in an unsettling, frightful manner.
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