<p> The Seriousness of Comedy</p><p>References: Aristotle, Bergson, (Henri), Freud, (Sigmund), Meredith, Sype, Koestler,( Kraus?), (Hill?) -Irish?</p><p>Aristophanes – Greek - Comedy playwright. In ATHENS active (427- Around 387B.C.), ‘One flew over the Cuckoo’s nest.’ Wasps, The Clouds, The Birds, Lysistrata, The Birds, The Assembly Women, The Knights, Wealth, The Frogs.(Earliest Monument)</p><p>Freud - On Freud’s theory, that a good joke will lead to great relief and elation.</p><p>Ken Dodd ‘The trouble with Freud is that he never played the Glasgow Empire on a Saturday.’</p><p>Migual de Cervante. Spanish Novelist (1547-1616) Don Quixote Part 2 Chapter 1</p><p>‘The most difficult part to play is the fool, and he must be no fool who plays that part.’</p><p>Charles Crichton English Film Director (1910-1999) Quoted Independent 5/12/099</p><p>Apparently, to the crew on the set of ‘A Fish Called Wanda’ People say that if you’re directing a comedy you’ve got to be funny, on the contrary, you’ve got to be serious.’ </p><p>David Garrick – English Actor (1717-1779 </p><p>‘Any fool can play tragedy, but comedy, Sir, is a damned serious business.’</p><p>Peter Ustinov – Russian born Actor and Writer John Colombo’s ‘Wit and Wisdom’</p><p>‘Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious.’</p><p>G. K. Chesterton – From an essay ‘Cockneys and their jokes’</p><p>‘When, once you’ve got hold of a vulgar joke, you can be certain that you’ve got hold of a subtle and spiritual idea.’ Every good joke has a philosophical idea inside it.’</p><p>Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)/Mark Twain(Samuel Langhorne Clemens(1835-1910)</p><p>G. B. S. ‘John Bull’s Other Island’ Act’</p><p>‘My way of joking is to tell the truth; it’s the funniest joke in the world’</p><p>Mark Twain ‘Truth is stranger than fiction to some people; but I am measurably familiar with it. Truth is stranger than fiction; but it is because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities, truth isn’t.’ </p><p>G. B. S. Table Talk, 1924 ‘Mark Twain and I are very much in the same position. We have put thing in such a way as to make people, who otherwise hang us, believe we are joking.’</p><p>Mark Twain from A .O Panea’s Mark Twain Biography</p><p>‘Humour must be one of the chief attributes of God. Plants and animals that are distinctly humorous in form characteristics are God’s jokes.’ </p>