Poor Will.

Imagine having an entire chunk of your output labelled ‘Comedies’ – the expectation! I’m glad he’s not here to overhear so many people (beginning with my Dearest Partner of Greatness) dismissing them as ‘boring’.

Another time, I might talk about how they’re mislabelled, and admit that there are a couple of stinkers in there. For today, go with me that he can be funny.

This has been irking me at least as far back as 2017 – as you’ll see from this tongue-in-cheek response I produced back then. There seemed something deeply wrong with the idea that the man who gave us Falstaff, Bottom, Dogberry, Beatrice, Benedick, Sir Toby Belch, and a pompous man who turns up wearing an ass’s head could reasonably be described as boring.

So I got Shakespeare to explain to my partner why his jokes were funny.

Which, in retrospect, worked as well as you might have expected – ie not at all.

There is a danger in explaining comedy. You get to the point where, as The Smiths would say, ‘That Joke Isn’t Funny Any More’.

An Isaac Asimov short story, Jokester deals with the theme brilliantly: humanity becomes scientifically obsessed with the origins of humour until it eventually discovers something rather alarming about why we laugh.

I won’t spoil it. It’s an excellent, imaginative story – you should read it.

Fortunately, Shakespeare gives us another way of thinking about the problem.

We can simply look at the jokes that have survived.

Take this little exchange from the opening to Julius Caesar. Note, everyone, not generally known as a side-splitting comedy.

A crowd of Roman citizens has gathered in the streets to celebrate Caesar’s triumph. Two irritable officials, Marullus and Flavius, are attempting to restore some dignity to the proceedings and interrogate one of the crowd.

He turns out to be a cobbler.

The conversation becomes increasingly ridiculous.

Eventually Marullus asks him what his trade is, and the cobbler cheerfully replies:

“If you be out, sir, I can mend you.”

And there it is.

A tiny joke.

A piece of wordplay.

And, depending on precisely how filthy your mind is, a rather rude one.

It was (presumably) funny in Shakespeare’s theatre.

It is still funny now.

Look. Four hundred years have passed. And as for the Roman Republic? We owe them plenty, but they’re long gone, too.

But apparently we still have the same sense of humour. Admittedly, my Dearest Partner’s response to me telling her about this post – and the joke – is:

‘Why are you still a twelve-year-old-boy?’

It’s rather wonderful.

Because that is one of the things I love about Shakespeare’s comedies. And, actually, let’s extend that to comedy in Shakespeare’s plays generally, because almost all of them have their moments. Every performance I’ve been to, regardless of the play, has provoked at least a few laughs from the audience.

They aren’t funny because we’re supposed to admire the sophisticated Elizabethan understanding of comedy.

They’re funny because people are ridiculous. 

People fall in love with the wrong person.

People think they’re cleverer than they are.

People take themselves far too seriously.

People misunderstand perfectly obvious things.

People make inappropriate jokes.

People try desperately to maintain their dignity while everyone around them is trying not to laugh.

In other words, Shakespeare discovered something that Carry On, Monty Python and The Life of Brian would rediscover centuries later: put a pompous person in a ridiculous situation, add an audience who understands what’s going on, and you have the beginnings of a very good joke.

I think that’s why the cobbler scene works so beautifully.

We’re not simply being told a joke.

We’re standing in the crowd.

The cobbler says something apparently innocent.

Marullus isn’t quite sure what he’s heard.

The people around him have understood perfectly.

And so have we.

Whilst the cobbler deadpans, we’re laughing with the crowd. That feels important.

Comedy isn’t always about the joke itself. Sometimes it’s about the pleasure of recognising that somebody else has seen the joke too. Laughter is contagious, and highly sociable.

Maybe that’s why Shakespeare’s funniest characters remain so remarkably durable.

Dogberry is still funny because there are still people who are absolutely convinced that being confident is the same thing as being competent.

Bottom is still funny because there are still people who can make an enormous fool of themselves without noticing.

Malvolio is still funny because there are still people who take themselves extremely seriously.

Falstaff’s shameless hyperbole still makes us laugh.

And Beatrice and Benedick?

Well.

There are still people who insist that they absolutely, definitely, do not fancy someone while spending an extraordinary amount of time talking about how much they don’t fancy them. It isn’t an exaggeration to say I’ve witnessed it in the classroom many times.

Shakespeare didn’t need to invent new human beings to make us laugh.

He just had to pay attention to the ones already available.

Not all of the jokes have stood the test of time, obviously.

Some Shakespearean jokes do actually now require a footnote, a glossary and possibly a small research grant.

Some depend upon words whose meanings have shifted.

Some were topical.

Some were deliberately crude and have simply stopped being funny.

Comedy has a remarkably short shelf life.

Those jokes might not be funny any more.

But every now and then, a joke survives almost untouched.

A cobbler looks at a Roman official and offers to “mend” him if he’s “out”.

A man discovers that the woman he has spent the entire play insulting might actually be the woman he loves.

A fool confidently mangles a word.

Someone makes a joke that is just a little bit rude. Or sometimes, surprisingly rude. Macbeth’s Porter, anyone?

And four hundred years later, we’re still there.

Still getting it.

Still laughing.

The point is that enough of it remains funny because it plays on who human beings are and how they work.

The next time somebody tells you Shakespeare is boring, you don’t need to give them a lecture.

Just find the right scene.

Give them a moment.

See if they laugh.

Shakespeare’s been making people laugh for four hundred years.

I suspect he can manage one more.