It's All Lies

Writing dialogue is very personal. Some writers have very distinctive styles that span all the different characters in a show. There are the fast-talkers of Aaron Sorkin's worlds, be they West Wing, Sportsnight or Social Network. There the imaginative comic similes of Richard Curtis and Ben Elton's Blackadder series.

Everyone has their own style, but it's worth thinking about how dialogue works more generally and how we can write it better for individual characters. Two things to mention here without going over what I wrote about dialogue here:

Length
Sometimes I read scripts in which one character talks and talks and talks. A character walks in and tells you what they did that day - and the other characters stand around listening. And then another character talks and talks and talks. Our lives are conversations. We say a sentence or two, and then someone else talks for a little bit. The conversation goes round the room, being filtered and remixed by the various characters and perspectives in the room. That's when it starts getting interesting.

This is the kind of dialogue I'm talking about. It's not uncommon to read this kind of mildly predictable and slightly stererotypical/sexist scene (which I've just made up as I've typed it. It's not real dialogue from something I'm working on.)

INT. KITCHEN. DAY.

MAVIS IS COOKING AT THE HOB, STIRRING A SPOON IN A SAUCEPAN

MAVIS
So, how was your day, Steve?

STEVE SLUMPS INTO A CHAIR.

STEVE
You don't wanna know. It was a nightmare. A total and utter nightmare. The buses were slow - as they always are on our road. The tube was down. Well not down. But stop start all the way into work. And when I got in Wendy was off sick. As usual. That's the fourth day out of the last eight working days. Honestly, the rest of us struggle into work. Why can't she? Then the big meeting started. The Boss droned on and on. Something about targets and marketing. Wasn't really listening because I was thinking about my next meeting when I knew that I was going to be bollocked for the St Albans incident.

Okay. It's not very funny, is it? But hey, most scripts (including mine) aren't very funny. But reading it, it doesn't ring true. He's not having a conversation. He's just talking. And talking. And talking. SHUT UP, STEVE! I now do not care about your life, Steve. You're not a real person, Steve.

So, let's break it up to make it at least mildly humourous and believable. Then we might care. At the very least, how about something like this:

INT. KITCHEN. DAY.

MAVIS IS COOKING AT THE HOB, STIRRING A SPOON IN A SAUCEPAN

MAVIS
So, how was your day, Steve?

STEVE SLUMPS INTO A CHAIR.

STEVE
You don't wanna know.

MAVIS
You're right. What's on TV tonight?

STEVE
(ignoring her) Nightmare. The buses didn't move. The tube was stop-start. And when I did get in, guess what?

MAVIS
They gave you a hand-gun and licence to kill?

STEVE
If only. Wendy.

MAVIS
Off sick? Again?

STEVE
Thank you! The fourth day out of the last eight working days.

MAVIS
But who's counting. Oh hang on. You.

STEVE
(sarcastic smile) The rest of us struggle into work.

MAVIS
Passing round your germs. She should be more considerate and come in.

STEVE
Anyway, the big meeting started. The Boss droned on and on. Something about targets and marketing. Wasn't really listening because I was thinking about my next meeting when I knew that I was going to be bollocked for...

MAVIS
Not paying attention in meetings?

STEVE
... the St Albans incident.

MAVIS
Ah yes. Well, that's in the hands of the police now, isn't it?

Okay, it's nothing special and all very smart-arse, but you get the idea. Get your characters talking to each other. Like they do in real life.

It's All Lies
The other thing to bear in mind, however, is that people frequently don't say what they mean. Quite often say the opposite, or filter it - often because of the opinion of the person standing in front of them. They lie. They delude themselves. The things they say are for their own ears, to reinforce the lies that they're trying to drum into their heads, or block out the noise of the stark reality around them.

How could that scene go with the addition of standard lying and self-delusion? Something like:

INT. KITCHEN. DAY.

MAVIS IS COOKING AT THE HOB, STIRRING A SPOON IN A SAUCEPAN

MAVIS
So, how was your day, Steve?

STEVE SLUMPS INTO A CHAIR.

STEVE
Fine. Great. Perfect.

MAVIS
Good. What's on TV tonight?

STEVE
(ignoring her) The buses didn't move. The tube was stop-start. And when I did get in, guess what?

MAVIS
They gave you a hand-gun and licence to kill?

STEVE
If only. Wendy.

MAVIS
Off sick? Again?

STEVE
I know. She's got some medical condition. It's sad. Really sad. And she's good. When she's actually around.

MAVIS
Ooh, you hate her.

STEVE
I do not. I don't hate anyone. It's just she's, you know, not been around much recently. And I just think missing four days of the last eight working days should require a doctor's note or something.

MAVIS
Could she bring in a blood sample, maybe, to be independently monitored?

STEVE
(sarcastic smile) The rest of us struggle into work.

MAVIS
Passing round your germs. She should be more considerate and come in.

STEVE
Anyway, the big meeting started. The Boss give his speech about targets and marketing strategy...

MAVIS
You have no idea what he said do you?

STEVE
I was distracted by thinking about my next meeting when I knew that I was going to be bollocked for...

MAVIS
Not paying attention in meetings?

STEVE
No. The St Albans incident.

MAVIS
Ah yes. Well, that's in the hands of the police now, isn't it?

From this we learn that Steve isn't as nice as he'd like to think he is. And no as good as his job as he's like to think he is. And that Mavis realises this. Now where getting somewhere.

Writing those lines that, you know, the audience laugh at...

... what are they called, again? Oh yes. Jokes.

I like jokes. I like laughing. Out loud. I quite like smiling. And I quite the like feeling of having spotted something really subtle. But I think I like laughing the best.

I fully appreciate that some people don't like laughing. Somehow, some of them are TV critics. It's understandable to some extent. Most comedies wouldn't seem all that funny when played on a preview disc at 11am in a brightly lit lounge on a Tuesday morning. Also, some critics simply consider laughing to be beneath them. AA Gill is one, as I pointed out here. Let us remind ourselves of why he liked TV series Lead Balloon:

This series is part of a new trend of comedy shows that don't make you laugh; you just nod your head and mutter, "That's really funny." It's a Darwinian improvement on the tyranny of the set-up-gag guffaw, and I approve of it. Laughter is ugly and common.

Thanks, Mr Gill. I'll bear that in mind for all your futures reviews about comedy.

I mention all this because I'm in the throes of writing another radio series with Milton Jones who, apart from being a most delightful and kind human being, writes some of the best jokes in the English-speaking world.

The show we write for Radio 4 is called Another Case of Milton Jones which can you sample/buy here. In general, it is a show that will go anywhere or do anything for a joke. But the show has a strong narrative, as well as some regular characters, and it's far from a case of connecting up a series of Milton Jones' superb one-liners, although they are extremely useful to have in the armoury.

Writing the show is always a bit of a work-out for me. I have to be at the top of my game to keep up with Milton, joke-wise, but my main skill is seeing beyond the next joke, to the next scene, and all the way to the end, shaping the story and ensuring the whole thing makes sense, so that when the Czech Grandmaster is trapped inside a cage made of Twiglets and fed to an angry mob of penguins, we know why it's happening, and therefore why it's funny. (Confusion is the enemy of comedy)

Odd Conversations
During the course of writing the show, Milton, the producer David Tyler, and I end up having bizarre conversations about jokes, working out specifics about what colour or which animal is funniest, whether a scene should take place in Mexico or Panama, and what words should be omitted. It takes hours. We ensure that each script is given our full attention for two whole days (with the script having been broadly written and reworked before we start that process). Some days we're there for 12 hours, meaning some scripts after given 24 hours of careful attention from three of us. And then Milton has another pass at the script, filling in gaps, and deleting stuff he's only 50/50 about. In short, it takes ages. But at the same time, it's great fun because at the end of it, we've got some really funny jokes that make us laugh in the room - and we're excited about telling them to the audience so they can laugh too. This is comedy, remember.

Let us note, then, that writing comedy is hard. It's not just a question of natural ability. It's natural ability plus graft. The British love the idea of an effortless genius. It's broadly a myth. There was of course Peter Cook. But that was it. The rest of us just have to take our talents and work our guts out.

Writing Jokes
In the process of the above, however, there are a few things that crop up when trying to write or polish a joke that I pass on to the possible benefit for reading several. Three things as a starting point.

Clear a space - make sure the joke isn't being compromised by things around it. The audience are expecting jokes. Don't give them the jokes they expect. But at the same time, don't confuse them or make their life harder. Earlier, I mentioned about whether to set a scene in Mexico or Panama. In the room, we might say 'Oh, let's not do Panama. They'll be expecting a joke about a hat or a canal, and we're not doing those jokes. Can't it be Mexico?' It's all about expectation and stereotype. These can help you when they're part of the joke, but they can get in the way if the joke's about something else. Remove words in the set-up to the joke that are in themselves funny-sounding, if they're not the joke. In short, clear a space for your joke. No distractions.

Rhythm and Bounce - make sure the joke is sayable and has a natural rhythm to it, (unless of course the joke is about jarring words, or expectations). Shakespeare's so memorable and easy to say because of the iambic pentameter. He did okay. Discordant, jerky sentences tend not to work. Let us not forget some of the all time great one-liners from Blackadder eg. 'Your brain, for example, is so minute that if a hungry cannibal cracked your head open, there wouldn't be enough in side to cover a small water-biscuit'. 'Water biscuit' much funnier than 'cracker', which is shorter, but not as nice in that spot. Also, cracker can mean other things, lik Christmas cracker, and a cracker is also a sort of joke. Delete cracker. Use water-biscuit. Think about rhythm and flow. Say it out loud. If you can't say your line, why should the actor be expected to?

Zing and Sting - make sure the funny bit is at the end, so it zings. Sounds silly, but I watch plenty of comedy where the funny bit is drowning in a soup of words around it. The funny line, the punchline, the pay-off, should come last, so the audience can then laugh. They won't laugh if you're still talking. They're very polite. They'll wait 'til you've finished, by which time the laughter will have dissippated. This is the bit our American friends are really good at. (I always say that 'American English is the natural language of sit-com' Discuss)

Also, make sure it is actually a joke. Some lines feel like jokes, because of their shape, clarity and rhythm, but, on inspection, there's nothing there. It's an ersatz-joke. It's just someone talking. It may get a laugh, but it doesn't help you. Cut it. Or turn it into a joke. Or use it as a set-up to a new joke.

Some would say all of the above is against the principles of 'naturalism' that you get in comedy now. Shaky cameras and people mumbling, stopping and starting. It's quite fashionable at the moment. But that kind of comedy hides the fact that when that stuff is done well, you don't notice that jokes are clear and the lines are sayable. You're thinking 'people don't talk like this in real life' because it's all flowing well and you're too busy enjoying it.

All of the above takes time, especially if you do it on every line in every scene. But that's okay. You're a writer. It's what you do. And always remember - it beats real work.

The First Two Minutes

I'm not a particularly big fan of Dad's Army. It's a show hugely respect - but not one I especially find myself wanting to watch. (Hi-De-Hi was the rising show as I was growing up and getting into comedy.) But I watched the opening of the episode that was on BBC2 on Saturday (why make new comedy when you could repeat the 70s sitcom about the 40s?). Sadly it's not on iplayer, so I can't link to it. It think it's the Brain vs Brawn episode from Series 5. The first two minutes were very impressive from a writing point of view, and worth stopping to think about for a moment.

The show opens at a Rotary club. Mainwairing is there, receiving a sherry from a waitress, who says he can only have one because of rationing. Wilson arrives, who is there as Mainwairing's guest. Mainwairing points out the President of the Club and encourages Wilson to ingratiate himself with him, but Wilson turns his back to talk to the waitress, complimenting her on a pretty brooch. She is flattered and says she'll try and find him some extra sherry. Then Wilson meets the President - and it turns out he and Wilson were at school together and shared a room for a little while. Mainwairing tries to reassert supremacy by saying that Wilson works for him, but Wilson and the President walk off together, leaving Mainwairing behind - and the president says cheerio to Mainwairing, getting his name wrong. The entirety of Dad's Army is summed up beautifully in that little scene. The two main characters do their thing, and perform a mini-sketch, with nice jokes that sets up the rest of the show.

The opening of any show is, obviously, critical. I'd argue that, as the writer, you have two choices for that opening. Both are about building a relationship with your audience.

Choice One is go down this Dad's Army route, in which we re-establish the key characters leaving the audience in no doubt as to who the show is about and what the show is about. The only drawback with choice one is the sometimes it's a nice opening, and neat and clever, but not barnstormingly hilarious.

If were finding this choice a hard one, it may well be because we don't really know who the show is about, who they are in conflict with and what they are trying to achieve. We can't encapsulate the show in an opening sketch if we don't know what the show is. More work on the treatment, the characters, the outline and the stories for you, I'm afraid.

The thing to bear in mind with this choice also is that you cannot assume your audience know the characters - unless you're on Series 7 of your hit sitcom, in which case, you wouldn't be reading this blog (and if you are, can I have a job, please?) Always re-introduce your characters. Give the audience a hand getting a handle on them. This can slow things down or get in the way, which is why you could plump for:

Choice Two, which is to create a brilliant set-piece scene with a thwacking joke at the end. This might be done at the expense of re-introducing the characters to your audience, but it at least builds confident with the audience that this is going to be a funny show.

If you can pull it off, don't choose. Cheat. Do both. Miranda does this very successfully. She immediately builds rapport with the audience, establishing herself as a character, highlighting the potentially troublesome relationships in the show (with Penny, Gary, Stevie or Tilly) - and cutting to some big strong visual jokes to get the show moving comically.

If you watch the first two minutes of action (post titles) of Episode 1 of Blackadder Goes Forth (here), you learn that Blackadder is cultured (reading a book and listening to music), clever and cynical. You learn that Baldrick is very stupid, and the George is fanatically patriotic - and that Blackadder feels he's above the whole thing. That's the show. Then George produces a service revolver, and the story begins. That's how you start a show.

Give 'Em What They Want: Sitcom

So, lots of media pundits are reacting, or being paid to react, to the news that BBC1 would like a 'blue-collar' sitcom. It isn't clear exactly when, where and how Danny Cohen said this, although he's made no secret of this desire over the last few weeks. But rather than fly reporters to North Africa and report on armed uprising, our media has decided to talk about situation comedy.

Why wouldn't Danny Cohen want a down-to-earth working class sitcom? Another Only Fools and Horses, Bread or Royle Family. Let us not forget that at its peak, Bread pulled in about 22 million viewers. Let us also not forget that To The Manor Born pulled in 24 million viewers. Was it the same 20-odd million watching both programmes. Probably. I used to watch both of them. I didn't care. They were both brilliant.

And this is point that rings loud and clear from all the media chats and discussion: as long as its funny, no-one much cares where the comedy is set, and how rich our characters are. So far so predictable.

Moreover, Danny Cohen isn't proposing to jettison middle-class settings for comedies too. He's not going to commission a factory canteen sitcom by Harry Northerer and not commissioned a boutique hotel sitcom by Harald South-by-South-East. But here's the thing. There's so little situation comedy on television that he may have to chose between.

I find this whole area very hard to understand. The audiences love sitcoms. They adore them. It's interesting that Miranda won the King/Queen of Comedy award at the comedy - against Harry Hill, stadium-filling Michael McIntyre and ever cheeky Ant & Dec. And David Mitchell is probably more associated with being a panellist and all-round good egg than Mark in Peep Show. But from almost a standing start Miranda Hart went and won.

Sitcoms sell DVDs - and decent ones continue to sell years after transmission. People are still buying Blackadder, Yes Minister and Porridge. They are not buying '1994 Compilation Have I Got News for You', or 'Call My Bluff: The Arthur Marshall Years - Uncut and Uncorked'.

And yet, the TV channels seemed determined not to make scripted narrative comedy - even though there are endless other scripted narrative things like soaps, hospital 'dramas', detective shows and those things that aren't really anything (I'm thinking Hotel Babylon?).

Let's look at the evidence. BBC1 tonight showed no comedy at all. None. Or last night. On Sunday night, there was a repeat of Gavin and Stacey at 10.30 (how many repeats, now?). And repeat of My Family at 4.25pm. On Saturday night, Come Fly With Me - a repeat from Thursday. On Friday night, a panel game and a chat show. On Thursday, Not Going Out. That's not a lot of comedy - and I wouldn't be able to tell you when I could regularly tune in to a sitcom. It used to be Friday night at 8.30. Not now. So when?

Over the same time period, BBC2 have finally repeated the wonderful The Great Outdoors from BBC4, and launched a new panel/improv game and shown a new series - Episodes. And that's it. And Buzzcocks on Wednesday.

So, between BBC1 and BBC2, in the last week, new episodes narrative comedies are: Episodes and Not Going Out. And Come Fly With Me (which is more of a sketch show in one setting)

Come on, BBC. More sitcom, please. I love cooking shows as much as the next man, but I'm pretty sure that everyone who wants to learn to cook has learnt by now. Can we have some funnies now?

Maybe I'm just being overly biased in favour of narrative comedy and want everyone to like what I like. But let's not forget that on Saturday night, after a repeat of Dad's Army, BBC2 also repeat a retrospective of Allo Allo - for an hour and three quarters. Now, I love Allo Allo. All 80-odd episodes of it. But I continue to be staggered at the sheer number of documentaries, re-enactments and pickings overs the bones of old sitcoms like Allo Allo. It reinforces my point about sitcoms being what people really want, since they are so powerful and memorable.

So my plea is not for more working class comedy, or middle class comedy - but more comedy. It really is what the viewers want. It's why they made Miranda their comedy Queen. And why they'd rather talk about Del Boy and Steptoe than uprisings in Tunisia.

Good Intentions of Self-Improvement

And so we'll soon be staggering into 2011. And New Year's Resolutions beckon. What would it be useful to resolve to do as a writer?

Career goals are nice to have. A series of one's own on television in the next 12 months would be the obvious one - but we have no control over that kind of goal. We can write furiously, daily and sometimes amusingly, but what may or may not be commissioned is relatively arbitrary in my experience. Maybe your show will be get picked up and broadcast and maybe it won't. The reasons given for the show being bought or turned down will sound, on inspection, non-sensical. It's almost impossible to know whether or not a show will work until you actually make six of them, at least. It's impossible to know why it will work, if it works. Usually it turns out to be successful for different reasons than those planned. (Friends was written with Joey and Monica planned to be the 'hot couple'. Yes. I know) It's also impossible to know whether or not the Great British Public have the slightest interest in watching it. And even if they don't, the show may yet succeed. (The ratings for the highly-acclaimed Peep Show are pretty dreadful, but Channel 4, to its credit, has stuck with it since it delights its regular followers and it's nice to win awards.) So, in the words of Melchett in Blackadder II, 'Like private parts to the gods are we. They play with us for their sport.' Or, as Goldman says, 'Nobody Knows Anything'.

But some goals are achievable when they are personal ones. We have no control over what is commissioned and what is not. Be we have complete control over the words we write on the pages, what the characters say, how they talk, how they are - and what they want, what stops them and how they overcome those hurdles. How, then, can we improve those words and stories? How can we find better words, a more interesting order for them and a more original plot? Where can we find characters that a real and vibrant?

Reading. No, not by going to Reading - although that may throw up some fairly bleak and powerful storylines. Reading books. I need to read more. Fiction and non-fiction. To be honest, I find non-fiction very easy reading. I'm naturally a facts person, I think. I'm interested in almost everything, which is very helpful. But I need to read more books. And better books.

This has partly been hammered home to me through reading The Venerable Stephen Fry's latest autobiography. It seems like he turned up to Cambridge at the age of 18 having read more books than I have at the age of 35. I've read plenty of books - especially between graduating from Uni and having kids. The books I like to say I've read include most of David Lodge, Malcolm Bradbury, Michael Frayn and Tibor Fischer. But there are so many classics to read. And I've not read them. I feel ashamed and embarrassed to reveal that I've not read any Dickens or Austen. No Henry James, Tolstoy or anything of that sort. I read a Hardy at school (virtually at gunpoint). But overall, my reading list is pretty shameful.

There is no doubt that reading decent literature, and just well-written or well-researched books generally, improves one's thinking and writing. It's what all the great writers tell other not-so-great writers to do. I need to do it. But how?

Well, herein lies the poetic agony of the human condition on which the genre of sitcom itself is predicated: character flaws and failure. Sitcom characters turn over a new leaf virtually every week - trying to do something, start something or change. But they don't. They fail and return to how they were. They don't learn. And we laugh because we recognise this tragic quality in ourselves.

So to change we need to be smart. I need to read more. But I have a finite amount of time. I have a wife and two young children that I need to keep spending time with. So I can't save time there. I need to work and earn money for the aforementioned wife and two young children and landlord. So something else needs to give. And I know what it is: television.

Now, I'm a screenwriter, so I'm hardly going to throw the TV out of the window on January 1st. (I don't want to be one of those superior people who work in television but don't own one - with the implication being that TV is vulgar and for the masses. It's part of the myth that clever people and the rich people (often not the same people) enjoy live arts, theatre, opera, books, Radio 4 and Film (not films. Not film. But Film.)).

In order to make more time to read, I need to watch less television and be smarter in what I watch. I can keep watching the really good stuff - like House, Modern Family and 30 Rock. That's all fine - and very inspiring. It's the stuff that just doesn't get you anywhere that I needs to go. And that is, largely, watching panel games, stand-up comedy and tedious documentaries about the making of sitcom.

I don't mean to denigrate these forms of television. Anyone who's developed a panel game will tell you how tortuously hard they are to get right. They delight millions. And that is fine and large. But I don't find panel games nourishing. So they need to go, for now.

Likewise, stand-up is a superbly compelling form of comedy, even through the lens of TV. One man or woman - and a microphone. It's exhilarating stuff. Or can be when the comedian isn't talking about the differences between cats and dogs, or men and women. Or alcohol, recreational drug-use or commercial flights. Of all, at the moment, I find Dara O'Briain to be the most delightful - and I find it very difficult to switch off, even when I've seen it several times. (I love his 'learning to drive' routine. Love it.)

And no-one is more interested in learning about the craft of sitcom from documentaries than me. But they've all the great sitcoms have been documented. Thrice. I don't need to know any more about that chandelier in Only Fools and Horses. Or that bit in Father Ted where he goes up to Richard Wilson and says 'I don't believe it'. I get it. And I'm not thinking that more time has been spent making programmes about these shows than on the programmes themselves. A bit silly, really.

But my plan for 2011 is to stop watching these kinds of television and read more. I'm going to avoid panel games (with the exception of Have I Got News for You, obviously), televised stand-up (will happily go see it live) and comedy docs. Oh, and movies that I've seen before. And I'm going to used that time saved (maybe a few hours a week) to read those book that have been on my shelf for months, or years and just haven't been read. Yes, that stuff like War and Peace, Leviathon, The Koran. (I'm pretty much up to speed on the Bible, if I do say so myself.)

So that's the plan. It's foolproof, surely? Which it needs to be since I, like every man and woman every born, am a fool.

The Sound of Laughter

My friend Dan alerted me to yet another ill-conceived piece of journalism about comedy, this time on the Guardian blog here. Why a decent publication like the Guardian sees fit to give e-space to a poorly argued piece of opinion (which amounts to "I hate the sound of human laughter") is rather bewildering.

The blogger somewhat shows his hand when he describes one of the most successful and acclaimed comedies of all time, Friends, as a "a production-line comedy". Friends was not as overtly quirky as Seinfeld, but to imply Friends was merely churned out is a serious misjudgment. He suggests that Blackadder and Frasier would be better with the laugh-track taken off. Richard Curtis must be kicking himself as it seems so obvious where he went wrong. Thanks blogger, we'll re-call and re-cut all the DVDs.

The comments underneath the article are, as you would hope, better informed and less prejudiced. Newmediamark helpfully guides us to David Baddiel's more thoughtful piece in The Times from Nov 09 here quoting this bit:

The reason critics don't like sitcoms shot in front of audiences is that it takes away their power. A theatre critic who hates a play that the rest of the audience loved can always tell you it bombed; but a TV critic cannot say that about a sitcom that is storming it. Which leaves him or her with two choices - be sneering about the response of the audience (always a trifle unlovely) or assume it's canned. Which - have I said this before? - it won't be.

I would add to this that reviewing TV is a lonely business, and attracts people who are happy to spend lots of time alone watching television. An audience laughter track implies that a whole bunch of people are having a good time, which some people find alienating or annoying, especially if they are all laughing at jokes that don't seem all that funny. Audience comedy has a 'togetherness' to it that some find irritating, tacky, corny or naff, and are therefore predisposed to like the so-called laugh track.

One can only commend the likes of AA Gill who is at least honest about the prejudice behind his loathing of audience laughter - and laughing out loud in general. I shall never forget his review of Jack Dee's Lead Balloon in the Sunday Times in October 2006, which said this:

This series is part of a new trend of comedy shows that don't make you laugh; you just nod your head and mutter, "That's really funny." It's a Darwinian improvement on the tyranny of the set-up-gag guffaw, and I approve of it. Laughter is ugly and common.

Given his hatred of the physical act of laughing, turning to him for fair criticism of comedy is rather like asking a vicar for reviews of pornography - don't bother asking because he thinks the whole thing is disgusting.

Some comedy/tv critics could simply not be any further away from the sentiments of their readers. Some are merely interested in demonstrating that they would write a much better, wittier, cleverer a comedy if only they had the time and the opportunity. It's all rather sad - a form of bullying, in essence - and it makes the job of producing decent, popular comedy even harder than it already is. Still we continue to try.