What is Comedy Anyway? Does anybody really know?

Why start a podcast? Why on this topic? I’m Kate Laity and while I am a Doctor of Philosophy I don’t really have any expertise on comedy. No one is begging me to do a podcast. It seems quite pointless given that everyone and their brothers are starting a podcast in the midst of this pandemic.

So why? The truth is I have had an almost life-long love for comedy. But not all comedy. I realise I have a deep love for very particular kinds of comedy and that many people do not share it. Almost for as long as I have loved comedy I have been aware of this discrepancy.

How do we form a sense of humour? Is my belief that I formed my sense of humour in early childhood just a fanciful notion? Or is there something to it? Why do our senses of humour vary so? Is it a cultural phenomenon or is there something innate in us as humans that needs comedy?

Annotated transcript available at kalaity.com.