Nick Ahad: It's a funny thing about comedy and comedians...

Mention cricket and you've opened the door to me banging on about the beautiful game. Say the word "theatre", and you'll have trouble shutting me up. Talk comedy and we'll be going for hours.

It's the final one of these – comedy – that I've been thinking about for the past month, ever since I saw Four Lions.

I watched the brilliant comedy from Chris Morris (and produced by Sheffield's Warp Films) at my local cinema, in Bradford, and it was a profound experience.

There have been one or two mumblings about Morris desecrating the memories of the victims of terrorist attacks by making a comedy film about suicide bombers, but to criticise the movie for this misses the point entirely.

On one level, it is a fantastically hilarious, old-fashioned comedy about a group of bumbling idiots, but at the end of the movie I was deeply affected by its ability to empower.

To laugh at this group of bunglers, not just because they are incompetent, but because of the ludicrous nature of their twisted beliefs, was a cathartic and deeply moving experience.

A couple of weeks after Four Lions opened, I saw the new movie about Bill Hicks, American: The Bill Hicks Story.

The documentary allows fans a thrilling insight into the life of the comedian.

My relationship with Hicks began as an impressionable teenager when, late one night, I saw a Channel Four recording of his show, Revelations.

Clad in black and striding onto the stage to deliver a rant against humanity only to offer salvation with his famous closing monologue 'it's just a ride', it was unlike anything I had seen before.

It was the first time I realised the staggering power of comedy and how it can be used.

Thanks to being introduced to Bill Hicks' work at a relatively early age, I began to seek out comedians like George Carlin, Dick Gregory, Richard Pryor; comedians who seemed to understand the power they had and the responsibility to use their comic gift to better the world.

A friend I visited recently was eager to watch his Michael McIntyre dvd with me, and I was keen to see it. He couldn't understand why, having laughed all the way through it, I was critical of what we had just seen.

See, Michael McIntyre is a very funny, gifted comedian; unfortunately, he uses his talent to do little other than entertain. What's wrong with that?

Because with a talent for comedy you can talk about civil rights (Dick Gregory), you can talk about social injustice (Chris Rock), and if you are a rare and beautiful beast, you can actually attempt to change the humanity of your audience (Bill Hicks).

Or you can just make people laugh.