Laughter that had roots in despair of poverty

HUMOUR is a very serious business. There are several ways to raise a laugh so it is difficult to generalise. I do not dissent from Jennifer Hunter’s stress (Yorkshire Post, January 16) on the importance of the decline in the written word.

Another factor in the deterioration in the quality of the laughter-makers may lie in economic changes. If you go back a hundred years, extreme poverty was rife and those affected knew there was no escape from their plight.

The only way in which they could brighten their desperate condition was to derive humour from it and so Gus Elen and George Formby Senior traded on this by poking fun at the universal misery. It was comedy based on real life which is the best. Wartime comedy e.g. Tommy Handley in ITMA was enormously popular but the very war itself produced a unity of spirit which has not been seen since.

Now living standards have improved out of sight but there has been a change in mood. Many people are dissatisfied with their lives and the state of society, and there is widespread envy and jealousy.

People are more intelligent and well-educated but the divisions in society and deep-rooted malaise militates against the universal acceptance of today’s humourists. It is not without significance that one of the more popular “modern” shows was Dad’s Army which related to a bygone period when we were all in the same boat.