Jordon Jones reviews Great Comic Writing, presented by Joe Bennett as part of the Lyttelton Arts Festival, at the Lyttelton Arts Factory, Sunday 12 July 2026.
A week ago, I went to Lyttelton Arts Factory to hear Joe Bennett in discussion about Shakespeare’s Greatest Comedy. This last weekend, both of us returned to the same place at the same time for an exploration of comedy from a wider range of writers. Great Comic Writing offered a chance for audience members to check out what happens “under the hood” of comedic writing, as Bennett put it.
If Shakespeare’s Greatest Comedy was equal parts dramatic reading and university lecture, Great Comic Writing falls more firmly onto the side of lecture. Fortunately for the audience, we had a very good, very interesting teacher―plus, unlike university, this class comes without the pressure of being tested on the material later. Bennett brought the audience into conversation with his usual energetic and engaging style, and kept us chuckling the whole way through the talk. Once again, he has shown a strong ability to weave insightful education with entertainment.
Bennett drew on examples from writers of all sorts to form a comprehensive basis for examination, ranging from the bawdy 14th-century tales of Chaucer to the misfortune-laden memoirs of Clive James. (From this, we learn that people have laughed at the same things for a very, very long time.) Some of the quoted writers, like P G Wodehouse, were known comics, while others such as Jane Austen had a more subtle wit. Medium also proved no barrier; although most of the extracts were prose fiction, we also looked at non-fiction (the aforementioned James memoir), poetry (by way of Chaucer and Philip Larkin), and radio drama (Dylan Thomas’ beautiful Under Milk Wood). The wide variety of source material spoke to Bennett’s love of language and its effects, as well as his appreciation for those who wield it with skill. It also illustrates the flexible nature of comedy; often, the techniques used to make one piece funny are completely subverted or ignored in the next.
This event is the first time I’ve had to make two sets of notes on the same content: on one page I jotted down points for this review, and on the opposite one I had (significantly more) notes about the nature of comedy and useful techniques for my own work. One point that Bennett returned to throughout the talk is the importance of giving readers a chance to work for the joke, because the moment of humour is when they connect the dots and “get” it. He also pointed out the many ways that elevated (Latin-based) language and common (Anglo-Saxon) language can be deployed for comic effect. Honestly, there were so many gems in Bennett’s commentary that I’ll be mulling over them for a long time to come.
E B White (who coincidentally appeared in Bennett’s list of sources) famously compared the analysis of humour to dissecting a frog: you understand its inner workings better, but the frog dies. However, in the case of Great Comic Writing, Bennett managed to keep the metaphorical frog happily on life support. His dissection of written comedy was incisive, but with a light touch that favoured breadth over potentially suffocating depth. Explaining how and why things are funny while also being funny is not easy, but try telling that to Joe Bennett.
The Lyttelton Arts Festival continues until Sunday 19 July. You can find out more about Joe Bennet’s work here.
Flat City Field Notes 