“Tis the season!” I think to myself as I sneeze for the third time in a row.
The clocks have just turned back, it’s cold and often wet and it is the high season for colds and flu. Sickness and less health.
The cliquéd saying goes that “Laughter is the best medicine”, and I ponder this phrase as I sip my MedLemon, a hot toddy from my native country that’s like a warm hug to a body soldiering a cold/flu.
Humour is such a precious thing. Such a delicious quality to uncover and appreciate in another, such a gluttonous experience to enjoy in the company of others. Have you ever really just sat in that moment of humour and laughter to appreciate the feeling… To laugh at an inside joke in the company of others- Diabolically delicious. To enjoy a laugh together as an audience in a comedy show- Communally comical. Comedy and humour are nourishing and restorative. Doctors have apparently always known this because as the phrase goes: “Laughter is the best medicine”. And isn’t it just?
The thing about laughter, humour and comedy is that it is all deeply personal and subjective. In the same way a doctor takes a personal history to understand you and your symptoms before prescribing the right medication as the cure, so too do different types of comedy cure different types of people or moods one experiences.
I’ve come to realise it is a mark of self-awareness to know two main things about yourself: the types of museums that energise and enthuse you and the type of comedy you like. I spent far too many hours at natural history museums before discovering that they zapped my energy and bored me (despite a general interest in living organisms!) in 2018. As an improviser myself and lover of comedy, I’ve spent time lately pondering on the type of comedy that I appreciate most.
I realised that I know immediately the type of comedy I don’t like: sick humour. It doesn’t amuse me when painful things happen to others, or when lazy toilet humour is the order of the day. It bores me. On the contrary, I get along very well with British humour. Dry humour as described I suppose? Subtle, clever, witty. It lights me up when we have a dry, witty joke that is both hilarious with a side of social commentary.
Perhaps it’s not only British humour- I recently saw an Australian comedian at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and I thought his set was excellent too (so maybe all Commonwealth humour is my thing?!). What I now know for sure, is that the comedy I love is the kind that highlights important social, societal or world issues in an amusing way that shows the ridiculousness of the situation and makes you think. A laugh and a pensive moment? Yes please! Another style of comedy I devour is comedy with a melancholic (sometimes happy) vulnerable personal thread. I’m a lover of deep connection and vulnerability and when that is married with comedy in a set, it’s like food for my soul (Or… medicine for my soul in keeping with my analogy here.) Yet, when making my MedLemon this morning, I also started singing a random made-up song to myself in a funny voice and I had a hearty chuckle. A few weeks ago, I spoke to my sister in an attempted Australian accent the entire day and thought that was both exhausting and hilarious. I was sketching the other day, and laughed out loud at the cute little animated star-based figurine I had invented on the page without forethought. I watched the Trevor Noah Netflix special “Son of Patricia” a month ago, just to cheer me up and get to listen to ‘The Snake Story’ again. Humour, much like medicine, can also be tailored and measured according to the circumstance: Sometimes it’s witty, smart and deep and sometimes it’s just silly and outlandish. But hopefully it’s always just what the doctor ordered. Shaakira Vania is a regular in the Amsterdam improv scene. If you want to read more, check out her blog: Roe the Blog:
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