[Sundae]

I'm trying to think my way around the idea that British comedy relies on suffering. Which is paraphrasing you Clod, but it's such a weird concept to me I have to look at it broadly.

Because if it's true then it must say something about us as a nation.
Bill Bryson thinks we laugh more than most nationalities; two Brits on a train he says, will find something to make them laugh far more readily than other peoples.
And I can't talk to Dani without one or both of us seriously cracking up.

But then I think of every comedy I revere and I wonder if perhaps you're right.
And then I think that we might just be more cavalier about our comedy characters, because they are simply shadows on a screen. John Cleese, who loves America so much he lives there, said that an American remake of Fawlty Towers would be disastrous, because "they" (the powers that be) would have to give Basil Fawlty a back-story to explain his hostelry hostility. Like he was a Vietnam vet or something. Whereas we just accept that he's tightly wound (as opposed to wounded) because some people are.

I'll think some more on this.