[DanaC]

I haven't seen Louie, no. I shall give that a go, it looks good.

Another one that arguably takes a more 'Brit' style might be Curb Your Enthusiasm. That did pretty well over here.

I'm not sure I agree that much of the comedy relies on suffering though. Or, rather...it depends what you mean by 'suffering'.

I think a lot of our comedy is about failure. Failure to live up to others' standards, failure to live up to one's own standards. We like failure comedy, because we can relate to it. Ordinary people fucking up in ordinary ways and laughing about it.

Where an individual is the butt of jokes it is usually because they have committed the grave sin of taking themselves too seriously. If they aren't taking themselves seriously, and are still failing then that person is usually the hero of the show. Like Blackadder, for instance. Undoubtedly the hero, but very much an anti-hero.

But a lot of our comedy is based on absurdity. The absurdity of ordinary life writ large in comic setups.

A lot of this is very similar to American comedy. What made Friends funny wasn't their successes, it was their failures. Likewise, Seinfeld.

The difference though, I think lies in the level of resolution. Failure is fine, if the characters come good in the end. Social awkwardness is funny, but something needs to break the tension.

One of the big differences, I think, is delivery. I noticed, for instance, that in the US Being Human, the way jokes were delivered followed a kind of regular rhythm -