Comedian Tom Neenan is at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe with sci-fi thriller 'The Andromeda Paradox'. Here, he outlines the scientific formulae required to create pure comedy.
Many people will tell you that there is no way of scientifically creating comedy. Those people could not be more wrong.
Let’s start with the most famous equation concerned with comedy, which is:
A fine idea, but this depends on a number of variables. For instance, was a child involved? Was that child annoying? How long ago did the tragedy happen. This can be expressed as follows:
Now we’ve got to grips with the basics, we can start looking at more complex comedy. Let’s look at some slapstick:
As you can see here, the comedy is Pain to the power of Banana, and then a slippy symbol, which is greater than dignity, and then there’s a picture of an M which has fallen over. This is the recipe for some absolutely incredible slapstick. I can tell you’re laughing already.
But what about something more ‘intellectual’? Let’s look at the construction on an anecdotal joke dealing with things we discover everyday. Here’s a basic formula:
... and don’t forget this is just one example. Here the key variable is Airline food, which of course can be substituted at any time with ‘How long it takes women to get ready’ or ‘those digital displays at bus stops’. But what about the perfect sketch? Well that’s as simple as:
In this sketch of course there is a man and a woman in an office, the woman is trying to do admin, but the man is a vampire. Where X is equal to all the funny things vampires could do. Maybe he could think red printer ink is blood? Or maybe the woman is like, 'Are we all across this?' and the vampire is like, 'Oh no, a cross! – y’know, classic vampire stuff. Hahahaha, brilliant!
Oh, but what about the equation for the perfect Edinburgh show? Well that’s actually simpler than you may think. Simply follow this formula:
Of course here Sadbit could represent the death of a parent, or pet. And while Reviews is to the power of 3, it of course should read like Reviews is to the power 4.
So you’ve written your amazing sketches. You’ve got a brilliant show. Now you are asked to come up with an idea for television. Maybe a panel show? What do you do then? Ah, well that’s simple enough. Just follow this simple panel show formula:
Congratulations. Now you have all the formulae you need for a successful career in comedy. Enjoy!
Tom Neenan: The Andromeda Paradox, Pleasance Dome, until Aug 31 (not 19), 6.40pm.