Subtlety in comedy (and staplers in jelly)

We don’t tend to imagine Ricky Gervais cackling with glee at the misfortune of others and think about subtlety. But we used to. When The Office first aired, its evocation of the in-vogue mockumentary style was so accurate and the cast underplayed so beautifully that plenty of viewers were – at least briefly – convinced that they were watching reality and not comedy.

But why should subtlety be a virtue at all? Why don’t we want our comedy to be big belly laughs?

Well, one reason is variety. In a world which included plenty of broad characters, bright colours and ever-present laugh tracks, a gap in the market existed for something which felt a bit truer-to-life. But subtlety also ties in to a fundamental aspect of how comedy works. A joke is the tying-together of two unrelated ideas and the key to a good joke is making sure that the connection is formed in the head of the listener.

Take the shaggy dog story once voted the funniest joke in the world, which is attributed to Spike Milligan. Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. His friend calls emergency services who try and calm him down. “First of all, let’s make sure he’s actually dead.” A shot is heard. “Okay, what now?”

You can tell the same story in a way which isn’t at all funny by explicitly stating that the second hunter shoots his friend. But we laugh because the double meaning of “make sure he’s dead” collides with the idea of the sound of the shot and the connection causes the laughter response. Puns, call-backs and observational comedy all work the same way.

So, you can trigger a laugh response with a mistaken identity plot – the kind of absurd situation which is very unlikely to come up in everyday life. Or you can have David Brent mix up the only two men in his orbit who have brown skin and we laugh out of horrified recognition and a sense of “thank god that isn’t me.” And the latter might have more power because it’s so subtle.

Take this to extremes and you have a comedy which barely qualifies for the description, and rewatching The Office I was immensely struck by how accurately Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant identify the line between reality and fantasy. No-one has ever put someone else’s stapler in a jelly. But the idea of an office prank is well known. And it’s not like you physically couldn’t put a stapler in a jelly. It’s just that nobody has. Or would.

And that also means that the characters in The Office sneak into our emotions in ways that broader characters don’t. We want Tim and Dawn to get together, but we aren’t concerned for the state of Frank and Betty Spencer’s marriage. Because, although both are funny, Tim feels real and Frank Spencer is a cartoon.

Find out more about how The Office changed the game, through the eyes of a professional stand-up comedian who has only ever seen the American remake, on the latest episode of All British Comedy Explained – and hear stories of what it was like filming the show from someone who was on-set for all 14 episodes.