Perhaps the most timeless humour is based largely or even exclusively on the unchanging vagaries of human nature: greed, stupidity, and so on (think of circus clowns and silent films).

Humour based on long-established language (as opposed to new usage) can similarly be expected to remain fresh for decades or even centuries, although works such as the Canterbury Tales remind us of the extent to which language changes over time, even to the point of becoming meaningless to the uninitiated.

The essence of topical humour is that it is based on characters and/or language that reflect the current spheres of news and entertainment: the more ephemeral the characters and/or language, the sooner the humour begins to become unintelligible, or to depend upon scholarly footnotes for its survival.

Whether or not topical humour is lucky enough to survive (by virtue of being based on characters and/or language that are here to stay), it is by no means the poor relation of timeless humour.

• News reporters, like creative writers, tend to dwell on conflict and failure in their broadcasts. Laughter helps to uplift us in the face of so much depressing news and serves the very important purpose of preventing us from taking life too seriously.
• Many people in the public eye seem to invite comic representation through mimicry, satire, etc. Such comedy reflects the shared interest in these people and often feeds public debate about them and their actions.
• When topical humour takes the form of satire, its effects on public perceptions and social development may be profound.

TOPICAL IDEAS

Ideas for topical humour are easily generated through the simple process of bringing together two unrelated concepts into a new relationship. The only special criterion here is that at least one of the concepts must relate directly to the current news/entertainment agenda.

Newspaper cartoonists are particularly brilliant at this. For example, when the Millennium Wheel was being put into place, one memorable newspaper cartoon showed a lorry bringing a giant wheel in which was placed The Millennium Hamster.

Nor need either of the constituent concepts be remotely funny. Even the most prosaic or tragic events can become extremely amusing when brought into relationship with the right catalyst.

PEOPLE IN THE PUBLIC EYE

Comedy about people in the public eye is largely based on their characteristics, and particularly their weaknesses, that reflect the general condition of humanity. For example, if a politician is noticeably large and dour, caricatures of him/her will tend to give prominence to these characteristics. The effect is often reinforced by exaggeration, as in the cartoons of Gerald Scarfe and the Spitting Image puppets, for example.

Once the comic equivalent of the real-life person becomes established in its own right, as a thing at once similar and yet distinct, the possibilities for humour become limitless. In other words, as the events of the real person's life unfold, they may be translated into comedy by bringing them into new idea-relationships with the foibles of the comic character.

The comedy may be extended still further by bringing the comic character into idea-relationships with current news events in which they are not actually involved.

CURRENT WORDS AND PHRASES

The comedy of topical language, like that of topical characters, is based on precisely the same principles as all language based comedy: words plays, rhyme, etc. The main difference is that topical comedy is based on words and phrases that are very much in the news, whether new words or existing words that have found new resonance.

Arguably, the task of writing topical comedy is made easier by this constraint. Whereas the writer of timeless comedy runs the risk of wallowing in the limitless sea of choice of available words, the topical comedy writer can rapidly identify a relatively narrow range of starting points from her/his perspective of news and current affairs.

TOPICAL TO TIMELESS TO TOPICAL

Much topical humour can be rendered timeless by stripping away the ephemeral elements of character identity and, to a lesser extent, language.

In other words, many comic characterisations would be just as funny whether or not they were based on real people. Fictional comedy characters often bear a close resemblance to real people: their realness is, after all, part of their comedy. From the comedy writer's perspective, there is much benefit to be gained by seeking out the timeless core of topical comedy and, no less, the topical potential of timeless comedy, and transforming each to other.

Whilst this transformation is fairly easy in terms of character, it is less so in terms of language. Topical words and phrases come and go so quickly in the kaleidoscopic worlds of news and entertainment that some language-based joked may have very limited application. For example, some of the song lyrics of Tom Lehrer have become dated because of their dependence on once-topical rhyme words that have lost their resonance. The rehabilitation of such songs would require substantial rewriting, in which case many of the language based jokes would have to be completely new.