Trevor Griffiths’s terrific 1975 play centres on six hopeful Mancunian comedians — one Jewish, two Irish, one English double act and one that is downright weird.
They all go to a comedy class run by Matthew Kelly’s one-time stand-up Eddie, who lost his sense of humour while serving as a British soldier, but gained a perspective on what is funny and why.
To say the play is dated would be to miss the point of revivals, which can simultaneously show how things have stayed the same and how things have changed. The Jewish, Irish and Pakistani gags are mostly too bad to be offensive these days, but the arguments about why they were never funny are as relevant now as they ever were.
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