Séamas O'Reilly: It's hard to describe but this is the comedic masterpiece of the decade
Séamas O'Reilly: The Rehearsal is a triumph of writing and staging, grounded by one of the most naturally gifted comic minds on the planet. Picture: Orfhlaith Whelan
Trying to articulate why, exactly, things are funny is a time-honoured, and perilous pastime. ‘Humour can be dissected, as a frog can’ wrote E.B. White in 1941, ‘but the thing dies in the process and the innards are discouraging to any but the purely scientific mind’. This description of comedy is pithy enough that it has sustained itself for the guts of a century, but I’ve never quite agreed with it.
There are any number of great and fascinating techniques for exploring the mechanics of great comedy, and the best examples of this form are often written with enough wit and verve that they can be quite funny themselves. And then, at some point, I’m faced with the task myself; forced to try and recommend the hilariousness of a book or a show or a film, and finding it near-impossible to put it into words.
