Laughing off the recession

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Published: 21 April, 2009, 10:27

If there is one industry in Britain that's not affected by the economic crisis - it’s the business of making people laugh. Comedy clubs are enjoying a rare boom amid Britain’s worst recession since the early 1980s.

With plummeting bank balances and rising unemployment, there's plenty for us to feel down about. But the UK’s comedy clubs are providing the tonic that's needed.

The founder of the ‘99’ club, Jim Woroniecki, says audiences have increased drastically since news of the credit crunch hit.

“If you look at alterative comedy here in the UK in general, you can see that it was founded in the late 1970’s-1980’s during the major recession that hit then, that people turned to comedy then as a source of diversion, and as a way of expressing their political anger,” Woroniecki says.

According to the latest survey from building society Nationwide, British consumers are at their least confident level in four years.

And with unemployment predicted to rise, economists expect outlooks to remain depressed.

But comedians like Shappi Korsandi and Tony Law have something to smile about.

“Speaking as a comic, it’s actually really exciting – I don’t mean to belittle the hardship that people are going through – but actually fighting against something is always good comedy fodder,” Korsandi says.

“It’s like the recession in 90-92 and before. I only started here in '96 in this country, but people all said the comedy boom was when that happened where people moved away from the more glitzy things, and went to the more, almost folk things, like comedy,” Law says.

The popularity of comedy clubs isn't just due to them being cheaper than a night out at the theatre or a pricey restaurant.

Laughter coach Carrie Green, who literally teaches people to laugh, says humour is one of the brain’s greatest defence mechanisms against matters that people don’t have much control over.

“It’s a way of letting go of the stress and tension, so there’s an escape from that but it helps them both physically and mentally, as well to be able to cope with the day to day things,” Green says.

A lot of current jokes are, of course, about bankers – many of whom, having more time on their hands, have joined the laughing crowds.

With little sign of a recovery in financial markets, and more job cuts looming on the horizon, more and more people may want cheering up. So the appetite for laughter is likely to keep clubs like this one busy across the country.