Contemplating Comedy News Today

Book review by Steve Bennett I’m not sure what’s the worst aspect of Contemplating Comedy: the fact that author Jonathan Levitt has simply lifted hundreds of jokes written by other people - or the ill-considered drivel he’s surrounded them with to justify that theft as some sort of insight. Of course the book is frequently funny, because he’s drawn on some of the greatest joke-writers around: Tim Vine, Stephen Wright, Woody Allen and countless more – usually credited, but sometimes no...

Jonathan Levitts book Contemplating Comedy analyses various aspects of humour - Credit: Jonathan Levitt Have you heard the one about a chess grandmaster writing a book about how to be funny?  Well, it’s no joke – because Ipswich’s Jonathan Levitt has made a checkmate move into writing about humour.  The 57-year-old says his new book, Contemplating Comedy, is “on the surface a compilation of funny lines and little jokes”.  There are plenty of laughs in the 330-page Conrad Press bo...

Jonathan Levitts book Contemplating Comedy analyses various aspects of humour - Credit: Jonathan Levitt Have you heard the one about a chess grandmaster writing a book about how to be funny?  Well, it’s no joke – because Ipswich’s Jonathan Levitt has made a checkmate move into writing about humour.  The 57-year-old says his new book, Contemplating Comedy, is “on the surface a compilation of funny lines and little jokes”.  There are plenty of laughs in the 330-page Conrad Press bo...