This episode is sponsored by the new Color Revolution exhibition at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford,

which looks at how scientific breakthroughs in the Victorian period enable dramatic changes in the use of colour,

in fashion pieces, painting, and other objects. You can hear one of the exhibition's curators,

Charlotte Riberole, who is professor in 19th century British literature at the Sorbonne,

explaining more about the exhibition and some of the objects and ideas it explores

in a special mini-episode in our podcast feed.

Music You're listening to the LRB podcast. I'm Malin Hay.

My guest this week is Jonathan Coe, a novelist whose long list of award-winning novels includes Water Carve-Up, Middle England and the Rotters Club. He's written more than 30 pieces for the LRB on fiction,

film and television. Thanks so much for joining me, Jonathan. Thank you. 30. Good grief. I had no idea.

In 2013, Jonathan wrote a review for the paper of Boris Johnson's memoir, in which he

presently described

the way that laughter, particularly laughter at politicians, has the potential to distract us

from the real danger of their policies. Ten years later, after Johnson's three-year term as Prime

Minister, Jonathan returns to the subject of British comedy in the latest issue of the paper,

with a review of David Stubbs' Different Times,

a history of British comedy.

So we'll return to the question of political satire a bit later in the podcast,

but for now, Jonathan, let me start by asking you about comedy a bit more generally.

I think your interest in this subject goes back quite a long way.

You did a masters on theories of comedy.

And at the beginning of the piece, you describe Freud's theory that comedy lifts our inhibitions by allowing us to

make connections between seemingly dissociated ideas. Do you think that's always a good thing?

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