Is he having a laugh?

If you want to get away with really dark comedy on stage, you need to get the knife in without anyone noticing, and laughing at some very human horror doesn't mean an audience is heartless, writes BERNARD FARRELL

THE BOOKENDS of my playwriting career so far (said he, hopefully) are I Do Not Like Thee Doctor Fellin 1979 and Bookwormsin 2010, currently revived at the Abbey. I have come to regard both plays with great affection, perhaps because now I not only see striking similarities between the two, but also because each successfully employs a form of dark comedy that, out of context, sounds absolutely horrific but, within the play, can have the audience rolling in the aisles.

In the 1970s, when Doctor Fellopened, nobody knew who I was or what to expect. It was my first play and its shock-and-awe effect is probably best reflected in the following conversation that took place in my hometown of Sandycove between myself and a rather grand lady who I will call Mrs B – and, yes, the initial could easily stand for Bracknell.

“Good morning,” she loudly greeted me on Adelaide Road. “I understand that you have written a play and I understand that it is in the Abbey Theatre.”

I opened my mouth to confirm this but she had already launched into her next observation: “And I understand that it is a comedy?”

I smiled confirming, yes, it was a comedy and then she added with some determination: “And I understand that, in it, there is a boy who throws a cat under a train.”

Flattered by her knowledge, I smiled and said that she was absolutely right and then her face darkened and she quietly thundered: “And you think that is funny, do you?”

My first impulse was to explain that, yes, here on Adelaide Road, that idea is far from funny but, within the play, every night, it allows the audience to erupt into hysterical, relieving laughter. But, of course, I didn’t say any of that, knowing that explaining comedy is always a lost cause and usually turns an offended face into a furious face. And this was again true, a year later when, with my career taking off, I presented myself at the staff office of my old job at Sealink to tender my resignation.

At first, the staff manager simply refused to allow me to leave, warning me that I was venturing into one of the most precarious, back-stabbing professions imaginable whereas, if I stayed with the company, all I had to do to become a well-paid manager, was to stay alive.

When I again repeated my determination to go, he leaned across the desk and whispered that he had seen my first play at the Abbey and not only did he not think it was funny, but that much of it was in extremely bad taste.

Remembering Mrs B’s objection, I asked if he was referring to the cat being thrown under the train. He shook his head and said that, no, he had no objection to that (which was worrying in itself) but what he didn’t like was the tasteless references to an old man being “savaged by dogs”. He then sat back and waited for my explanation (and probably my apology) and then, noting my silence, he angrily suggested that if I wished to succeed in this hazardous business, I should desist from “such cheap, offensive hilarity” and, with that, he approved my resignation and set me free.

I didn’t take his advice and, within the bookends of my career, as play followed play, I continued with my “offensive hilarity” and, thankfully, audiences continued to turn-up to not only enjoy the humour, but also to see the darkness that often lurked beneath.

Of course, the detractors also hovered about, accusing me of dodging real issues, of going for “the easy laugh” (if such exists!) or, as O’Casey put it, of “turning tragedy into comedy”. On one memorable occasion, a caring friend took me aside and told me that my latest play had very serious undercurrents and perhaps now was the time for me to overcome my weakness for comedy and write a real play.

I never lost much sleep over any of this and, in fact, I began to sleep even better after a weekend that I was privileged to spend with the master of comedy, Alan Ayckbourn. In 2002, he had presented a play of mine, Happy Birthday Dear Alice, at his Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough and, over lunches and dinners, we exchanged thespian anecdotes, dramatic debates and theatrical adventures. And, of course, we discussed comedy.

It was easy to forget, in his courteous and self-effacing presence, that he is one of the world’s most successful playwrights, with more plays to his name than Shakespeare, comedies that probe and often skewer the pretensions of the English middle classes, occasionally with compassion but always with humour. In his work, it often seems that the darker the moment the more hysterically riotous the comedy becomes.

In his 1973 comedy Absurd Person Singular, there is a tragic sequence of events where a depressed wife desperately tries to kill herself, first at the oven, then with tablets at the sink, and later with a rope at an overhead light-fitting. Every attempt is foiled by someone who innocently walks in and assumes she is either cleaning the oven or unblocking the sink or changing a light-bulb . . . and all the time her suicide notes are being accidentally destroyed. These are moments of heartbreaking tragedy and yet, in the writing, everything is pitched to an almost farcical level where hysterical laughter is elicited from an audience that desperately wants to empathise with the plight of this woman.

I remember discussing how this was achieved and I mentioned my own forays into this comic style. He listened intently as I described circumstances and scenes, occasionally asking about moments of reaction and moments of silence. He then suggested that if I achieved that response “you were doing everything right. Hopefully,” he continued, “on the way home, they will guiltily wonder why they laughed at such human horror and will then deeply ponder the tragedy. You will have put the knife in without anyone noticing.”

I have constantly cherished his words throughout my playwriting career – including his wry advice to “only begin to worry when you start winning awards and emptying theatres”. And then, some years ago, I knew I would again be putting his advice to use when, in a blinding flash of the obvious, I realised there was a dark comedy to be written about the popular phenomenon of the book club.

Book clubs were everywhere. Each month, my wife either went out to one or hosted one. For such a long time, this had been the most obvious subject for a play – a confined room, with wine on tap, occupied by people with conflicting views, almost exclusively female, all known to each other and perhaps, just perhaps, many carrying desperate and devastating secrets about each other.

It was then that I had a panic attack, realising that if this subject was so obvious, there must be about nine other playwrights already writing this play. But when I mentioned the idea to Fiach Mac Conghail at the Abbey, he had no such fears and commissioned the work.

As ever, the writing of the play took nine months and often I would be up in the study writing about my fictional book club while my wife was downstairs conducting a real one. But, unlike Synge, I never had my ear to the floor nor did I ever attend one. I felt that I knew enough about them to create my own – and it was such a relief when, in 2010, Bookwormsopened at the Abbey and I sat in the stalls listening to the hearty laughter-of-recognition from a largely female audience and realising that maybe I had got it right.

Now it is back again and, for the time being and until the next one, it remains my bookend. And with its recognised similarities to Doctor Fell, I sometimes wonder if Mrs B would approve. I think not.

In Bookworms, there is a budgie that comes to an untimely end and she would surely ask me if I thought that was funny. If I was brave enough, I would say that the audience certainly does . . . and that, like the cat in Doctor Fell, the budgie's death brings an uproarious light reaction to a very dark and bleak moment and that, funnily enough, is what comedy is all about.