You've got to laugh – Britain has the world's liveliest comedy scene

http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2014/sep/08/uk-comedy-scene-liveliest-edinburgh-fringe

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Two conversations in Edinburgh last month made me give thanks for how lucky we all are: me to have a job, and all of us to have such a thriving and creative comedy scene. The first was with a Dutch film-maker making a documentary about the fringe. Why Britain, she asked. Why is this carnival of comedy happening here and not in – well, Holland, for example? Such a simple question, but there's no simple answer, unless you resort to platitudes about the Great British sense of humour. I muttered something about our bad weather and predilection for heavy drinking, and moved on to the next question.

What's the real answer? Why do we have the world's liveliest comedy scene? (Let's not, for now, get into the possibility that soon the Edinburgh fringe may no longer be in Britain.) There's no standout reason; I suspect it's a mish-mash of cultural predisposition and historical accident. Take the good fortune that half the world speaks our language, which gives our comedy confidence, a global range and potentially global reach. Take a culture that, at least since Shakespeare, favours the verbal. Credit – as Alan Davies does – the twin Thatcherite spirits of entrepreneurialism and individualism. Or the flukes that our punk scene triggered alternative comedy and that, more recently, basement-level arts funding created a gap for standup comedy to fill.

And take the Edinburgh fringe itself – perhaps the biggest influence on the UK comedy industry. The second chat I had was with a US comedy writer, about comedy criticism on this and that side of the pond. Over there, the mainstream media seldom review comedy, and "comedy critic" isn't a recognisable job. Until recently, the same was the case here. And even when I started doing it a dozen or so years ago, few comedy events lent themselves to reviewing.

There's the rub. The American scene resembles the UK scene of 15 years ago – ie mainly based around mixed-bill nights at clubs, at which comics perform fast-and-loose, ever-changing 20-minute sets. That's a fine context for comedy, but it's not easy for the media to work with. The terms of the British scene, by contrast, are set by Edinburgh, which encourages comics to a) make a show that lasts an hour, and b) make a show that is about something. The second follows on from the first: inconsequentiality is fine for 20 minutes but starts to pall after 60.

The about also helps attract audiences – and critics, too. If you've got an hour-long show with something to say about the world, then (for better or worse) you've got a show that's reviewable and of interest to the media. The third factor is that these shows don't end at Edinburgh; they tour – in ever-increasing numbers. And a touring comedy show is a national event that readers across the UK have more than an academic interest in.

There's a feedback loop at work here, whereby the practice of comedy, and the writing about it in the mass media, mutually reinforce one another. The same conditions don't prevail in the States, where – without an Edinburgh festival to encourage long-form comedy – the ways comedy is performed aren't so critic-friendly. I've spoken to several US comics who express surprise and delight that their work gets reviewed – analysed, discussed, taken seriously – when they come to the UK. That's a salutary reminder that this odd job of mine didn't always exist, and isn't inevitable. I've been lucky to write about comedy in a culture and at a time of creative ambition, tumultuous variety and keen public interest. And in creating those conditions, the Edinburgh fringe has played a key role.