On Jokes (or, why everything you know about comedy is wrong)

The Big Bang
Natural Selection
E = mc2

All pretty decent theories, that beg one question: why has no-one discovered a fully unified theory for what makes jokes funny?

Well, comedy director Amanda Baker, comedy writer Abi Grant and stand-up comedian Jimmy Carr have done just that. In this book, in case that's not obvious. From how to identify the families of jokes, to decoding the building blocks of comedy, to the real - and brand new - secret to comic timing, On Jokes does for comedy what decoding the genome did for designer babies.

The essential manual for any aspiring comedian, this book can make anyone funny. Even you.

Jimmy Carr (Author)
Jimmy Carr is an award-winning comedian, television host and writer, goddamnit.

One of the biggest-selling comedy acts in the world, Jimmy consistently does stand-up to sell-out crowds, performing his shows at venues in over forty countries. That's a lot of countries. In fact, the only thing that's been on a more extensive world tour in the last five years, is coronavirus.

Before making the move to streaming, Jimmy was one of the bestselling acts in the comedy DVD market, selling over 2 million copies. And to this day his DVDs continue to form the centrepiece of many Oxfam Shop window displays.

His last tour, 'Best of Ultimate Gold Greatest Hits', sold over half a million tickets globally with the current show, 'Terribly Funny', looking set to exceed that figure by the end of 2022. Unless someone eats another bat pangolin sandwich.

Jimmy is a household name in UK television, well-known for hosting Channel 4's 8 Out Of 10 Cats, 8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown and Big Fat Quiz Of The Year in addition to presenting Comedy Central's Roast Battle UK and Your Face Or Mine. He is a regular on all the top panel shows, including QI and A League Of Their Own, has performed as part of The Royal Variety Performance three times, and a judge on BBC1's I Can See Your Voice. Jimmy's hair has appeared in both The LEGO Movie (2014) and The LEGO Movie 2 (2019).

He was also the first UK comedian to sign a stand-up deal with streaming behemoth Netflix in 2015, releasing two specials on the platform, Funny Business (2016) and Best Of Ultimate Gold Greatest Hits (2018).

Before & Laughter is his first attempt at an autobiography. He might even write another one. Depending on next year's tax bill.

Amanda Baker (Author)
Amanda Baker has been working in the comedy industry for over 20 years where she has performed, written, script edited and directed over a hundred shows. She has worked with comics around the world, getting them results and awards. Amanda has been developing stand-up comics from expert to international level, pushing them to excel, evolve, improve and widen their skills and raising their middle.

Abi Grant (Author)
Abi Grant sold her first joke at 18, then went on to write for dozens of UK sketch shows. She spent nine years at the Torygraph (as one of their house reds), wrote the book for a West End musical (Olivier nom) and was head writer at Thomas the Tank Engine (BAFTA nom). Abi also spent five happy years as a producer at the BBC's World Service.