Friday 14 October 2016

Workshop on Humour with Cathie Devitt

The members of Erskine Writers had a very interesting and educational workshop on Tuesday led by Cathie Devitt. Everyone learnt something new about the art of writing comedy.

With the added input from the world of British comedy through the decades, the group then discussed the various influences the different comedy legends had used. We were also introduced to the many diverse types of comedy not previously known by many at the meeting, so this was very surprising and informative.

Cathie at the launch of her debut novella, Don't Drink and Fly
(Photo by R Gemmell)
We were exposed to Laughing Yoga with an extremely effective demonstration from Cathie. We watched babies laughing and animal videos showing their unexpected actions - this proved how infectious humour could be. Cathie suggested we should start looking at any sitcoms or comedy shows more critically and see how they were structured.

Although humour is very subjective, the rules behind it could be recognised. But some of the best and most innovative humour has been known to throw all rules out of the window.

Everyone should have a go at writing humour using Cathie’s most enjoyable workshop as a guide.

Hilary Stevenson

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