ABSTRACT
Whether in the colourful cap and bells of a medieval jester, the spotted silks of a circus clown or in the immaculate garb of a late night MC, there exists a unique class of people whose very actions and behaviour set them apart from everyone else and these are the comedians. Whether they dance and fall, act foolish or faggy, are hostile or mild, or give and/or get a pie in the face, it is clear that such a group does exist as a social and phenomenal reality and that although personally they may be treated somewhat ambivalently by their society they nonetheless are enormously well remunerated if successful in evoking that most precious of commodities—laughter on demand.
