| Laugh Out Loud |
| Tuesday, 20 April 2004 |
Alex Stroud Making Fish Laugh 2004
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Ainsley Harriot and Arthur Smith in Balham 2004
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Emma Freud making Spike laugh 2004
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Lucy and Jo Lumsden 2004
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An experimental feature about laughter on BBC Radio 4
Have you Laughed Out Loud Loud yet today?
Who do you remember because of their laugh?
No-one seems to know exactly why we laugh. But everyone has an opinion, and everyone’s laugh is a unique signature.
Laugh Out Loud combines the natural sounds and rhythms of pure laughter from Nicola Green’s Laughing Record with personal laughing stories. She will be asking why we are all united by this instinctive act.
Laugh Out Loud is devised by Nicola Green, a portrait artist. This show will be a portrait of laughter, through the sound of different people laughing and telling their stories. This programme looks at the act of laughter itself: how it sounds, how it makes us feel, and how it acts as a great leveller between people. It is not about comedy, or about what makes us laugh, but will focus on the act of laughing, in all its forms.
Laugh Out Loud is a radio feature in which she could further explore what laughter means to each individual, and, as a result, what it reveals about us. The idea for the programme sprang from "The Laughing Record", a continuous piece of laughing ‘music’ which punctuates the anecdotes.
Contributors to Laugh Out Loud include: Paul Merton and Arthur Smith on what made them laugh more than anything else; Emma Freud making her baby laugh for the first time; Ainsley Harriot on laughter as a flirting device; Tony Hawks on why no-one laughed at Oscar Wilde; Mark Steel on laughing with children; The Rev Mark Oakley on laughing at God; Sabrina Broadbent teaching Year 10 at Hornsey School For Girls; Lucy and Mark Lumsden on dying of laughter; Alex Horne "Making Fish Laugh"; sound artist Scanner on silent laughter; Helen Atkinson-Wood under The Laughing Umbrella.
None of the contributors are named or credited by surname in the programme, so that the stories they tell are heard as familiar, human and accessible.
There is no formal presenter as each story links to the next, connecting innocence – communication – silliness – musicality – flirting – cruelty – joy – helplessness – tension – release. This forms a narrative from a baby’s first laugh, to laughter in death. Laugh Out Loud is the story of Nicola Green’s journey with her Laughing Umbrella through a lifespan of laughter.
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