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Edgy comedy can work as societal self-defence too. Nemr Abou Nassar (a.k.a. Nemr), a Lebanese-American comic who has been on the cover of Rolling Stone’s Middle East edition, and is performing at Just for Laughs’ Ethnic Show, jokes about subjects such as suicide bombing. His aim is to take “a very serious thing, and put it into a very funny context. As soon as you do that, you own it.” In one bit, he talks about his father’s referring to Rolling Stone as Throwing Stones: “’Dad, that’s the ISIS publication.’ When I make a joke like that, ISIS is no longer a problem; ISIS is a punch line.”

In the Middle East, Nemr says, “I could say stuff I could never say in a million years in the U.S. When I’m in Lebanon, and there is an attack, you turn on the news, and you see a pile of baby carcasses and heads, and a cameraman slipping in the blood. (If you) say, ‘I would be offended if you make a joke that has bad words,’ we’ll just look at you like, ‘Your skin needs to be a bit thicker. Any time there’s tragedy, we deal with it with humour.”

Even on a more mundane level, jokes work as a psychological shield. Carr, who recently shot a BBC special on the theory of laughter, cites behavioural scientist Peter McGraw’s concept of humour as “benign violation.” Says Carr, “Things in life fall into one of two sets. Either you’re having a cup of tea, nothing much happening, or you’re getting a parking ticket or there’s a terrible tragedy occurring. And when those sets overlap, something that would appear to be a violation is made benign by laughter, so you laugh something off; it’s a coping mechanism. The reason for this ongoing debate about ‘offensive’ comedy is different people draw the line in different places.”

It’s safe to say no one will be looking to draw a line at the Roastmasters Invitational Challenge, where comedians hurl insults at one another. Last year, Carr was the last comic standing; now, he’s defending his title, albeit not by dishing out offence for its own sake. “The idea is to say something incredibly hurtful and damaging — and make them laugh whilst doing it. There’s no point in just being mean.”