
With comedy, timing can often be everything—but it isn’t the only thing that makes a joke land. Slapstick, camp, and satire all have their place in the comedic landscape and require different skills to pull off effectively. But it is, perhaps, dry humor (or “deadpan” humor) that is the most complicated to understand given its subtle, ironic delivery and the clever, obvious mechanisms used to elicit laughter from an audience.
A longstanding theatrical device, dry humor is most associated with the British, thanks to playwrights such as Oscar Wilde and William Shakespeare. Today, there are an endless amount of examples of it in modern film and television. It takes a particular understanding of what, exactly, you’re making a joke about, and to what end, in order for dry humor to be delivered and received effectively. So let’s break it all down, shall we?
Dry humor is all about the subtle irony of the facts being stated plainly; it is the contrast between sentiment and reality that makes the situation funny. The technique is known for its simple, often matter-of-fact declarations that will make the audience laugh or be perplexed (humor is subjective, after all). With dry humor, delivery and intention create a sort of comedic cognitive dissonance or contrast. Sometimes it is as simple as using a bit of sarcasm, but it can also be more than that.
Dry humor lives and dies on the back of doing less. Less facial expressions, less props, less setup—less is often more when it comes to landing the joke. You aren’t using a big, dramatic setup or a grandiose vocabulary to make your point.
Essentially, these jokes are derived from saying the opposite of what is meant or delivering them in a way that purposefully counteracts the supposed meaning of what is being said.
“Napoleon Dynamite” Courtesy Fox Searchlight Pictures
Dry humor in performance
When it comes to performing dry humor, there may be more to it than you think—but isn’t that the case with all comedy? It’s easy to make a meal out of a joke with the use of grand gestures, reactions, and expressions, but that doesn’t work when you’re performing a dry joke. Instead, wordplay, deadpan expressions, minimal-to-no props, and an understated delivery will be your friend.
Julia Louis-Dreyfus is a great performer who commits to dry humor well—and not just from her time on “Seinfeld.” As a put-upon and deeply out of touch vice president in Armando Iannucci’s “Veep,” Selina Meyer may be an absurd character, but it’s because Louis-Dreyfus grounds her motivations and matter-of-fact reactions that her work is so elevated and hilarious.
Sometimes dry humor can be seen as rude, patronizing, or passive-aggressive. (This is often the case on “Veep,” where the players involved are usually outwardly terrible people.) As a result, intention with dry humor is vitally important, otherwise you are more likely to offend than delight. Of course, some users of dry humor may be patronizing or passive-aggressive on purpose, so it’s always important to understand the context with which the characters you are playing are making their jokes.
Dry humor in writing and directing
The function of dry humor has often been to highlight the absurd. It is effectively executed in moments where satirization of the circumstances at play require little more than noting the facts aloud. Scottish television and film writer-director Iannucci is a master of the form; take a look at how many dry quips are delivered throughout the coup in his 2017 film, “The Death of Stalin.”
There are several moments in this clip that are funny because they’re simply true: the ineffective heads of state, the fumble for the button to start the coup, the comment about the knife, the joke about the outfit and the belt. They all work because they’re delivered so plainly, even in their absurdity. This is where Iannucci really excels as a comedic writer-director. Long known for his political commentary thanks to “The Thick of It,” “In The Loop,” and “Veep,” the reason dry humor works so well in his work is due to the ineffective manner that so many government offices and officials operate (at least to the common understanding of the people watching).
When writing this sort of humor, quick, cutting accuracy is key to making the jokes land. Simplicity is king, and an honest statement of the facts will always lead the way to finding the funny.
“The Office” Courtesy NBC
Another fantastic example of a dry humorist at work is Aubrey Plaza as April Ludgate on “Parks and Recreation.” Plaza’s unenthused, darkly comedic character serves as the perfect opposite to the plucky, hopeful heart and soul of the show, Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler). Leslie’s optimism could almost be seen as a cudgel, so insistent as she is on her dream to make the Pawnee Parks and Rec department the best government agency in Indiana. So to balance that out, it is essential for there to be a character like April (and also Leslie’s best friend/coworker, Ron Swanson, played by Nick Offerman) to bring the comedy back down to earth. Of course, for as many Leslie Knopes that exist in government, there are also plenty of April Ludgates, apathetically chugging along.
We’d also be remiss to not mention two iconic series from the mind of Larry David: “Seinfeld” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” Dry humor is at the heart of David’s comedic schtick. The irony at play in everything his character does or doesn’t do is constantly the butt of the joke. The reason dry humor works for David is that he’s constantly showcasing the absurdity and hypocrisy of the human experience. There’s a self-effacing quality to the dry humor his cast of characters so often deploy—even if they think they’re making fun of someone else. (In fact, that may be where it works the best.)
In the end, trying to garner laughs will always be a major challenge for comedic writers and performers. But the sooner you master the myriad ways in which you can find the funny, the surer you can be that you’re getting your point across.