Jail jokers

Heard the one about the inmate who took a stand-up comedy course to help him integrate back into society? It might sound funny, but it's not a joke, because the Comedy School in east London offers just that. Gary Ruff, 23, is a recruitment consultant in Camden Town and proof that a little humour goes a long way. While at Aylesbury young offenders' institution in Buckinghamshire, serving part of a four-year sentence for street robbery and assault, he took a three-month comedy course.

"Aylesbury was a dark, miserable place," he says. "I wouldn't have got through it without laughter. When you're in an institution your confidence goes. We felt no one understood us and that we had to face up to our problems by ourselves. The project showed us we could do things we thought we'd never be able to do. We had something to focus on. And we had a laugh." The experience also gave him the confidence to take lessons in IT and business studies.

Ruff has been in his current job for a year and hopes to work with young offenders in similar schemes.

The Comedy School is a non-profit-making organisation founded three years ago to promote comedy. In 1998 director Keith Palmer decided to set up programmes for young offenders. These last from one week to three months on such subjects as stand-up, improvisation, sitcom writing, comedy drama and clowning. Around 15 people attend each one, and the drop-out rate is low. While it is not unusual for stand-up comedians to perform for inmates, using humour as a rehabilitation tool is something different altogether.

A key element of the course is self-analysis. Neil Mullarkey from the Comedy Store Players teaches improvisation classes for the school. He believes humour is inherently therapeutic: "If you can laugh at someone, you can begin to understand them. And if you can laugh at yourself, you can begin to understand yourself."

Professional stand-up comedian Rudi Lickwood is a tutor at the school. "Humour can be self-deprecating, yet you can still impress your peers," he says. "It shows you don't have to intimidate or hurt anyone to get respect or make friends."

Lickwood first gets the men to discuss issues they feel strongly about - typically, prison food, how it feels to be locked up, and difficulties relating to women. "In these places no one wants to let their guard down. But if you do stand-up, it's a bit like taking your clothes off in front of everybody. You can't hide behind a reputation or being part of a group. You have to ask yourself: where are my individual talents going to take me? We encourage them to look hard at themselves."

Keith Palmer gives an example: "If a guy strides on to the stage and is bouncing and swaggering, we get him to look at the signals this might give off. And if he still doesn't get it, we film him and get him to look at how important body language is in terms of communication."

The course also includes literacy skills. Young offenders have typically had a bad experience with education. Through writing jokes, analysing comic material, debating and performing, they practise basic education skills. But as everyone is in stitches, it makes learning fun.

Palmer says the Comedy School currently works with young rather than adult offenders because he believes the former have a better chance of making lasting changes. He emphasises that the course is not about creating the next Jerry Seinfeld. Although some young offenders have expressed an interest, none has yet opted to take up comedy seriously.