Jonathan Bellamy spoke with sit-com writer James Cary, about his work, when jokes go wrong, and humour in the Church.

Jonathan: Tell us about your comedy. You run a theatre company as well. Is that comedy theatre?

James: Yes, it is. I wrote a play called the God Particle, which has been touring the UK on and off for a few years. It's a romantic comedy about science and religion.

In 2017 I did a show about Martin Luther and the 95 Theses, because it was the 500th anniversary of these things being hammered to the church door in Wittenberg, which started the Reformation.

Jonathan: What did you find funny about that?

James: A lot of it is very funny. In a way it's partly because I wanted to do something that my kids would like, and I'm a comedy writer, so I treat the subject comically because it is funny. Again, it's a little underdog story; a completely nameless German monk takes on the entire Catholic Church and the Pope and everybody. And he kind of wins, or at least he does pretty well. There's lots there and also a comic explanation of it.

What I should be doing right now, rather than talking to you, is finishing writing a new show for this year and next year about the murder of Thomas Beckett, which happened in 1170. The archbishop had the top of his head cut off in Canterbury Cathedral by those knights, "Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?" It's one of those big events in British history. The plan for this year and next year is to tour with the show called Turbulent Priest.

Jonathan: And you squeezed into all of that the writing of this book the 'Sacred Art of Joking', or 'Why Jokes Often go so Horribly Wrong'. What's the purpose of this book?

James: In a way, I feel this is the book I have been wanting to write for 10 or 15 years. As a Christian and a comedy writer this book needs to exist.

Also there are theological books about comedy and there are books about comedy and the Bible, but they tend to be written by theologians who understand theology, but I'm not sure if they understand comedy.

So I thought it would be interesting if a professional comedian, comedy writer, wrote a book with a sprinkling of theology. I do actually have a degree in theology from the University of Durham, so I'm not a complete idiot, although I may sound like one.

Also we Brits in particular do take comedy very seriously, and yet nowadays jokes can end your career. You tweet a joke and suddenly there's a huge backlash against you. You can be fired, or you could have somebody turn up at your office with a gun. So it is all pretty serious.

I thought it would be worth thinking exactly what's going on here and what are the rules and how does it work and what do we need to do? Hopefully I've shed a bit of light rather than heat onto this debate.

Jonathan: Does it help liberate people, particularly Christians, to know they can laugh more than perhaps they do?

James: I hope so.

As I said earlier, you're not expecting to laugh when you go into church and I think that's a shame. One of the reasons for that, which I talk about, is how church takes music very seriously and spends a lot of money and expertise on music, but we tend to neglect the reading of the Word.