BBC Radio 4

Much of today's comedy and playwriting owes a huge debt to a couple of Paris based writers born around 100 years ago who are regarded as the founders of the Theatre of the Absurd: Eugene Ionesco, Arthur Adamov and Samuel Beckett. Their surreal, sometimes bleak, sometimes hilarious plays may look like a weird kink, a dogleg in the history of drama. But their ability to provoke, to unsettle, to show us the fallibility of language, to make the everyday seem extraordinary, and the extraordinary seem as homely as a cup of tea changed what makes us laugh, and had profound philosophical implications.

Revisiting the world of Absurd Theatre, Terry Jones assesses the debt that modern comedy owes to the Absurd movement.