Maria Grazia Turri is Senior Lecturer in Creative Arts and Mental Health at Queen Mary University of London, UK. She is a former psychiatrist and psychoanalytic psychotherapist.Bridget Escolme is Professor of Theatre and Performance at Queen Mary University of London. She is co-convenor of Queen Mary’s MSc Creative Arts and Mental Health.

• List of figuresList of tablesAcknowledgements1. Introduction: the Research in Action audience experiment at Shakespeare’s Globe Bridget Escolme and Maria Grazia Turri2. Psychoanalytic rationale of the audience experiment Maria Grazia Turri3. Researching unconscious responses to early modern characters at Shakespeare’s Globe: results Maria Grazia Turri4. A new theory of humour as manic defence Maria Grazia Turri5. Reading theories of humour through the manic defence Maria Grazia Turri6. The ecology of laughter and humour at the intersection of culture and biologyMaria Grazia Turri7. New insights into the socio-politics of humour Maria Grazia Turri8. The historicised subject: psychoanalytic discourse, Cultural Materialism, laughter and power Bridget Escolme9. Cuckolds and madmen: comic strength in the notoriously weak Bridget Escolme10. Laughing with the ‘whole pack’ of us: Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night and comic strength in contemporary production of early modern drama Bridget Escolme11. Reading comedy as genre through the manic defence Maria Grazia Turri12. Elements of unconscious emotional processes for a socio-politics of comedy Maria Grazia TurriConclusions: a dialogue Index