The Times of London investigates “Why the recession is good for a laugh.”

Indeed, if you had swooped across this apparently depressed and recession-hit isle you would have been drawn to laughter in packed clubs and theatres in almost every town and city. Add up the seats of every sold-out venue and you would have had nearly 100,000 giggling comedy fans, all braving the rain on a chilly spring night in search of a grin or two. It was as if, with one voice, Britain was shouting: “Show me the funny.”

“Comedy always does well in times of crisis,” said Jon Thoday, joint managing director of Avalon, which manages Harry Hill, Frank Skinner and David Baddiel. “Alternative comedy started in the 1980s recession and Newman and Baddiel played Wembley arena in the 1990s downturn. But this time comedy seems to have taken over. It’s the biggest live thing around.

“I’ve been in the business for 20 years and I’m amazed at how many tickets we’re selling. Last year, as the recession hit, we planned a tour for one of our acts, Russell Howard. For London we thought maybe we’d manage to fill a night at the Hammersmith Apollo [a medium-sized venue]. In the end we sold out three nights [there] and a night at Wembley.”

Thoday has another theory. It’s television’s derogation of duty when it comes to providing its audience with comedy.

There is also a more practical recession-related reason. Despite the multitude of channels and airtime to fill, television stations, with a few honourable exceptions, have shown a diminishing interest and budget for decent comedy. Most on-screen comedy talent has faced pay cuts of up to 30 per cent over the past year. Television’s loss has been live comedy’s gain, according to Thoday.

“If there had been six or seven artists with the power to command this kind of audience in the early 1990s, they would have been massively pursued by the broadcasters and then been all over our screens,” he said. “But as TV doesn’t really have that many megastars any more– its largely peopled by factual programmes– the hunger the public has for entertainment has pushed them to go out and look for it.”

We are not sure we buy either theory.

Live comedy goes in cycles. If those cycles happen to coincide with those of the economy, the temptation is great to view this as cause and effect. Which we’d believe if it happened every time. But it doesn’t.

And the second theory– that the lack of comedy on television is forcing folks to seek out live comedy– is the exact opposite of the “television killed comedy” argument. Readers of this publication are well aware that we don’t subscribe to that theory either.

The Times (and Thoday) seem to think that British television stations are uninterested in presenting comedy because of the cost. We suspect that, like their U.S. counterparts, they’re just convinced that their viewers are “over” comedy (“The sitcom is dead!”) and that the Brits are even more likely to view standup as lowbrow.

Of course, all that flies in the face of past history. As the nets swirl around the drain, they’ll come up with any number of excuses for their failure. The answers will have been right in front of them the entire time.

Just as recorded music will cease to be the high-margin cash cow that it once was– and live performance will be the bread and butter of so many musical performers– so too will sitcoms and TV shots cease to be the rocket to stardom– and live performance will reign supreme. It’ll take a bit longer for TV’s influence to wain. But it will happen. Newspapers, television, recorded music, even theatrical movie distribution– all will cease to exist in their current forms. The only speculation is as to the order in which they’ll wink out.