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Comedy is a science or an art?

August 22, 2014 at 11:29 clock Updated BST

How do the actors come up with funny lines? Is it a science or an art?

"Very often, I am working behind the Pointe," Tim Vine recently told the Today program.

But other actors work differently.

Paul McCaffrey added that decides what he thinks is funny and works in a time when the public thinks laugh.

"The trick is to try to pretend that spontaneous as possible., You want the public to believe that there is something to what you say and think, for the first time, in fact," he added.

The comedian, actor and writer Tiff Stevenson sharpens its act in a similar manner to declare that "I work with what I do I find something funny on and then in this context."

First broadcast on the Today program on BBC Radio 4 Friday, August 22