Hello, readers. This week, I’ve been reminiscing on how some misunderstandings, once understood, turn out to be quite funny. When you look back on times you’ve been misunderstood and realised how easy and humorous it was to misunderstand you, does it make you laugh? I think the backbone of a lot of comedy is about misunderstandings (intentional or otherwise), and I think a lot of misunderstandings, when found to be funny, can bring us closer together.

So, this week I’ve taken submissions that have a humorous element to them. I hope they bring a smile to your face, and that you might be able to relate to one or two of these misunderstandings…

First up is a poem by our own Thoughtful Tuesdays editor, Eithne. This is very relatable, showing us we all experience some of the same things. Daily life is full of misunderstandings, and if we can find the funny in it, then maybe our day will be a little better!

Misunderstanding

When the train plonks you in the wrong place;
when the five foot Christmas tree you ordered
is only five inches tall. When you cross the room
to see a friend to find it is not her. Or when
you spell your dear one’s name on the
birthday card…and wonder whether should you
cross it out?  When you put cocoa in the gravy,
easy mistake. Or book the flight for next Saturday –
and you’re expected there today. Move across the
stumbling mistakes, small confusions. Feel
the constant blush of not quite right, know
someone’s watching as you push against the door
marked PULL.

© Eithne Cullen, 2025

Connect on Instagram: @eithnecullen57

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Now we have a short article by Azmina Sohail. Here, Azmina has thought about the role of comedy, and how comedians are able to provoke laughter from us by employing different tactics such as misdirection and absurdity; something that can also result from a misunderstanding.

Blockheads

Stand-up, sketch, slapstick, parody, surreal, dark – the world of comedy is beyond brimming and one that is new to me. The last century has produced some of the world’s greatest comedians, double acts, sketches, deliveries and so on. Like all forms of art, our appreciation of it is personal but, by examining comedy as a form and deconstructing it, we will find that it can only be understood if we apply specific interpretation.

In order to understand the nature of comedy, we as viewers have to be flexible in our understanding of the language it’s communicated in and the way we’re receiving it. Take the simple pun: we have to know the various definitions of a specific word in order for the joke to work. Once we recognise its premise, we pick the appropriate definition of the word and apply it to the sentence, thus producing the desired effect. Transfer this notion into film, television or stage and the stakes become higher. One needs to form a credible story while humouring your audience enough to keep them invested until the outcome of the story is completed.

One of my earliest exposures to this was with Laurel and Hardy. The classic duo were both fun and funny to the extent that both adults and children could engage with them. But what made them so? They were physical and intellectual opposites, the stories were simple to follow and they oozed the class and world of the 1930’s. But it was the silliness of slapstick that kept us glued. Slapstick is exaggeration, hyperbolic and physical. It’s the meeting of realism and the absurd, so as viewers we have to open ourselves to a different form of interpretation; witnessing everyday normal situations while suspending our disbelief when a glass of iced water is casually pulled out from a pocket and smacked away, or a human hand is used as a tool to smoke! We collectively withhold logic and everyday reason for the sake of a comedic result.

I tip my hat to comedians who are writers at heart. Their genre is full and varied but certainly not done. Time will continue to produce more people who are willing to show us humour in wild and specific ways. The irony is that the appearance of ‘stupidity’, in actual fact, takes real intelligence.

© Azmina Sohail, 2025

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Now, we have a poem by Danny. A simple premise: where is someone? Yet it’s this simplicity that enables all readers to initially relate to the misunderstanding. The short lines (and poem) give it a comedic, light tone, rife with confusion and apparent misunderstandings. I’m not sure I (or the narrator) are any less confused at the end, which has made me chuckle to myself while writing this.

Where’s Tony?

I’m sure he came in with Kevin
At the first workshop with Louise
But now that I think of it, I’m struggling
To picture what he looks like with ease
In fact, I have no remembrance
No visual memory to recall
Which is causing me to question
If Tony was ever there at all!

© Danny Baxter, 2018

Connect with Danny on Instagram: @dan_lbbd

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Lastly, we have an extract by Brigid Griffin. The narrator opens with a humorous tone, despite the sombre subject matter as we read on. While the narrator employs a comedic affect, it’s used as a way of delivering a sad-sweet piece about misunderstandings, and their impact on people’s lives.

When The Small Creatures Wake (Extract)

Midge decided she needed another source of income. She had worked a paper round Monday to Friday for the past couple of years for Mr Crown, who ran the newsagents and post office on York Street. It was a nice enough job but didn’t pay enough to make up for the early starts in all weathers, vicious dogs, and complaints from miserable sods who reckoned Midge had torn the front of their Daily Mirror trying to feed the paper through a letter box the size of a fag packet.

Gregory Crown was one of the few adults Midge really liked. When she had first gone into the shop to start her paper round, she had never met him before, and nobody had warned her what he looked like. When he turned to greet her, she saw that one side of his face was a regular old man’s face — clean shaven with a strong jaw and thick eyebrow, a wave of Brylcreemed blue-black and silver hair swept back. The other left side was a burned, puckered, rippled mass of plastic-like flesh. The skin was shiny in parts, an eye fused shut, and scarring reaching down to his neck. There was no left ear, just a wrinkled hole without a lobe. Mr Crown’s left hand was a livid, melted paw.

Midge was utterly shocked. She pretended a second too late she wasn’t surprised by his appearance, rearranged her own face, and explained she was here to take over from David Prendergast, a neighbour who had decided early mornings and hard graft were not for him. Gregory Crown admired her gentle courtesy and hired her on the spot. He held out his good right hand for her to shake, and she grasped in firmly. He was the only person who called Midge by her birth name; Amanda. They liked each other immediately and struck up a friendship. There had been a lot of men in and out of Midge’s short life, and he was one of a tiny number who treated her with kindness and respect.

Grandma Peggy told Midge that Gregory Crown was once a very handsome man who used to sing in the church choir and in the pubs round town. In 1940, he had been flying back from Germany in a Lancaster bomber when the Luftwaffe had put paid to his RAF film star looks and beautiful young voice. After the first shock of seeing his disfigurement, Midge never gave it a second thought. Mr Crown wore his scars with a quiet grace. Much as Midge would have liked to have asked him about the war, she never did. It was something unspoken between them that didn’t need to be voiced. A quiet understanding.

They had a nice little routine going, Midge and Mr Crown. He would be there when Midge arrived with Baz at 6.30 am, having marked up all the papers in his elegant, cursive script. He slotted them neatly into two canvas delivery bags, bracing each one open with his gnarled hand. She would push the door open with its sharp tinging bell, and Mr Crown would be there behind the counter like a quiet sentinel, looking up with his tight half-smile. In the winter, a pool of golden light from the unshaded bulb hanging low over his head would illuminate him and the stacks of papers, the carousel of birthday cards, racks of magazines and books of crossword puzzles, shelves of sweets and cigarettes. Midge often reflected that the damaged side of his face was always in shadow. Framed like this, an observer would never know he was scarred, as if the war had never happened to Gregory Crown.

In the summer months, the job was easy. The light mornings made all the difference, and Midge liked to be roaming the streets before everyone was up and about. It was her favourite time of day, nobody about to bother her and even though she ran flat out at times, there always seemed time to daydream and make up stories about the people who lived behind all the letter boxes. She could find a wall to sit on to read the paper, flick through magazines she would never buy, eat some sweets, and talk to Baz.

This April and May, Mr Crown had been listening to the radio a lot more when she came in, usually Radio Four or the World Service. It always seemed to be the same monotone posh man’s voice seeping out of the speaker, sounding serious and strained.

‘What’s happening today, Mr Crown?’ Midge twitched her head to the enormous old wireless on the counter. Next to the radio, Jaggery, the shop cat, was purring like an engine, almost drowning out the sound of the newsreader. Fast asleep and tightly curled on a stack of the Woman’s Own, Midge realised she had never actually seen the cat awake.

‘War, love.’ He glanced up at her, his eye filled with sorrow,

‘We are at war with Argentina, over a few daft bits of rock in the South Atlantic. And it will get a lot worse soon. We have sunk one of their ships; The Belgrano. There will be hell on now. They will want revenge for that. All those lads of theirs — dead.’ Mr Crown sighed flatly. He passed his hand over Jaggery’s back in a gentle, repetitive motion, and Midge saw that just for a moment he was far away, back to a place he would rather not recall.

© Brigid Griffin, 2024

Connect with Brigid on Instagram: @brigidgriffinwrites

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I hope you had a few laughs from this week’s Showcase. Tune in next Wednesday for my final one!

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If you’d like to see your writing appear in the Write On! Showcase, please submit your short stories, poetry or novel extracts to: pentoprint.org/get-involved/submit-to-write-on/

Hear extracts from Showcase in our podcast. Write On! Audio. Find us on all major podcast platforms, including Apple and Google Podcasts and Spotify. Type Pen to Print into your browser and look for our logo or find us on Spotify for Pocasters.

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