Writing for British audiences

I recently launched a news parody site and I'd like to expand my reach. My audience is overwhelmingly American, with a healthy dose of Canadian readers thrown in, but I'd love to find some foothold among British fans as well. Being an American, my topics generally trend toward US topics, but I wonder if there is something I could be doing differently to attract British readers. I've been a fan of British comedy as long as I can remember, but I can't consciously distinguish what it is that makes our humour different. I wonder if any here could give me any ideas, aside from the obvious that most of the stories on my site deal are set in the US? You can see the site at http://brokenworldnews.com

Hi Salman, hope you are keeping well today buddy.

I am from Dublin, Ireland and write books of my own uniquely witty humour. My work has received some very good reviews from American professionals and I'm sure it would work well with British audiences too with me being from just across the Irish Sea. The material includes funny stories, jokes poking fun at people's surnames, jokes in general, stream of conscious and double entendres. If you would like to give me an address, I'd happily pop a couple of my books off in the post to you if you are looking for inspiration or maybe a few ideas...so long as you promise to give me some feedback!

Best of luck with your future ventures m8!

Why bother?You've got a far bigger market there already and shouldn't you write about what you know anyway?There's no such thing really as British humour .Scottish is different,Welsh is different , Irish is different and there are even regional differences in England. A lot of the Southern English , hate everybody else in Britain.Danny Baker , a well known comedy writer and media face in Britain , said on a chat show "everywhere else in Britain outside London is a wally place" Wally equals idiot.He is classed as a great wit.I rest my case.

The English sense of humour is a strange one.

I think it's a political evolutinary thing. The true freedom of speech only kicked in around the 18th century. Up until then being a writer or actor was potentially significantly worse than being a murderer.

So the sense of humour grew out of a dual need to insult the hierarchy and complain about your lot. Whilst staying under the radar.

So the English sense of humour has always been a quiet, droll form of protest. An expression of great rage and frustration, through a few quiet words.

Post 1945 it's been a way of coping with owning 2 thirds of the globe, to being a minor department in the EU.

You guys with your big country and freedom of speech just have less to moan about.

British audiences are also much more well informed about North American politics than you might think. We get stuff like the Daily Show over here (indeed our third biggest export is providing comedians to US television networks).

Do what you do well, and the British audience will find you with the right advertising. Don't feel you have to compromise in order to attract a different, comparatively small, audience.

From an Asian perspective, having watched both US and UK comedies, I think US comedy is 'louder' in its voice and the jokes come off being more obvious when used in syntax.

UK humour is dry and sharp with the words and their meanings all delightfully doing 'gymnastic moves' all over the place.

Of course, US humour has learnt a lot from their UK counterparts and have since infused some of these into black comedies like 'Curb Your Enthusiasm' and even dramas like 'Breaking Bad'.

Preference is still for UK comedies only because they are less 'in your face'.

But hey, we're no experts but maybe a quieter, less conspicuous tone might just work for the UK market.