Recent years have added abundantly to the many faces of humour: Danny Kaye, Richard Gordon, Tony Hancock, Peter Sellers, Jacques Tati, Kingsley Amis, Ronald Searle, J.D. Salinger… the list of laughter-makers grows and grows.
Who else, however, has oflered us so much fun with so little malice or cruelty as Giovanni Guareschi? It is now oven ten years since, in The Little World of Don Camillo, he first apprised the greater world of what was going on down there in the Valley of the Po, of the running fight between the honest village priest and his deadly opponent, Peppone, the Communist mayor, and of how the Good Lord strove to keep the peace. Most of the world is laughing still. For this is aclassic of humour.