Although the play uses "the semantic nit-picking that is a standard part of music hall comedy"[1] and is generally considered funny, this is not comedy for its own sake, but "a crucial part of the power-structure".[1]
"The comedy routines in the early plays are maps to the themes and meaning of the plays as a whole.... Our failure to laugh may be an indication that we, the audience, have come to side (or have been taught to side) with the victim rather than the victimiser."[6]
The stories Ben picks out from his newspaper have a similar purpose. He describes an old man, wanting to cross the street, who crawls under a lorry and is run over by it (but it is not clear if the man is killed or not). Ben seems to expect the response, "What an idiot!" but Gus replies "Who advised him to do a thing like that?" which shifts responsibility and suggests the old man was a victim to be pitied. "The eventual split between Ben and Gus is foreshadowed in the very first joke.... By the end of the play, Pinter has trained us to see that the content of the joke-exchange is meaningless: what is important is the structure, and the alliances and antagonisms it reveals."[6]
