Don’t applaud. Either laugh or don’t. (At the Comedy Cellar.)

An unputdownable journey into the comedy scene and its controversies, featuring Stewart Lee, Dave Chapelle, Louis CK, and many more of the biggest names in the business. Robin Williams. Jerry Seinfeld. Chris Rock. Amy Schumer. They all worked the Comedy Cellar in Greenwich Village. It’s where they honed their acts, experimenting, insulting, taking risks. And that was largely thanks to the club’s owners, the Dworman family. They wanted to make a space where freedom of expression was total. The only threat to it was a lack of laughs. How did Manny Dworman, taxi driver from Tel Aviv end up being godfather to the modern comedy industry. What makes a club thrive, or a career take off. Where should the moral limits of laughter lie. And why do the fork-count and the comedians’ table matter so very much. Andrew Hankinson raises all these questions and more in this many-sided conversation about the perils, pride, and politics of modern comedy.