Zia ul-Haq is not a well-known name on the comedy circuit. And after recent news stories it is unlikely that he ever will be. Ul-Haq, a convicted al-Qaeda terrorist, was one of 18 inmates at Whitemoor Prison in Cambridgeshire on a stand-up comedy course that was halted in November after tabloid outrage that £8,000 of taxpayers' money was being spent on convicts learning how to make people laugh.

“The whole thing is ridiculous,” says Keith Palmer, the genial fortysomething founder of the Comedy School, which has run prison courses such as this for a decade. Palmer was amazed that the matter made the headlines and that Jack Straw, the Justice Minister, issued a statement stating that the course was “totally unacceptable... Prisons should be a place of punishment and reform”.

Yet there are genuine objections. Money spent on criminals raises hackles. And when it is spent on comedy, which is perceived as trivial, the opposition - from relatives of 7/7 victims to politicians - is understandably vocal. As a result of the controversy a consultation is now taking place - with an announcement due imminently - looking, among other things, into which prison classes pass a “public acceptibility test”.

The Comedy School has plenty of high-profile supporters. Neil Morrisey, the star of Men Behaving Badly, and Paul Merton are both patrons, as is Felix Dexter, who played Saffy's boyfriend in Absolutely Fabulous. Dexter performed at Whitemoor in October. It was equally an odd gig and a very normal one for this seasoned professional. “The governor warned me that there were murderers and people with disturbed personalities in the audience. That sounded like a typical Saturday night crowd.”

Any suggestion that prisons are holiday camps is quickly dismissed. Whitemoor is a maximum security prison and the inmates are constantly reminded of this. “You only have to hear the doors clanging behind you. The whole thing is very brutal,” Dexter says.

He saw that plenty of prisoners want to change their lives. “Why release them angry? Doing comedy releases them in a positive vein. It rescues them. It is better to do a positive thing to make them feel they have a stake in society than just let them rot. If you are involved in a collaborative scheme and use your creative skills, that's all part of personal development, giving them self-respect that they've been denied before.”

In some respects the Comedy School's very name contributed to this controversy. Palmer's work is not that different from traditional drama therapy, but calling it a comedy course helped to invoke the red-top controversy. No one could object to criminals learning about Shakespeare, but the stand-up tag makes it sound too much like fun. Yet Palmer's stand-up pitch also gives the course its unique selling point, a sexiness that helps with funding and raises its profile. The ethos, however, remains fiendishly simple: “If you think about how comedy works, if you are laughing then you are listening. If you are listening, that's really what all educators want.”

The organisation, which also gives public courses, usually spends about a week taking offenders through classes involving improvisation, scriptwriting, mask work and role play, culminating in a performance in front of fellow inmates. Teachers, including Rudi Lickwood, the star of The Real McCoy, treat every student the same, with the aim of getting even the toughest lifers to make themselves vulnerable by creating characters and finding the funny side of their lives.

Their jokes might not always be top rate - though Palmer points to a nice Grand Designs-type gag about a prisoner going to see the governor to apply to have an extension built on his cell - but the process is more of a transformative journey than appearing on The X Factor. It is about learning to empathise and communicate. Palmer points to numerous alumni who have become youth workers or given talks in schools. Performing has helped them to gain the confidence to speak publicly.

At the moment Palmer is concerned that, depending on what the Home Office consultation concludes, his and many other arts courses could be in jeopardy even though Straw supports “constructive pursuits”. Ultimately it comes down to the perennial debate about whether prison is about punishment or rehabilitation. “If you are interested in locking people up and not doing anything with them, then cut to the chase, bring back the death sentence and bring prison figures down. It would save on the paperwork,” Palmer says.

Alternatively, you could motivate convicts to turn their lives around and change negatives to positives. After all, surely it is better that ul-Haq comes out of prison making jokes rather than bombs?

www.thecomedyschool.com

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