Not even a giggle. He threw himself down into his seat in a dead sulk, his mood completely eclipsed. Selina made a disparaging remark about him, grinning as only she can at us as she did, and the Playhouse rocked with laughter again.

We were surprised therefore when we found him in the foyer grinning (until the corners of his mouth were "within an unimportant distance of his ears," thank you very fucking much Thomas Hardy) like a madman.

Ironically.

His hands were thrust deep into his pockets, and he turned his grin to us as we approached.

"What the hell’s up with you?" we asked bitterly, allowing Twoface to take over in our righteous rage.

"Oh nothing." He said grinning still. "Just…thinking that’s all."

We snorted in a derisory manner. "We can almost hear the hamster running in his wheel." We snarled. "We're going to find Selina. Be here when we get back."

"Sure thing Tutu." He said, grinning sweetly.

We stopped (we had been walking away from him) but with a supreme effort (and the clenching of our fists) we managed to not rise to the bait.

After inquiring with an official looking guy, (who complemented us on our costume - we almost laughed) we found our way to an old looking corridor and were about to advance down it when we found our way blocked by a sack of shit. In human form of course. It’s not the sort of thing you expect to see in a Theatre really.

Judging from his name badge, that he might of course have stolen, this one’s name was Dick. How apt we thought as he forcefully ejected us from the area, despite our insistence we were a friend of Selina’s.

We are probably being a little harsh on Dick. We asked if he knew who we were and he replied that he thought he had seen us in the paper…after a moment’s thought and prompting from us, he completely burst our ego balloon by asking if we were Tallyman. We were angered by this quite naturally (Tallyman indeed!! Hence our view of him has been somewhat marred), and after violently remonstrating we found ourselves on our ass out in the foyer.

This did absolutely nothing for our state of mind of course. Our face as we returned to Jack could have probably curdled milk.

"He’s certainly earning his pay cheque." We muttered. "Hopefully he can move his Goddamn sister and their baby out of the Goddamn trailer park so that he isn’t tempted every time he sees his Goddamn Uncle Jeremiah to do him up the Goddamn. . ."

"Why the long faces Harv?" Jack broke into our thoughts with the subtlety of a steamroller. "We have something that will cheer you up. Come and look what Uncle Joker has in his pocket."

We glared at him.

"No not that! Come and look!"

Reluctantly, we cautiously looked into his pocket. We were certain he had pulled a prank like this on the twice-accursed Ivy much to her distress.

His pale white hand was clutching what looked a lot like a small plunger, the kind that we villains often use to set off bombs. We looked at him startled. He grinned, and pointed downwards. We followed his gaze. He had lifted his trench coat slightly. We remembered that he had kept it on during the performance, and now realised why.

He had two small canisters strapped to his legs. We put the canisters and the plunger together mentally.

Oh no.

"Not laughing at my jokes are they?" he said, grinning wickedly, "I’ll give 'em something to laugh about! HAHAHAHAHA!"

Oh no.

We tried to stop him, but before we could he had bounded onto a chair and was shouting to the assembled throng to be quiet.

The room hushed, and turned to look at him.

"Doctor doctor, I think I’m a spoon! Well lie there and don’t stir."

Someone laughed. We looked around. People were struggling not to grin.

"My brother called his baby girl Exit. Apparently he wanted to see her name in lights."

More laughter.

"Where does the General keep his armies? Up his sleevies. Why did the boy take his pencil to bed? To draw the curtains. Who has the biggest boots in the U.S navy? The man with the biggest feet. Where does a six ton Gorilla sit in a theatre? Anywhere he wants. Have you read 'The Doubtful Author' by Ken. I. Wright? Why was Cinderella not very good at football? Her coach was a pumpkin and she kept running away from the ball! HAHAHAHAHA!"

We warned you before about his sense of humour didn’t we? See what we mean? It’s like Carrot Top and Andy Kauffman’s had an illicit love child. Not pleasant.

Everyone around us was laughing hysterically. Jack saw us now, sticking out like a couple of sore thumbs. "Don’t worry about my friend Harv." He said, wiping a tear of mirth from his eye. "he’s heard all my jokes before, and so has built up something of…an immunity to them."

It’s time for a bit of a history lesson.

In our never ending quest to stave off loneliness, ourselves and Ivy (when we were seeing each other) ended up going on a camping trip to a nearby forest with Arkham’s golden couple, The Joker and Harley Quinn.

It was on this very trip that we had built up our tolerance to nitrous oxide that Jack alluded to, for it was this gas that was in the canisters. Jack had been releasing it steadily (as he would admit later) from the moment the audience had begun applauding and continued until we returned from our ill-fated attempt to see Selina, giving it time to circulate and explaining the phenomenon we saw in front of us now.

To say the very least, the whole camping experience was a little surreal. Little did we know of course that Jack had concealed laughing gas distributors all around the camping area before ourselves and Ivy had got there. We found ourselves fighting the urge to burst into fits of laughter over and over. We are ashamed to say that we failed many times.

Most undignified. The feared and respected gangster Twoface coming close to wetting himself to such a-grade material as 'why did the chicken cross the road'.

Eventually however, we began to laugh less and less when we were unwittingly exposed. There came a time near the end when Jack thrust the nozzle of the canister in our faces and squeezed a long burst virtually straight down our throat, accompanied with a short fire burst of his best jokes. It was a struggle admittedly, but it didn’t even raise a grin from us.

Naturally, however, the average theatregoer has never endured such horrors (Jack’s jokes we mean), and it is therefore not surprising to us that before long everyone in the foyer was rolling around on the floor, laughter shrieking from exhausted lungs.

Although we don’t approve of his methods (half of the time anyway), let it never be said that Twoface is not an opportunist. Stepping over bodies that were rocking uncontrollably on the plush carpet, we made our way towards the corridor that lead to the dressing rooms. Naturally we gave the security guard who had been rude to us earlier a swift kick in the midriff as we passed, but far from taking offence he seemed to find it all very funny. Opportunist yes. Vindictive also. A double-barrelled middle name of ours if ever there was one.

"See you later Harv." Came a high voice from behind us. We turned around to see to see the clown prince standing in the middle of his devoted subjects, all of them in unstoppable humorous throes. "Tell the pussy cat we asked what’s new."

We never pictured Jack as a Tom Jones fan, we pondered as we stalked towards Selina’s dressing room, feeling a lot like the phantom of the opera. But then again, we learn something new every day, especially in this city.