What's So Funny About Peace, Love and Understanding?

The show's title is taken from an Elvis Costello song written by Nick Lowe, and seems particularly apt at the turning of the year when we can be so sated with the sentimental and assaulted by the avarice of the consumer world, both masquerading as the genuine article: love. It's a time too, when families and nations, ostensibly gathered together to celebrate, can fall into argument and fighting; a time when differing religions vie for supremacy, when egos clash, when force and biligerence can come to the fore. At such a moment it is easy to become cynical about the plea of our title but, really, what exactly is so funny about Peace, Love and Understanding?