The article is devoted to the study of the nature of the authors remark and its functional ability to create a comic effect. At the first stage, an attempt was made to determine the role of the authors commentary in the text of the play. Within the framework of this question, we have highlighted the key characteristics of dramatic discourse, namely, fiction and stylization. Next, we focused on the phenomenon of paratext, presenting the positions of both domestic and foreign researchers regarding the role of paratext in a dramatic work, namely the need to take into account the features of paratext when performing discourse analysis. In addition, in the article we made an attempt to present a brief history of the origin of the term paratext. Thus, the processes of interaction within the pair text-paratext substantiated the need to study the dramatic text precisely through the prism of this correlation. As sources of factual material, we selected plays (The Comedy About a Bank Robbery, The Play that Goes Wrong), the authors of which were a galaxy of British playwrights working in tandem: Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer and Henry Shields. In the course of the study, a selection of text fragments was formed, which made it possible to identify a number of authorial techniques for creating a comic effect, the mechanisms of which are repeatedly duplicated from play to play, which makes it possible to suggest the presence of a characteristic comic style inherent in this trio of playwrights. As a basic technique for creating a comic effect, the authors use the interaction of replicas of the characters of the play and remarks that contradict each other, thereby realizing the principle of inconsistency, which in turn becomes one of the basic principles of comedy. Thus, the final part of the study is devoted to the implementation of the principles of absurdity, inconsistency and deceived expectations through the interaction of the authors remark and the dialogue part of the play.

Various approaches to theoretical interpretation of the concept word play are considered in the present article. The research project is aimed at describing the nature of the phenomenon mentioned above and summing up various means and ways of its verbal implementation within the genre of a comic novel. At the initial stage of the article there is an attempt to find the most frequently applied verbal markers of the concept play in reference to stylistic and philosophical aspects of the phenomenon while the next step is devoted to the analysis of specific language means for creating a comic effect in the textual space of novels. The attention is focused upon identification of the most frequently applied strategies for creating word play effects within a comic novel. Our research is based on the novels written by a well-known modern English satirist Tom Sharp (Porterhouse Blue Blott on the Landscape). The results obtained contribute to the adequate interpretation of a large variety of language means and devices used by the author for creating comic effects. Besides the word play role in intensifying the comic effects is also shown (at the lexical level they comprise the so-called speaking names represented by toponyms, a number of the individual author's puns in the format of a dialogue, the deformation of phraseological units and the similar language units. The most frequent language means applied by the author include the characterological names and comic dialogues with puns incorporated. The novelty of our work is provided by the unique character of the language material on the one hand and by the introduction of some erotic motives reflecting modern trends in literature free from strict censorship, on the other.