Stuttering humour in Portal 2: subtitling stand-up inspired jokes in videogame dialogue

Portal 2 (2011) was a success in the videogame world and turned into a critical darling across the years. The premise of a dystopian and tragic futuristic sci-fi setting was craftly paired with charismatic and humorous characters. Among those, Wheatley stands out both as the only British-speaking character and the most consistent comic relief throughout the game. Considering the success of Wheatley’s voice actor, as well as his stand-up career, the links and influences between the stand-up comedy world and the humorous content in videogames are to be considered a relevant stage for the development of the field. By focusing on Portal 2 as a case study, this study addresses the textual structure of humour delivery in the videogame through original theory on joke structure in stand-up comedy, following through with qualitative observations on the videogame, its Italian subtitling, and the value of capitalisation as a subtitling tool for the purpose of humour translation.