Benjamin Britten's Sense of Humor

I noticed that in "The Battle of Britten," Leo Carey's examination of the life and work and Benjamin Britten in conjunction with three recent books appearing in this centennial year of the composer's birth, Carey refers to Albert Herring as Britten's "only comic" opera. In the next paragraph, he compares the music with that of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Was this Carey's way of saying (perhaps covertly) that Britten had failed to capture William Shakespeare's comic spirit; or did he has some other category in mind for the Midsummer opera?