| A National Joke: Popular Comedy and English Cultural Identities Contributor(s): Medhurst, Andy (Author) |
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ISBN: 0415168775 ISBN-13: 9780415168779 Publisher: Routledge OUR PRICE: $152.00 Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats Published: March 2006 Annotation: Crammed full of contemporary comedy examples and house-hold names, from the music hall tradition to contemporary sitcoms, Andy Medhurst considers how English comedy reflects national concerns with class, race, gender and sexuality and traces the recurrence of themes and structures. Examining popular English comedies and comedians in the twentieth century, ranging from the Carry On films to the work of Mike Leigh and contemporary sitcoms such as The Royle Family, and from George Formby to Alan Bennett and Roy 'Chubby' Brown, the book argues that comedy plays a pivotal role in the construction of cultural identity. Medhurst presents case studies of comic traditions and representations, and examines key figures in English comic history, including Mike Leigh, Alan Bennett and Victoria Wood. Part history and part polemic, A National Joke is a book that will not only entertain, it will enlighten and inform any student, scholar, or general reader of our national comedy. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Performing Arts | Comedy |
| Dewey: 791.436 |
| LCCN: 2007011485 |
| Physical Information: 0.73" H x 6.52" W x 9.51" (1.08 lbs) 240 pages |
| Themes: - Cultural Region - British Isles |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Comedy is crucial to how the English see themselves. This book considers that proposition through a series of case studies of popular English comedies and comedians in the twentieth century, ranging from the Carry On films to the work of Mike Leigh and contemporary sitcoms such as The Royle Family, and from George Formby to Alan Bennett and Roy 'Chubby' Brown. Relating comic traditions to questions of class, gender, sexuality and geography, A National Joke looks at how comedy is a cultural thermometer, taking the temperature of its times. It asks why vulgarity has always delighted English audiences, why camp is such a strong thread in English humour, why class influences what we laugh at and why comedy has been so neglected in most theoretical writing about cultural identity. Part history and part polemic, it argues that the English urgently need to reflect on who they are, who they have been and who they might become, and insists that comedy offers a particularly illuminating location for undertaking those reflections. |