British comedy

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Throughout film, television, and radio, British comedy has become known for its consistently peculiar characters, plots, and settings, and has produced some of the most renowned comedians and characters in the world.

History

"[Pulcinella] went down particularly well with

Puritanism
. We soon changed Punch's name, transformed him from a marionette to a hand puppet, and he became, really, a spirit of Britain - a subversive maverick who defies authority, a kind of puppet equivalent to our political cartoons."

—Punch and Judy showman Glyn Edwards.[1]

British

Shakespeare incorporated many chase scenes and beatings into his comedies, such as in his play The Comedy of Errors. The quarrelsome couple Punch and Judy made their first recorded appearance in Britain in 1662, when Samuel Pepys noted a "pretty" puppet play being performed in Covent Garden, London.[1] The various episodes of Punch and Judy are performed in the spirit of outrageous comedy — often provoking shocked laughter — and are dominated by the anarchic clowning of Mr. Punch.[2]

political cartoons in 18th century England.[3] The medium developed under the direction of its greatest exponent, James Gillray from London, who has been referred to as the father of the political cartoon.[4] With his satirical works calling the king (George III), prime ministers and generals (especially Napoleon) to account, Gillray's wit and keen sense of the ridiculous made him the pre-eminent cartoonist of the era.[4]

In early 19th century England, pantomime acquired its present form which includes slapstick comedy and featured the first mainstream clown Joseph Grimaldi, while comedy routines also featured heavily in British music hall theatre which became popular in the 1850s.[5][6] British comedians who honed their skills at pantomime and music hall sketches include Charlie Chaplin, Stan Laurel, George Formby and Dan Leno.[7][8] The influential English music hall comedian and theatre impresario Fred Karno developed a form of sketch comedy without dialogue in the 1890s, and Chaplin and Laurel were among the young comedians who worked for him as part of "Fred Karno's Army".[7]

Film comedy

See British comedy films (Cinema of the United Kingdom).

Radio

Radio comedy in Britain has been almost exclusively the preserve of the BBC, and a number of British radio comedies achieved considerable renown in the second half of the 20th century.

In the 1940s and 1950s,

The Goons (Peter Sellers, Spike Milligan and Harry Secombe) starred in their own anarchic series The Goon Show which ran throughout the 1950s. At the same time, the BBC was also running Hancock's Half Hour starring Tony Hancock
, the first of a new generation of comedies based on believable characters and situations. Hancock's Half Hour later transferred to TV and was phenomenally successful throughout the 1950s, running concurrently on radio and television until 1960.

Another notable radio show was the double entendre-laden Round the Horne (1965–1968), a sequel to the earlier series Beyond Our Ken, which ran from 1959 to 1964. I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again (1964-1973) gained a devoted youth following in the late 1960s.

Later radio shows made use of the panel game format, including the long-running Just a Minute (1967–), I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue (1972–) and The News Quiz (1977–), which often broadcast a dozen of so episodes a year, normally split over two series broadcast at different points in the year. The success of the panel show format has in turn has influenced TV series like Have I Got News for You (1990–), They Think It's All Over (1995–2006) and Mock the Week (2005–).

BBC Radio has continued to be a breeding ground for new talent and many programmes have transferred successfully to television, including

Little Britain
.

Television

Although many popular shows of recent years began life on BBC Radio, there have been many successful and influential series which were designed purely for TV. In contrast to their US counterparts, which have seasons of up to 26 episodes a year, British sit-coms traditionally have series of just 6 episodes. The main reason for this is that British shows are generally written by one or two dedicated writers - often the people that created the show in the first place - as opposed to the US model of having a larger writing team. In part, this is a reflection of the difference between the size of the TV audience in the two countries, and the economics of television production; for decades sit-coms were the shows on US television that delivered the highest ratings; in Britain the highest ratings figures were normally for soap operas, which generally run several times a week, year-in year-out, and as a result generally required larger writing teams.

Following the success of Hancock's Half Hour and Steptoe and Son, the sitcom became firmly entrenched in the television schedules. Some of the most successful examples include Dad's Army, Absolutely Fabulous, and Red Dwarf.

The

BBC has generally been dominant in television comedy, but the commercial stations have also had some successes. ITV's most successful sitcoms were generally produced in the 1970s, including Rising Damp, On the Buses, and George and Mildred. Commercial station Channel 4 has been more successful than ITV with situation comedies in recent years. Some of the better-known examples are Drop the Dead Donkey, Spaced, Green Wing, and The Inbetweeners
.

Other formats have also been popular, with sketch shows, stand-up comedy,

Alistair McGowan's Big Impression
has been notable.

The most notable

Never Mind The Buzzcocks
.

One of the most influential groups in comedy is

Q series. Python found surprising popularity in the US in the 1970s, as did the less cerebral humour of Benny Hill and his ITV sketch series The Benny Hill Show
.

Other notable sketch-based series include A Bit of Fry & Laurie, Morecambe and Wise, The Two Ronnies, The Goodies, French and Saunders, The Catherine Tate Show, and The Fast Show.

In the 1980s, alternative comedy was spearheaded by Ben Elton and The Comic Strip group which included Alexei Sayle, Rik Mayall, and French and Saunders.

Vic Reeves Big Night Out influenced the style of a whole new generation of comics in the 1990s until the present day.[10]

The 1990s and 2000s also saw the rise of a new set of British comedians who made innovative contributions mainly in the form of sitcoms. Shows such as

Jessica Stevenson, Mark Heap, Tamsin Greig, Bill Bailey
have revolved around these series.

See also

References

  1. ^ a b "Punch and Judy around the world". The Telegraph. 11 June 2015.
  2. ^ "Mr Punch celebrates 350 years of puppet anarchy". BBC. 11 June 2015.
  3. ISBN 9780838619018
    .
  4. ^ a b "Satire, sewers and statesmen: why James Gillray was king of the cartoon". The Guardian. 18 June 2015.
  5. ^ David Christopher (2002). "British Culture: An Introduction". p. 74. Routledge,
  6. ^ Jeffrey Richards (2014). "The Golden Age of Pantomime: Slapstick, Spectacle and Subversion in Victorian England". I.B.Tauris,
  7. ^ a b McCabe, John. "Comedy World of Stan Laurel". p. 143. London: Robson Books, 2005, First edition 1975
  8. ^ "Enjoy Cumbria – Stan Laurel". BBC. Retrieved 2 January 2015
  9. ^ "Spitting Image". The Guardian. Retrieved 2 February 2015
  10. ^ BBC – BBC THREE – Listings[permanent dead link]

Further reading

  • Quirk, Sophie (2018), The Politics of British Stand-up Comedy: The New Alternative, Palgrave Macmillan,
    ISBN 978-3-030-01104-8
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