Abstract
This short introduction analyses existing accounts of the birth of Alternative Comedy. Drawing on theories of narratives as building blocks of identity, this chapter argues that collective acts of storytelling about this era are instrumental in shaping the creation and interpretation of live comedy today. Two pillars of the Alternative Comedy narrative are identified as being particularly significant: the introduction of left-wing politics expressed through political correctness and opposition to Thatcherism, and a change in the form of comedy offered as realised through an environment that cultivated hectic and exciting artistic experiment.
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Notes
- 1.
Cook, The Comedy Store, 3.
- 2.
Cook, The Comedy Store, 1.
- 3.
Cook, The Comedy Store, xvii.
- 4.
Allen, Attitude, 73.
- 5.
Allen, Attitude, 73.
- 6.
Carr, ‘Narrative and the Real World’, 20.
- 7.
Lee, How I Escaped My Certain Fate, 2–3.
- 8.
Friedman, Comedy and Distinction, 19.
- 9.
Lee, How I Escaped My Certain Fate, 3.
- 10.
Fest Magazine, ‘About’; Friedman, Comedy and Distinction.
- 11.
Hinchman and Hinchman, Memory, Identity, Community, xvii.
- 12.
Cook, The Comedy Store, 1.
- 13.
Friedman, Comedy and Distinction, 20 (emphasis original).
- 14.
Lee, How I Escaped My Certain Fate, 2–3.
- 15.
Lee, How I Escaped My Certain Fate, 6.
- 16.
Lee, How I Escaped My Certain Fate, 5.
- 17.
Friedman, Comedy and Distinction, 20.
- 18.
Lee, How I Escaped My Certain Fate, 5.
- 19.
Friedman, Comedy and Distinction, 19.
- 20.
Cook, The Comedy Store, 67.
- 21.
Allen, Attitude, 105.
- 22.
Double, Stand-up!, 188.
- 23.
Allen, Attitude, 119.
- 24.
Wilmut and Rosengard, Didn’t You Kill My Mother-in-Law?, xiv (first ellipsis mine, second ellipsis original).
- 25.
Double, Stand-up!, 164–5.
- 26.
Mayer, Narrative Politics, 9.
- 27.
Novitz, ‘Art, Narrative, and Human Nature’, 146.
- 28.
Mayer, Narrative Politics, 10 (emphasis original).
- 29.
Hinchman and Hinchman, Memory, Identity Community, xvii.
- 30.
Stewart Lee, How I Escaped My Certain Fate, 3.
References
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Friedman, Sam. 2014. Comedy and Distinction: The Cultural Currency of a ‘Good’ Sense of Humour. London: Routledge.
Hinchman, Lewis P., and Sandra K. Hinchman. 2001. Memory, Identity, Community: The Idea of Narrative in the Human Sciences. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Lee, Stewart. 2010. How I Escaped My Certain Fate: The Life and Deaths of a Stand-Up Comedian. London: Faber and Faber.
Mayer, Frederick W. 2014. Narrative Politics: Stories and Collective Action. Oxford University Press. http://www.oxfordscholarship.com.chain.kent.ac.uk/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199324460.001.0001/acprof-9780199324460. Accessed 24 Nov 2016.
Novitz, David. 2001. Art, Narrative and Human Nature. In Memory, Identity, Community: The Idea of Narrative in the Human Sciences, ed. Lewis P. Hinchman and Sandra K. Hinchman, 143–160. Albany: State University of New York Press.
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Quirk, S. (2018). Introduction. In: The Politics of British Stand-up Comedy. Palgrave Studies in Comedy. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01105-5_1
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