Reports of the death of British theatrical
comedy? Greatly exaggerated or sadly
accurate?

Peters, LH

Abstract

Are the twin masks of Tragedy and Comedy in the process of transformation?
I am seeking in this paper to address challenging questions concerning the increasing disappearance of the 'serious' comedy, especially the satirical play on
the UK stage and ask why:


Has the UK audience deserted comedy in general and satire in particular?
Is it too difficult to write? Why in the context of a troubled world is contemporary theatrical comedy not more popular?
Controversially, is it something to do with the inverse relationship between the increasing benefits of a multi-national, multi-racial UK society and a declining national consensus on shared symbols concerning issues of humour and satire?

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Online Publication Date: Feb 26, 2018
• Publication Date: Feb 26, 2018
• Deposit Date: Mar 12, 2018
• Publicly Available Date: Aug 26, 2019
• Journal: Comedy Studies
• Print ISSN: 2040-610X
• Publisher: Intellect
• Volume: 9
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 76-83
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/2040610X.2018.1437166
• Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/2040610X.2018.1437166
• Related Public URLs: https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rcos20/current