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In the late 1970s, the alternative comedy scene exploded into life in Britain and completely changed the style, subject matter and politics of British stand-up. Contemporary critics talked about it as 'anti-matter comedy' that 'makes you laugh while actually rearranging large chunks of your brain'. This book draws on a wealth of archive material – including unpublished recordings of early performances – and new interviews with key figures such as Alexei Sayle, Andy de la Tour and Jim Barclay, to provide a detailed history of the early scene and an examination of the distinctive modes of performance style which developed. Beginning with its origins, the volume traces the influence of Amer...
There is no fourth wall in popular performance. The show is firmly rooted in the here and now, and the performers address the audience directly, while the audience answer back with laughter, applause or heckling. Performer and role are interlaced, so that we are left uncertain about just how the persona we see onstage might relate to the private person who presents it to us. Popular Performance defines and surveys varieties of performance where the main purpose is to entertain, and where there is no shame in being trivial, frivolous or nonsensical as long as people go home happy at the end of the show. Contributions by new and established scholars focus particularly on how it is made, explai...
'This is the kind of book that troubles grey-suited committees of academic peers. It's too enjoyable. But that, given its subject, is just what it ought to be, and it treats that subject seriously . . . There isn't a “dull” page anywhere in the book.' – Professor Peter Thomson, Studies in Theatre and Performance Comedy is changing: stand-up comedians routinely sell out stadia, their audience-figures swollen by panel-show appearances and much-followed Twitter feeds. Meanwhile, the smaller clubs are filling up, with audiences as well as aspirants. How can we make sense of it all? This new edition of Getting the Joke gives an insider's look at the spectrum of modern comedy, re-examining t...
How could Max Miller reduce an audience to helpless laughter just by talking about a fan dancer and her fan? Why do club audiences howl with glee at Bernard Manning's violent jokes about Pakistanis? What made audiences break out into fights at Alexei Sayle's early gigs? How did stand-up comedy begin and why has it exploded into such a huge industry now encompassing a criss-crossing network of clubs, concerts, television and radio? And what happens to a comedian when he or she steps out onto a stage and begins performing in front of an audience? Stand-Up! is the first book to both analyse the background of stand-up and take us inside the world of being a solo comedian. Oliver Double writes a lively history of the traditions of British stand-up comedy - from its roots in music hall and variety to today's club and alternative comedy scene - and also a serious exploration of what it is like to be a comedian on-stage in front of a sometimes adoring and sometimes hostile audience. He looks critically at the work of such stand-up stars as Frankie Howerd, Les Dawson, Billy Connolly, Victoria Wood, Ben Elton and Eddie Izzard. And he looks at himself as a performer.
Oliver Double gives a first-hand account of stand-up comedy, its history and traditions. He is a journalist, comedian, and the author of the world's first PhD thesis on the subject
In the first major academic work to examine British variety theatre, Double provides a detailed history of this art form and analyses its performance dynamics and techniques. Encompassing singers, comedians, dancers, magicians, ventriloquists and diverse speciality acts, this vibrant book draws on a series of new interviews with variety veterans.
THE RESTLESS RULER of an obscure Central European state plots a coup against himself and escapes to Venice in search of 'real' experience. There he falls in with a team of con-men and ends up, to his own surprise, impersonating himself. His journey through successive levels of illusion and reality teaches him much about the world, about his own nature and the paradoxes of the human condition.
Oliver is different. He enjoys solitude and he likes playing with his friends, who are puppets, stuffed animals and other toys. But maybe toys don't always give a boy everything he needs. Maybe he needs another kind of companion. Will Oliver discover a way to be, well, different?
As part of the discovery of cognitive science, teachers are waking up to the powers of dual coding - combining words with visuals in your teaching. But cognitive scientists aren't graphic designers, and so their books don't show teachers how to be competent in producing effective visuals. There is a huge gap between what we know about dual coding and the skills needed to practice it effectively in the classroom. Until now.Dual Coding With Teachers is a breakthrough educational book. No other book has been designed with both cognitive science and graphic principles in mind. Every page contains diagrams, infographics, illustrations and graphic organisers. The book is designed to cater for both...
Eating the Sun is the story of the discovery of a miracle: the source of life itself. This book explains how biologists discovered photosynthesis and through it found a new understanding of the history of our planet and how life is inconceivable without it. Photosynthesis is the most mundane of miracles. It surrounds us in our gardens and parks and countryside; even our cityscapes are shot through with trees. It makes the sky blue and nature green. That greenery is the signature of the pigments with which plants harvest the sun; wherever nature offers us greenery, the molecular machinery of photosynthesis is making oxygen, energy and organic matter from the raw material of sunlight, water an...