Abstract
‘They can’t stop us laughing’ was a phrase often used on stage by Bernard Manning, a stand-up comedian from Manchester in the north of England. Manning lived all his life in Manchester and died there, aged 76, in June of 2007. The phrase, which Manning had used as punctuation between jokes, and the diverse commentary that followed his death (in addition to the numerous obituaries, Manning had been commissioned to make a tele vision programme anticipating his own funeral) together evoke all of the themes of this chapter.
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Notes
See Roger Wilmut (1985) Kindly Leave the Stage: The Story of Variety 1919–1960, pp.26-35, 116–125 (London: Methuen).
See Andy Medhurst (2007) A National Joke: Popular Comedy and English Cultural Identities, p. 188 (London: Routledge).
Zygmunt Bauman (2000) Liquid Modernity (Cambridge: Polity).
Zygmunt Bauman (2000) Society Under Siege, p. 166 (Cambridge: Polity).
See Stephen Wagg (1996) ‘Everything else is propaganda: The politics of alter native comedy’ in George, E. C. Paton, Chris Powell and Stephen Wagg (eds) The Social Faces of Humour, pp.322-3 (Aldershot: Arena).
Quoted in William Cook (1994) Ha, Bloody Ha: Comedians Talking, p. 195 (London: Fourth Estate).
Stephen Wagg (1992) ‘You’ve never had it so silly: The politics of British satirical comedy’ from Beyond the Fringe to Spitting Image’, in Dominic Strinati and Stephen Wagg (eds) Come on Down? Popular Media Culture in Post-War Britain, pp.254-84 (London: Routledge);
Stephen Wagg (1996) ‘Everything else is propaganda: The politics of alternative comedy’, in George C. Paton, Chris Powell and Stephen Wagg (eds) The Social Faces of Humour, pp.321-47 (Aldershot: Arena Press);
Stephen Wagg (1998) ‘They already got a comedian for governor: Comedians and politics in Britain and the United States’, in Stephen Wagg (ed.) Because I Tell a Joke or Two: Comedy, Politics and Social Difference, pp.244-72 (London: Routledge);
and Stephen Wagg (2002) ‘Comedy, politics and permissiveness: The ‘satire boom’ and its inher itance’ in Contemporary Politics, 8(4): 319–34. With the permission of the publisher, which I gratefully acknowledge, I have re-worked some of the material from ‘Everything Else… ’ for this essay.
Mort Sahl (1976) Heartland, p.80 (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich).
Quoted in Albert Goldman (1976) Ladies and Gentlemen Lenny Bruce!!, p.210 (London: Picador).
Bob Woodward (1984) Wired: The Short Life and Fast Times of John Belushi, p.55 (London: Faber and Faber).
For a fuller analysis, see Wagg ‘You’ve never had it so silly’. See also Roger Wilmut (1985) From Fringe to Flying Circus (London: Heinemann)
and Humphrey Carpenter (2000) That Was Satire That Was (London: Victor Gollancz).
Michael Palin (2007) Diaries 1969–1979: The Python Years, pp.215, 221 (London: Phoenix).
See Sid Caesar (and Bill Davidson) (1982) Where Have I Been? An Autobiography, p. 173 (New York: Crown Publishers).
Trevor Griffiths (1976) Comedians, pp. 23, 33 (London: Faber and Faber).
See John Street (1986) Rebel Rock: The Politics of Popular Music, pp. 14 7–9 (Oxford: Basil Blackwell).
Malcolm Hardee (with John Fleming) (1996) I Stole Freddie Mercury’s Birthday Cake and Other Biographical Confessions, pp.90-1 (London: Fourth Estate).
Keith Allen (2007) Grow Up: An Autobiography, p.230 (London: Ebury Press).
See Roger Wilmut (1989) Didn’t You Kill My Mother-in-Law, pp.34-5 (London: Methuen).
See William Cook (2001) The Comedy Store: The Club That Changed British Comedy, p.72 (London: Little, Brown). See Chris Green (2009) ‘Plagiarism is no laughing matter for comedians’, The Independent, 11th November, p. 17.
Anthony Giddens (1991) Modernity and Self-Identity (Cambridge: Polity Press).
Frank Skinner (2009) Frank Skinner on the Road (London: Arrow Books).
See Sharon Lockyer and Mike Pickering (2009) The ambiguities of comic impersonation’, in Sharon Lockyer and Michael Pickering (eds) Beyond a Joke: The Limits of Humour, pp. 182–99 (Basingstoke: Palgrave).
Quoted in Alasdair Milne (1988) DG: The Memoirs of a British Broadcaster, p.32 (London: Hodder and Stoughton).
Stuart Hall (1994) ‘Some “politically incorrect” pathways through PC’, in Sarah Dunant (ed.) The War of the Words: The Political Correctness Debate, pp. 166–7 (London: Virago).
See, for instance, Mark Thomas (2006) As Used on the Famous Nelson Mandela: Underground Adventures in the Arms and Torture Trade (London: Ebury Press);
Mark Thomas (2008) Belching out the Devil: Global Adventures With Coca Cola (London: Ebury Press).
Graham McCann (1998) Morecambe and Wise, p.268 (London: Fourth Estate).
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Wagg, S. (2011). ‘They Can’t Stop Us Laughing’; Politics, Leisure and the Comedy Business. In: Bramham, P., Wagg, S. (eds) The New Politics of Leisure and Pleasure. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230299979_11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230299979_11
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