CERTIFICATE PAPER FOR BRITISH

CULTURAL STUDIES

British humour
Guiding teacher: Student:

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction..................................................................................................................................................3
Types of british humour...............................................................................................................................4
Race and regional stereotypes.....................................................................................................................7
British TV comedy.......................................................................................................................................8
References..................................................................................................................................................11

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Introduction

What is british humour?

In popular culture, British humour is a somewhat general term applied to certain types of comedy
and comedic acts from the United Kingdom. Many UK comedy TV shows typical of British humour
have become popular all round the world, and, for good or bad, have been a strong avenue for the export
and representation of British culture to an international audience, but like many things the "typical"
British sense of humour doesn't really exist.

British humour was shaped by the

relative stability of British society and carries
a strong element of satire aimed at "the
absurdity of everyday life". Themes include
the class system and sexual taboos; common
techniques include puns, innuendo and
intellectual jokes.

A strong theme of sarcasm and self-deprecation, often with deadpan delivery, runs throughout
British humour. Humour may be used to bury emotions in a way that seems insensitive to other
cultures.Jokes are told about everything and almost no subject is taboo, though often a lack of subtlety
when discussing controversial issues is considered crass.

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Types of british humour

1.Innuendo

Innuendo in British humour is evident in the literature as far back as Beowulf and Chaucer, and it is
a prevalent theme in many British folk songs. Shakespeare often
used innuendo in his comedies, but it is also often found in his other
plays, as in Hamlet act 4 scene V: Young men will do't if they
come to't / By Cock, they are to blame.
Restoration comedy is notorious both for its innuendo and for its
sexual explicitness, a quality encouraged by Charles II (16601685)
personally and by the rakish aristocratic ethos of his court. In the
Victorian era, Burlesque theatre combined sexuality and humour in
its acts. In the late 19th century, magazines such as Punch began to
be widely sold, and innuendo featured in its cartoons and articles.

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2.Satire

Disrespect to members of the establishment and authority, typified by:

Beyond the Fringe, stage revue (1960-1966).

TW3), late night TV satire on BBC2 (19621966).

Private Eye, satirical magazine (1961-).

Not the Nine O'Clock News, satirical sketch show, notable for launching the careers of Rowan
Atkinson, Griff Rhys Jones, Pamela Stephenson and Mel Smith on BBC2 (19791982).

Yes Minister, political sitcom on BBC2 (19801988).

The Young Ones, a cult sitcom starring Rik Mayall, Adrian Edmondson, Nigel Planer and
Christopher Ryan on BBC2 (19821984).

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3. Absurd

The absurd and the surreal, typified by:

The Goon Show, surreal radio show on the BBC Home

Service (19511960).
Bus Driver's Prayer
Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, musical group playing songs
inspired by the music of the 1920s and comic rock songs
(1962-).
The Magic Roundabout, a dub parody of a French children's cartoon that gained a cult following
(19641971).

4. Macabre

Black humour, in which topics and events that are usually treated seriously are treated in a
humorous or satirical manner, typified by:

The League of Gentlemen, a cult comedy revolving around the bizarre inhabitants of the fictional
town Royston Vasey
Nighty Night, a TV series about a sociopathic beauty therapist who fakes her husband's death in
order to steal her disabled neighbour's husband
Jam, an unsettling TV sketch comedy with an ambient music soundtrack

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Race and regional stereotypes

The An Englishman, an Irishman and a

Scotsman joke format is one common to many
cultures, and is often used in English, including
having the nationalities switched around to take
advantage of other stereotypes. These
stereotypes are somewhat fond, and these jokes
would not be taken as xenophobic. This sort of affectionate stereotype is also exemplified by 'Allo
'Allo!, a programme that, although set in France in the Second World War, and deliberately performed in
over the top accents, mocked British stereotypes as well as foreigners. This also applies to a lot of the
regional stereotypes in the UK. Regional accent and dialect are used in such programmes as Hancock's
Half Hour, Auf Wiedersehen, Pet and Red Dwarf, as these accents provide quick characterisation and
social cues.

Although racism was a part of British humour, it is now frowned upon, and acts such as Bernard
Manning and Jim Davidson are pilloried. Most racist themes in popular comedy since the 1970s are
targeted against racism rather than in sympathy. Love Thy Neighbour and Till Death Us Do Part were
both series that dealt with these issues when the United Kingdom was coming to terms with an influx of
immigrants. Fawlty Towers featured the mistreatment of the Spanish waiter, Manuel, but the target was
the bigotry of the lead character. More recently, The Fast Show has mocked people of other races,
notably the Chanel 9 sketches, and Banzai has mimicked Japanese games shows, which have an
exaggerated sense of violence, sex and public absurdity. Goodness Gracious Me turned stereotypes on
their heads in sketches such as 'Going for an English' and when bargaining over the price of a
newspaper. An episode from The Goodies depicted all of the black population of South Africa leaving to
escape apartheid, leaving the South Africans with nobody to oppress - instead, they begin a system of
discrimination based on height, targeting short people, labelled "apart-height".

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British TV comedy

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. Following the success of Hancock's
Half Hour, the sitcom became firmly entrenched in the UK's television schedules. Some of the most
successful examples include "As Time Goes By", Steptoe and Son, Dad's Army, Keeping Up
Appearances, The Likely Lads, Fawlty Towers, The Good Life, Are You Being Served?, Yes Minister,
Only Fools and Horses, Absolutely Fabulous, Red Dwarf, The Vicar of Dibley, Father Ted, Blackadder,
One Foot in the Grave, Some Mothers Do Ave Em, Porridge, The Thin Blue Line, The Office, Coupling
and Game On.

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, George and Mildred, Man About The House and the now unfashionable
Love Thy Neighbour. In recent years the commercial station Channel 4 has been more successful than
ITV with situation comedies. Some of the better-known examples are Chelmsford 123, Chance in a
Million, Drop the Dead Donkey, Spaced, Father Ted, Black Books, Peep Show, Green Wing, The
Inbetweeners and The IT Crowd.
Other formats have also been popular, with sketch shows, stand-up comedy, impressionists and even
puppet shows finding success. Although impressionists experienced a lull in popularity in the 1990s, the
recent success of Dead Ringers (another BBC radio cross-over) has been notable.
The most notable comedy satires are the ground-breaking 1960s series That Was The Week That Was,
ITV's controversial puppet show Spitting Image. British satire has also washed over into quiz shows -
popular examples include the news quiz Have I Got News for You and music-based Never Mind The
Buzzcocks.

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One of the most influential sketch shows was Monty
Python's Flying Circus, a comedy from the late 1960s and
early seventies that introduced us to such luminaries as John
Cleese, Eric Idle, Michael Palin, Graham Chapman, Terry
Jones and Terry Gilliam. The Pythons went on to produce
several feature films and had a profound influence on British
comedy. They themselves had been influenced by The
Goons and Spike Milligan's Q series. Python found
surprising popularity in the United States 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 Morecambe and Wise, The Two Ronnies, French and Saunders,
Absolutely, Little Britain, The Catherine Tate Show and The Fast Show.

You can't write about British TV comedy without mentioning Mr Bean. Mr. Bean is a British comedy
television series of 14 half-hour episodes starring Rowan Atkinson as the title character. Different
episodes were written by Rowan Atkinson, Robin Driscoll, Richard Curtis and one by Ben Elton.

Based on a character developed by Rowan Atkinson at university, the series followed the exploits of Mr.
Bean, described by Atkinson as "a child in a grown man's body", in solving various problems presented
by everyday tasks and often causing mayhem in the process.

During its five year run the series was hugely popular in the UK; in 1992 there were 18.74 million
viewers for "The Trouble With Mr. Bean", and the series has received a number of international awards,
including the Rose d'Or. The show has been sold in 200 territories worldwide, and has inspired two
feature films and an animated cartoon spin-off.

Another ground breaking comedy series, Black Adder is a historical sitcom, it is set in a different
historical period over four series. Blackadder and Baldrick are the main characters, and in each series
they are accompanied by different characters. In 2000 the fourth series, Blackadder Goes Forth, ranked
number 16 in the "100 Greatest British Television Programmes", a list created by the British Film

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Institute. Also in a 2004 TV poll to find "Britain's Best Sitcom", Blackadder was voted the second best
British sitcom of all time, topped by Only Fools and Horses.
The 1990s and 2000s saw the rise of a new breed of British comedians who have made innovative
contributions mainly in the form of sitcoms, but Vic Reeves Big Night Out influenced the style of a
whole new generation of comics. Programmes such as Green Wing, Peep Show, Black Books, Spaced,
Smack the Pony, Big Train, The Office, and Extras have used editing, surreal humour and cultural
references to great effect. A loose clique of stars, including Simon Pegg, Dylan Moran, Jessica Stevenson,
Mark Heap, Ricky Gervais, Tamsin Greig and Bill Bailey have revolved around these series, with the
most obvious acknowledgement of this coming in the scene in the film Shaun of the Dead when the two
groups of survivors troop past each other, with cameos galore.

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References
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_humour
2. http://www.ef.com/blog/language/beginners-guide-to-understanding-british-humor/
3. http://www.gimplochocin.pl/podstr/angielski/British%20humor.pdf
4. http://www.learnenglish.de/culture/britishhumour.html

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