John Oliver’s new program Last Week Tonight is the most recent addition to the parody news genre. Like its predecessors, the show frequently mocks American politics; for example, an attention-grabbing…
Articles on Comedy
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We might assume the stories stand-up comedians tell us are true, or at least contain a grain of truth – something their partner said, their kids did. But of course they’re often personalising their stories…
Computers. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, you’d be hard pressed to find a person who has never experienced them in one way or another. They are part of our world, integrated into our lives through our phones and…
Joan Alexandra Molinksy was born in Brooklyn on June 8, 1933, to immigrants from Russia. She attended the Adelphi academy in Brooklyn, and, an excellent student, was Phi Beta Kappa at Barnard College…
Among the 1,000 or so comedians who have been jostling for attention at this year’s Edinburgh festival fringe, two grabbed a disproportionate amount of headlines. Both occupy prime slots in big venues…
Any show exploring the life of early film comedian Stan Laurel could be forgiven for focusing solely on Hollywood glitz and glamour. Across a film career that spanned some 34 years with his partner Oliver…
American actor and stand-up comedian Robin Williams has died today, aged 63. Barack Obama posted a statement about his death and noted, in a rather odd turn of phrase, that “he arrived in our lives as…
The Canadian production company Trembling Void has just successfully crowdfunded a new television series called The Switch. The project is a comedy tracing the lives of an ensemble of trans characters…
The Monty Python crew have put many caveats on their upcoming reunion shows, which starts in London today and will be simulcast live around the world. Perhaps this quote from John Cleese rings truest of…
The untimely death of me old mucker Rik Mayall last week has prompted a plethora of obituaries in the press and on television and radio. However, as someone who “nearly” grew up with Rik at Manchester…
In the cult 1980s sitcom The Young Ones, lefty sociology student Rick, threatens to commit suicide and berates his fellow housemates: I feel sorry for you, you zeroes, you nobodies. What’s going to live…
Rik Mayall is putrid – absolutely vile. He thinks nose-picking is funny and farting and all that. He is the arsehole of British comedy. Spike Milligan made this rather pithy statement some time ago (the…
News that a feature film of the BBC TV comedy series Dad’s Army is to be made – starring Bill Nighy and Toby Jones – has garnered a mixed response. The Daily Telegraph has questioned whether the film is…
Spoiler alert: This article is not very funny. At first glance, Australian PM Tony Abbott is God’s gift to political comedy. Like George Bush Jr he gives at the personal level: his swimmers and his vocal…
Two performance artists in this year’s Melbourne International Comedy Festival (MICF) – the UK’s Bryony Kimmings and American Adrienne Truscott – have a certain flavour of humour: it’s the knowing, self-deprecating…
What is it about stand-up comedy that makes it a more difficult space for a funny woman to conquer? A bunch of seasoned female stand-ups return to the Melbourne International Comedy Festival (MICF) this…
Mary Beard, talking to the Radio Times, has been the latest to jump into the debate triggered by BBC head of television Danny Cohen’s decree that there should be no more all-male gatherings on the corporation’s…
The Sochi Winter Olympics has seen the return to Australian television screens of sport parodists extraordinaire “Rampaging” Roy Slaven and HG Nelson. Roy and HG’s Russian Revolution presents the familiar…
French comedian Dieudonné M’Bala M’Bala has been acquitted over a video in which he called for the release of a man who tortured and murdered a Jew in 2006. The court ruled it could not prove he was behind…
Move over Mad Men – there’s a new group of advertising executives hitting the small screen. The Crazy Ones, a TV series set in a Chicago advertising agency, is currently the top-ranked show in the new…
Top contributors
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Professor of English, Flinders University
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Professor of Film and Media Studies, Colorado State University
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Professor of International Affairs and Comparative Literature, Penn State
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Professor of Film Studies, Bangor University
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Senior Lecturer, Manchester Metropolitan University
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Lecturer in Performance, University of Salford
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Lecturer in Creative Writing, Flinders University
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Professor of Communication and International Studies, Boston College
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Lecturer, Faculty of Health, Arts and Design, Swinburne University of Technology
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Senior Lecturer in Media, Film and Cultural Studies, University of Sussex
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Associate Professor of Psychology, Fort Lewis College
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Sessional lecturer and researcher, The University of Melbourne
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Associate Professor in the Media School, Indiana University
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Lecturer in Communications and Media, University of Notre Dame Australia
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PhD Candidate, University of Leeds; Independent Social Research Foundation