British Stand-Up Comedy

Essay question: Analyse an artefact from the British Stand-Up Comedy Archive (as listed below) to explain what it tells us about 1980s alternative cabaret.

There are eight artefacts to choose from, and digital versions of them are available on the ‘ESSAY’ block. Please choose ONE of them to write your essay about.

1. Alternative Cabaret flyer, 1979.

2. Letter of complaint from Goldsmiths’ College Students’ Union, 1979.

3. Andy de la Tour script notes, c.1980 (plus audio track).

4. Comic Strip LP, 1981 (plus three audio tracks).

5. Article from The Sun about the Comedy Store, 1981.

6. Attila the Stockbroker poem, 1980s (plus audio track).

7. Pit Dragon miners’ support poster, 1985.

8. CAST New Variety flyer, 1987.

Word limit: The essay, including all quotations, should be 2,500 words.

Essay guidelines

The essay should be a careful, perceptive analysis and not a simple description of the artefact. The idea of this exercise is to analyse the artefact you have chosen, using the knowledge you have gained about 1980s alternative cabaret over the course of the module. The best essays will be structured around a coherent overall argument about the artefact, rather than a series of unconnected points.

TIP: A good starting point would be to carefully look at all the artefacts, and think what kinds of issues that each one of them would allow you to discuss before deciding which one you will write your essay about.

TIP: Once you have chosen your artefact, start by observing it as closely as possible. What clues does it give you about the nature of alternative cabaret in the 1980s? Read every bit of text as carefully as possible, and try to pick out what’s significant about each bit of it. Examine the visual clues as carefully as possible (e.g. layout, design, style), and think about what clues they might give you about the nature of alternative cabaret. Write notes on all of this, and when you’ve done that, read back over them and think about which aspects you want to focus on in your essay. Use these notes when you’re your reading and other research for the essay.

No matter which of the artefacts you choose to analyse, your essay should relate to one or more of the following themes:

· The history of alternative cabaret in the UK, 1979-90 (e.g. How did alternative cabaret begin? How did the circuit spread and grow? Who were the key individuals involved? What were the key venues or organisations? etc.).

· The form of 1980s alternative cabaret (e.g. How were the shows structured? What performance techniques were used? What was the range of acts like? etc.)

· How does alternative cabaret relate to popular performance more generally? (e.g. form, content, structure, etc.).

Suggested research sources

You MUST support the arguments in your essay with quotations and references drawn from research (e.g. books, journal articles, newspaper articles, recordings, etc.). The reading list will help with this. You may well want to draw on material from the British Stand-Up Comedy Archive (BSUCA) as well, and the staff at Special Collections & Archives will be happy to help you with your research.

No matter which of the artefacts you choose to analyse, your essay should draw on general literature from the module reading list about both alternative cabaret and popular performance more generally. Here are some sources that will be useful for any essay:

· Allen, Tony (2002), Attitude: Wanna Make Something of it?, Glastonbury: Gothic Image. (Three: ‘The Roots of Alternative Comedy’, pp.73-133, gives an eye-witness account of the origins and early development of alternative cabaret from the perspective of one of its key figure.)

· Appignanesi, Lisa (2004), The Cabaret, New Haven & London: Yale University Press. (Has a short, tight section on alternative cabaret starting on p.240 and also includes a section on ranting and dub poetry.)

· Cook, William (2001), The Comedy Store, London: Little, Brown. (Chapters 2, 3 and 4, pp.20-81, give a detailed account of the early years of one of alternative cabaret’s key venues, the Comedy Store.)

· Double, Oliver (2020), Alternative Comedy: 1979 and the Reinvention of British Stand-Up. London: Bloomsbury. (Although the focus is on the stand-up aspects of alternative cabaret, this book contains a very detailed account of roots, birth and spread of alternative cabaret in the 1980s, as well as chapters of key aspects of performance techniques. As well as stand-up, it also encompasses poetry, double acts, and speciality acts. THIS IS THE KEY TEXT FOR THIS MODULE.)

· Double, Oliver (2017), ‘Introduction: What is Popular Performance?’ in Ainsworth, Adam, Oliver Double and Louise Peacock (eds.) (2017), Popular Performance, London: Bloomsbury, 1-29. (Includes a definition of popular performance, identifying four key aspects of performance technique.)

· Lidington, Tony (1987), ‘New Terms for Old Turns: The Rise of Alternative Cabaret’, New Theatre Quarterly, 3(10): 107-119. (This early history of alternative cabaret is interesting because it doesn’t focus on stand-up, instead concentrating mainly on street performers and speciality acts.)

· Peters, Lloyd (2013), ‘The roots of alternative comedy? – The alternative story of 20th Century Coyote and Eighties Comedy’, Comedy Studies, 4 (1): 5-21. (A detailed account of the beginnings of 20th Century Coyote, which went on to become Rik Mayall and Ade Edmondson’s double act. It also considers the origins of alternative cabaret more generally.)

· Wilmut, Roger (1989), Didn’t You Kill my Mother-in-Law? London: Methuen. (The first full-length history of alternative cabaret, published at the end of the 1980s.)

Digital archive research

No matter which of the artefacts you choose to analyse, your essay should draw on primary research in the form of newspaper coverage of the 1980s, focusing on both the alternative cabaret scene itself and the political and social context within which it existed.

· The Entertainment Industry Magazine Archive is a searchable database of magazines like The Stage, where you will be able to find lots of articles about alternative cabaret in general as well as specific venues, groups and performers.

· Newspapers and news sources. You can access searchable databases of British newspapers via the library website, including Daily Mail, Daily Mirror, Financial Times, The Independent, London Review of Books,The Guardian, The Observer, Sunday Times and The Times. Try the databases for key venues (e.g. Comedy Store, Comic Strip) and key performers (e.g. Alexei Sayle), and you’ll be able to find reviews, interviews, articles, etc. Also try searching for key topics in the news as the time (e.g. Margaret Thatcher, Greenham Common, miners’ strike, unemployment).

Tips for using electronic databases. The ‘Advanced Search’ option is best to use, and try using the ‘publication date’ function to narrow down your search to the period 1979-1990.

British Stand-Up Comedy Archive

All of the artefacts are in the British Stand-Up Comedy Archive (BSUCA). So it’s worth looking in BSUCA for material related to the artefact you’ve chosen to write your essay about. Y

As with any essay, you must correctly cite all of the research sources you use in the essay.

You will find more specific guidance relating to each artefact, including suggested themes and research sources, elsewhere in the ‘ESSAY’ block.