This module is not currently running in 2024 to 2025.
This module will introduce the students to the history of comic performance, from Ancient Greece to the turn of the 20th Century, before looking at the development of comedy on screen through the 20th and 21st Century. The module will introduce the students to a range of comic performances and films, and contextualise them within their historical setting. It will seek to address key questions, such as how the comedy reflects the social and political situation of its creation and the extent to which comedy can be 'timeless'. Additionally, historical research into kinds of comic performance that the students might be less familiar with, such as Commedia dell'arte, will provide a critical foundation for them to engage with more contemporary examples of comedy.
This module will be taught by means of a 2 hour lecture, 2 hour seminar and 2 hour screening for ten weeks.
The total number of study hours will be 300. This will be comprised of 60 hours of scheduled contact time and 240 hours of independent study. Each lecture will end with the assignment of a homework task, which they will do in groups before the seminar.
100% Coursework:
40% - Essay of 2,500 words
40% - Group presentation of 20 minutes (groups will normally contain between 3 and 5 people)
20% - Seminar diary comprised of weekly entries. This will include notes made in response to readings, seminar discussion and the seminar preparation tasks assigned each week.
-Double, Oliver (2012) Britain Had Talent: A History of Variety Theatre. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
-Gay, Penny (2012) Cambridge Introduction to Shakespeare's Comedies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
-Horton, Andrew and Rapf, Joanna (2015) A Companion to Film Comedy. Oxford: John Wiley & Sons.
-Jeffers McDonald, Tamar (2015) When Harry Met Sally (BFI Film Classics). London: Palgrave Macmillan
-Mather, Nigel (2006) Tears of Laughter: Comedy-Drama in 1990s British Cinema. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
-Revermann, Martin (2014) The Cambridge Companion to Greek Comedy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
See the library reading list for this module (Canterbury)
On successfully completing the module students will be able to:
1 Read and analyse a range of comic performances and films, understanding the historical and theoretical contexts of the works.
2 Demonstrate, through discussion and writing, a deep understanding of comic performance/film in a range of cultural, political and social contexts.
3 Demonstrate skills in critical analysis of comic performance and film through consideration of these presented in a variety of forms (e.g. written, live, recorded)
4 Apply a vocabulary of critical terminology to communicate their response and analysis of comedy.
5 Effectively use a range of research resources, including archival materials, to assist their critical understanding of comic performance and film.
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