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Date: 28 March 2019, 12pm-1pm
Venue: Room 2.07 Humanities Bridgeford Street Building
Speaker: Dr Sarah Ilott
Web:
CoDE Seminar
Abstract: “If you don’t shut up, I’ll come and move in next door to you!” Such was the frequent response to audience heckles made by Britain’s first well-known black comedian, Charlie Williams. His retort appropriated racist rhetoric
of the time, in which the black neighbour was frequently mobilised as an object of fear, threatening the imagined homogeneity of formerly white communities. What Williams’s response to heckles exemplifies is a negotiation of a complex set of power relations
informed both by the mechanics of the triadic relationship between Teller, Audience and Butt of a joke and by the social context shaping relationships between blacks and whites in a systemically racist society. With reference to this context, I explore the
mobilisation of the figure of the black neighbour in 1970s’ comedy as a means of commenting upon and critiquing British multicultural discourse of the time through a consideration of the popular and mainstream sitcoms Love Thy Neighbour (ITV, 1972—76) and
Rising Damp (ITV, 1974—78).
Dr Sarah Ilott is Senior Lecturer in Literature and Film at Manchester Metropolitan University. Her main research and teaching interests are in post-colonialism and popular genres, particularly comedy and the gothic.
*This is a free event and open to all- no registration required.
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