Inequality in Contemporary Stand-Up Comedy in the UK

The problem of humour is complex and transcends aesthetic boundaries. Laughter is a product of interactions between individuals, social groups, cultures and epochs, with a far-reaching significance that attracts the attention of various scientific fields. When discussing humour, it is essential to consider the modality, which reflects the speaker’s attitude and subjective expressions. Regardless of genre or style, humour offers an aesthetic representation of the world, created by the author to convey his or her communicative intent and perspective. The core mechanism of humour is incongruity, characterized by inconsistencies with established norms that produce a comic effect. This incongruity is present in all forms of humour, whether oral, written or multimodal, as in stand-up comedy. Stand-up comedy uses different modes of expression, including spoken words, body language, facial expressions, gestures and timing, to enhance the comedic experience. Therefore, when discussing stand-up comedy, it’s important to consider the multimodality of incongruity at different levels of expression. The aim of the current research is to describe the multimodality of incongruity as a cognitive mechanism of creating humour in stand-up comedy and to characterize the specifics of incongruity in works of this genre, taking into account its specifics in terms of forms of expression of humour. In order to achieve the research objective, the following research tasks will be carried out 1) to provide the definition of modality as a way of expressing one’s attitude towards the surrounding world; 2) to present the specifics of stand-up comedy as a multimodal genre; 3) to present the idea of multimodality of incongruity as a cognitive mechanism of creating humour using the example of the stand-up comedy genre. The research material of the presented research is the stand-up monologues of George Carlin (2010, 2011), Andy Haynes (2023) and Joe Kilgallon (2019) on political issues. In the presented stand-up monologues, a total of 100 cases of incongruity are distinguished, of which 52% are valorative, 36% are logical and notional, and 12% are ontological. The cognitive nature of comic in political stand-up comedy is examined as a complex phenomenon. Analyzing the multimodal means used to create comedy in this context requires a polyparadigmatic approach that encompasses four scientific paradigms – discursive, linguocognitive, linguopoetic, and nonverbal communication analysis. Such a comprehensive methodological approach enables a deeper understanding of this complex and multifaceted subject matter. The research indicates that humour creation via cognitive mechanisms like incongruity is a phenomenon spanning multiple modes within the stand-up comedy genre. Multimodality encompasses the evaluation of utterance content by the speaker, as well as the subject’s relationship to the action, with multiple semiotic modes coexisting in a context that shapes the essence and conveys the speaker’s attitudes. Standup comedy requires both verbal and non-verbal communication, making it a multimodal form of performance where a single performer engages directly with the audience. The core mechanism for creating humour in this genre is incongruity, which stems from contrast and deviation from norms, including ontological, logical, notional, and valorative incongruity. These types of incongruity are commonly used in political stand-up comedy, making it a unique and dynamic form of entertainment. Value incongruity, which is the primarily employed method (52%), exposes disparities between political realities and established social norms. Comedians utilise various linguistic techniques, including generalisation, rhetorical questions, metaphors, repetitions, and parallelism, alongside extralinguistic methods such as voice modulation and facial expressions, voice tone, pauses, different kinds of intonational contrast, body language to establish incongruity of this nature. Logical and notional incongruity (36%) highlights the irrationality of politics and voter’s reasoning, using rhetorical questions, citations, and certain tone of voice and facial expressions. Ontological incongruity refers to the introduction of imaginary elements which violate the rules of existence and are used to emphasize absurdities. Although less frequent in political stand-up comedy, it can still be used to highlight absurdities, such as the ritual of swearing on the Bible in a formal setting. It is shown that the scenic characteristics (positive or negative character, colours, decor), the way of dressing are also essential, because they all contribute to the creation of humour based on the image of the speaker. Comedians utilize intertextuality and their delivery style to create and emphasize this form of incongruity. In conclusion, political stand-up comedy utilises different forms of incongruity to deride social conventions, reveal political absurdities, and generate amusement. Both linguistic and extralinguistic elements are important tools for comedians in creating incongruity, making political stand-up comedy a multimodal phenomenon.

The narrative pattern and discursive strategies of stand-up comedy in Nigeria reveal some tropes and motifs that are contemporary to the socio-political realities of the country. These narrative/discursive strategies demonstrate three discourse types: salutation/greeting discourse, reporting discourse and informing discourse. With these discourse types, stand-up comedians use themselves as the victims of the jokes in order to evoke laughter in the audience. The performances of stand-up comedy, however, have not been accorded due recognition of the functional arts that can be used to critique the failure of the ruling elite in the Nigerian State. This is because stand-up comedy is class-selective and occasion-driven. To evoke laughter in the audience and to comment on the reality of existence, stand-up comedians deploy language aesthetics, kinesics and atmosphere. The modal transition from pure oral stage to the technological phase of performance informs the conceptualisation of media mediated performance (MMP) through recorded VCDs/DVDs and the social media. Data on the stand-up comedy of AY and Elenu are collected through media mediated performances (MMP) on VCD. Data on the subject matter, topicality and discursive strategies of AY and Elenu’s (these are among ace stand-up comedians in Nigeria) jokes are analysed and discussed. With the subject matter and topicality of the jokes, this paper suggests that stand-up comedy performs the utilitarian functions of literary and performing arts. It entertains, moralises, satirises and educates members of heterogeneous audiences on some values and ethos of the contemporary Nigerian society.The narrative pattern and discursive strategies of stand-up comedy in Nigeria reveal some tropes and motifs that are contemporary to the socio-political realities of the country. These narrative/discursive strategies demonstrate three discourse types: salutation/greeting discourse, reporting discourse and informing discourse. With these discourse types, stand-up comedians use themselves as the victims of the jokes in order to evoke laughter in the audience. The performances of stand-up comedy, however, have not been accorded due recognition of the functional arts that can be used to critique the failure of the ruling elite in the Nigerian State. This is because stand-up comedy is class-selective and occasion-driven. To evoke laughter in the audience and to comment on the reality of existence, stand-up comedians deploy language aesthetics, kinesics and atmosphere. The modal transition from pure oral stage to the technological phase of performance informs the conceptualisation of media mediated performance (MMP) through recorded VCDs/DVDs and the social media. Data on the stand-up comedy of AY and Elenu are collected through media mediated performances (MMP) on VCD. Data on the subject matter, topicality and discursive strategies of AY and Elenu’s (these are among ace stand-up comedians in Nigeria) jokes are analysed and discussed. With the subject matter and topicality of the jokes, this paper suggests that stand-up comedy performs the utilitarian functions of literary and performing arts. It entertains, moralises, satirises and educates members of heterogeneous audiences on some values and ethos of the contemporary Nigerian society.

This thesis examines stand-up comedy and its relation to everyday life and presents a model of everyday life in the commodity society. It seeks to define stand up comedy and how it works as a performance mode and will offer a definition of the stand-up comedian. It will examine how jokes reflect opinions and attitudes within everyday life and how they can communicate negative cultural myths, stereotypes and ideologies but also reach beyond the merely absurd and comical to present authentic moments that enable us to locate the truth about ourselves. The thesis seeks to locate a stand-up comedy that enables us to understand ourselves in relation to life in the commodity society. The thesis traces a subversive lineage through post-Second World War comedy from The Goon Show through the satirists of the 1960s and Monty Pylhon's Flying Circus to Alternative Comedy and stand-up comedians in the present day. The 'Alternative Comedy moment' between 1979 and 1981 is central to the thesis as is the relation to American stand-up comedy, Punk and the rise of reactionary humour in Britain. Alternative Comedy is identified and placed in a social, political and counter-cultural context. The achievements and failures of this comedy will be discussed with particular focus on the redefinition of the role of women and sexual politics in stand-up comedy and the creation of a thriving London cabaret and comedy scene. An argument against televised stand-up comedy and for live comedy will be put forward, as will an argument for a National Comedy Archive that will reflect the richness and continual changes within stand-up comedy in the last fifty years.

Stand-up comedy in India has steadily gained the reputation of being “liberal” or “progressive”, where comedians use the emergent art form to speak out on social issues in favour of the marginalised. Given this branding of the art form, it is curious that comedians, in their performances, remain agnostic to caste relations in India. This chapter argues that, despite the apparent silence, caste structures, worldviews and identities are produced through Indian stand-up comedy. Specifically, this chapter examines the theme of “escape” that emerged in the author’s ethnographic fieldwork in the Mumbai stand-up comedy scene. Comedians, producers, and production workers see the art form as an escape from mass society and mainstream media, which they characterise as conservative and chauvinistic. At the same time, however, stand-up comedy relies on a host of mainstream media infrastructure, which comedians and producers can access precisely because of their social locations, which are defined by their upper-caste and class origins. This chapter untangles this contradiction—performers, producers, and production workers in the Mumbai stand-up comedy scene want to escape the very same social relations and structures that make stand-up comedy possible in the city. Stand-up comedy in Mumbai, as an industry, relies on the upper caste cache of producers and performers to mobilise media networks and capital in order to corner a niche market in India. Even though silent on caste, global Indian-ness relies on particular enclosures of places in Mumbai and dispossession of various sections of people in the city, which is also reflected in how the stand-up comedy industry uses urban space in Mumbai. Thus, this chapter shows that the desire to escape on the part of producers and performers in the Mumbai scene is a synthesis of simultaneously relying on caste exploitation and seeking to imagine an Indian-ness in which caste is made invisible.

When investigating relaxed performance, little attention has been paid to live stand-up comedy. The relaxed performance increases the accessibility and inclusivity of live theatre performances. Yet this poses great challenges to stand-up comedy, which often entails offensiveness and physical discomfort. This article focuses on the paradox between relaxed performance and stand-up comedy. It examines the challenges and positive effects of incorporating stand-up comedy into a relaxed venue through a case study of Evelyn Mok’s live comedy performance in a relaxed venue at a comedy event ‘Comedy without Victims’ held at Battersea Arts Centre in 2019. Combining the analysis of comedian-audience interactions with an interview between the author and Mok, this article contends that, although audience interruptions may disrupt the delivery of comedy routines and place the comedian in an uncertain status, the relaxed venue reshapes the comedian-audience relationship and galvanises the autonomy of audience members, particularly those who are socially marginalised. Consequently, it enhances the subversive power of stand-up comedy in challenging ableist ideologies in theatre conventions, disturbing the existing discussions about social divisions and addressing social injustice. In this regard, relaxed stand-up comedy acts as a democratic site where comedy performance propels and expands real social transformation.

Stand-up comedy is one of the arts that are in great demand by various circles because of its entertaining nature. However, the delivery of stand-up comedy material and improper wording sometimes trigger audience confusion. This makes comic or stand-up comedy actors many who reap protests. Thus the ethics of Islamic communication are indispensable in stand-up comedy. Starting from the search for materials and writing materials, then adjusted to existing places and norms, to the delivery of materials on stage. To find out this, researchers conducted field research aimed at knowing the application of Islamic communication ethics in Samarinda stand-up comedy. Research is carried out using qualitative methods. Selection of informants as data sources based on purposive sampling by predetermined criteria. Data collection is done by observation, interviews, and documentation. Data analysis is carried out in conjunction with the data collection process using data analysis techniques that include data condensation, data presentation, and conclusion drawing to obtain research results. The results of this study found that there is an application of Islamic communication ethics in Samarinda stand-up comedy. This can be seen from the search for writing material, the adjustment of the material to the stage they polled before performing, to the delivery of the material on the stage. The ethics of Islamic communication in stand-up comedy are: qaulan sadidan, qaulan layyina, qaulan ma'rufa, qaulan maysura, qaulan karima and qaulan baligha.

The research analyzed the growth of stand-up comedy in Indonesia, which had developed into a new trend or popular culture and a new creative business that produced skilled and well-known comics. Furthermore, it discussed how stand-up comedy might develop into a new creative business by evaluating the growth of the community, Instagram, and YouTube, as well as the growth of successful comics. In order to help the researchers doing the analysis, the researchers applied a qualitative method. They used two theories named Self-presentation concept by Goffman and Creative Industry theory by Richard Florida. The findings indicate that the creative industry does not always progress forward; interest in stand-up comedy decreased in various places, but it is still attempting to develop. Indonesian people are becoming more receptive to stand-up comedy as it is home to some of the world's most talented comics. Comics must be innovative in their approach to content creation to increase their popularity and viability. Apart from that, when comics are popular, they can inspire others to pursue careers as comics. As a result, comics members continue to grow in number, the community grows in size, and the creative business continues to flourish. Stand-up comedy has developed into popular culture and a new creative sector geared toward youth.

Stand Up Comedy is a form of modern comedy art performance. Raditya Dika is an Indonesian comic who is well-known and widely recognized in the world of stand-up comedy. He is also known as a writer, director, and actor. Raditya Dika's comedy style tends to rely on his personal experience and observations of everyday life. He uses a spontaneous, honest, and often absurd storytelling style, which makes the audience laugh. This type of research is descriptive qualitative. This study aims to describe the types of implicatures in the stand-up comedy show "Youtubers Lots of Haters" on Raditya Dika's youtube channel. This study uses the method of free engagement talk, recording, and taking notes. The results of this study indicate that there are 2 types of implicature, namely conventional and non-conventional. the results of the conversational implicature analysis conducted by the author on Raditya Dika's Stand Up Comedy entitled Youtuber Many Haters which aired on December 19 2017 on Raditya Dika's YouTube channel, researchers found conventional implicature and non-conventional implicature. The researcher also found 4 implicature functions, namely Assertive function, Expressive function, Directive function, and Commissive function. However, in this stand-up comedy, the researcher did not find a declarative function because the text is more likely to express the author's emotions, opinions, invitations, or intentions than to convey factual statements.

Stand-up comedy is a kind of entertainment which presents the art and speech competence. As a single performer on the stage without any supporting properties and partners, a comic is permitted to express any utterances and strived for making audiences laugh. So, language aspect is the most important element of this art in the form of utterances. Based on the theory that language both expresses and embodies cultural identity, concerning stand-up comedy a question then emerged; How are language and culture related by comics’ utterances? This study aims to describe the content and the way of the utterances expressed by comics in stand-up comedy; to reveal how language and culture are closely related. The data were collected from videos of Indonesian Stand-Up Comedy season 4 of the three winner comic performances. Through collecting, analyzing, presenting and interpreting the data as the steps of qualitative method employed, the finding shows that content of the utterances expressed by the comics represent their own culture included ethnicity and community which are related to the problem dealing with their social life. While, the way they express the utterances shows that there are striking differences among the three comics in uttering the sounds, words, sentences and gimmick. The content differences identify their cultural and social background. Stand-up comedy art reveals how the language closely related to the culture. Keywords: comic, culture, language, language identity, stand-up comedy

Reviewed by: A Vulgar Art: A New Approach to Stand-Up Comedy by Ian Brodie. Jackson Trevor J. Blank A Vulgar Art: A New Approach to Stand-Up Comedy. By Ian Brodie. Jackson. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2014. 255 pages. Hardcover, $60.00. Folklorists are often tasked with making sense of nonsense, breaking down the nuances of everyday life and parsing through interpersonal, artistic, and performative communications to reveal the depth and meaning behind vernacular expression and the contexts from which they derive. Talk is, of course, a foundational component of human interaction, and humor can serve as a rich and complex dimension of talk. However, while folklore scholars have traditionally prioritized orally transmitted phenomena over those which are technologically or mass mediated, few folkloristic works have managed to employ a more holistic approach that extends beyond mere textual analyses of humorous talk; they have neglected the multifaceted, layered dimensions of cultural exchange at play. In A Vulgar Art, author Ian Brodie ventures where others have not, shining new light into how stand-up comedy serves as a powerful locus of folkloric communication couched in vernacular talk, identity politics, tensions of performance and reception, cultivation and construction of material culture, as well as the curation and preservation of content in broadcast, analog, and Internet media. The book's title, A Vulgar Art, is culled from a quote by legendary stand-up comedian George Carlin, who reveled in the etymological origins of the word vulgar, noting its original meaning: "of the people." It is here, with this connotation in mind, that Brodie demonstrates how a folkloristic approach to the study of stand-up is so fitting. He begins by addressing the scattered scholarly literature on the topic of stand-up comedy, while informing readers about what folklore is, what folklorists do, and what constitutes a folkloristic approach to the study of his subject, before charting a course through a variety of both popular and less-heralded comedians' repertoires and the historical backdrops that led to the emergence of the stand-up comedy genre in the 1950s and 1960s. Brodie convincingly argues that stand-up comedy is a dialogic form in which performers talk with—and, importantly, not just to—their audiences; he diligently works to [End Page 393] lay the theoretical framework upon which the book rests, underlining the reconciliation of intimacy, distance, and shifting social contexts that comprise the cultural scene where stand-up comedy takes place. His emphasis on the dynamics of vernacular talk, supported by assiduous transcriptions and analytical annotations of joke routines, will undoubtedly meet with appreciation from oral historians. Moreover, Brodie's measured awareness of his readers is evident in the great care he takes to reiterate his methodological approaches and folkloristic background throughout the volume without obfuscating his subject matter; he moves seamlessly from considerations of live performance to the folk processes at work in broadcast and recording iterations of stand-up comedy, including its commercial distribution. The book is laced with acerbic wit and meticulous analysis, giving readers a front-row view of how comedians use the stage and microphone to bridge sociocultural distance between themselves and their audiences, recreating the intimacy of face-to-face encounters in order to allow for vernacular talk to emerge. The book analyzes routines from a variety of performers to underscore the performative and identity delineations stand-up comedians forge, with close examinations of numerous routines from the likes of Lenny Bruce, Eddie Murphy, George Carlin, Richard Pryor, Chris Rock, and Bill Cosby, as well as a series of revelatory interviews with Canadian comic Ron James. Brodie himself acknowledges that one of the weaknesses of previous studies of stand-up comedy has been the curious absence of interviews with actual comedians or their fans. Fittingly, his conversations with James, which are coupled with extensive background information on the comedian and chronicle everything from how he dressed and marketed himself to the different receptions that the same comedy routine garnered in different geographic areas, provide a unique oral history of the life of a stand-up comedian in all of its complex glory. Although somewhat dense at times, and likely best suited for graduate students and academic audiences...

This research aims to analyze the structure of humor in Psycho stand-up comedy employed by Margaret Cho. It is qualitative descriptive research. The main source of this research is the oral data in Psycho stand-up comedy performed by Margaret Cho. There are three steps to find out the aim of this research: the data collection from stand-up comedy entitled Psycho, the analysis of the data, and the last is the display of the result. After all of the data is collected, the researcher tries to find out the structure of Psycho stand-up comedy by using the sequence of joke theory by Rutter and the structure theory of stand-up comedy by Scarpetta and Spagnolli. Based on the data analysis, the researcher finds that this stand-up comedy is divided into three parts: the opening, the core, and the closing. A master of ceremony conducts the opening. The body of this stand-up comedy consists of 31 bits, and in one bit, there are parts such as setup, transition, punchline, act-out, and expanding successful jokes. Margaret Cho delivers the closing of this stand-up comedy as an appreciation to her audiences. The researcher also finds that the punchline that is done repeatedly becomes the characteristics of Psycho stand-up comedy employed by Margaret Cho.

Notwithstanding the fact that ?? youmo ‘humour’ is a neologism and transliteration coined in the 1920s, the conception has been existing in Chinese civilisation for millennia. The earliest extant treatise on humour in Chinese literature is regarded to be an anthology ?? Xiao Lin ‘The Forest of Laughs’ cumulated circa 2ndc CE, yet the most illustrious pre-modern jestbook is a 1791 assemblage entitled ???? Xiao Lin Guang Ji ‘A Collection of Classic Chinese Jokes’. In the 2000s, stand-up comedy entered China’s entertainment market as a niche cultural import, though it was, and still is, mistranslated into ??? tuokouxiu ‘talk show’. Recently, stand-up comedy attains visibility in China by means of phenomenal online programmes. I postulate that Chinese stand-up comedy is featured by unique attributes, in that it is disparate from ‘A Collection of Classic Chinese Jokes’ and the traditional theatrical comedy called ?? xiangsheng ‘cross-talk’, and it is not parallel to its equivalent in the West either. To be more specific, being subject to stringent censorship, stand-up comedy in China is circumspect about content appertaining to (homo)sexual titillation and supernaturalism. Nonetheless, I posit that in terms of inducing humorous effects, contemporary stand-up comedy still evinces similitude to ‘A Collection of Classic Chinese Jokes’ from phonetic, semantic and pragmatic perspectives.

The genre of comedy originates from ancient Greece. However, this fact does not prevent it from changing and taking new forms over the years. Stand-up comedy derived from variety shows and vaudeville and emerged as a new separate genre recently. Although the study of humour in its many genres has been conducted for centuries, the study of stand-up comedy has received little attention. This may be because of the fact that stand-up comedy is a relatively “young” genre of humour. Until the 1960s, stand-up comedians did not play a central role during the performance but served as a kind of filler for the pause, for example, before the arrival of a famous band or theatre group. Ever since stand-up comedians began appearing on TV shows launched during the 1960s and 1970s, the success of stand-up comedy as a true linguistic genre has begun to grow. People became interested in the work of stand-up comedians and expressed their interest by buying tapes with their performances. Over the years, stand-up comedy has become a well-known and popular form of humour that has risen growing interest. Stand-up comedy has essential functions in the formation of society; its subgenres differ in the features of comic reproduction. Both verbal and non-verbal aspects in stand-up comedy attract attention. This article considers the verbal means of reproducing the comic, as well as the sociolinguistic aspect. The article considers the origins of the stand-up comedy genre, its main types and concepts, means of creating comics in the performances of English-speaking stand-up comedians, functions of stand-up comedy, features of performances, and analyses examples of jokes of English-speaking comedians.

Some people may misunderstand when communication and fail to obey the maxim that is called flouting maxim. Grice (1975) proposed four types of flouting maxims, they are flouting maxim of quantity, flouting maxim of quality, flouting maxim of relevance, and flouting maxim of manner. People who disobey the maxims can be found in creating humor. In this study, conversation in creating humor became a data source, and Stand Up Comedy Minangkabaunese Rin Hermana and American K-Von were chosen to be analyzed. The purpose of this study is to find out what type of maxim they flouted the most and the differences on both of the Stand Up Comedy. The method of this research is descriptive research. It is found that there were total of 32 utterances that flout the maxim. The results show that Stand Up Comedy Americans flout the maxim the most with 18 utterances while Minangkabaunese with 14 utterances. It is also found that the differences in flouting maxim of both of the Stand Up Comedy show that in Minangkabaunese Rin Hermana flouts maxim of quantity and manner with the highest number of 7 and 5 utterances while Flouting maxim of quality and relevance rarely appeared with 2 and 0. American K-Von flouts maxim of quality and quantity the most with the highest number of 8 and 5 utterances while flouting maxim of manner and relevance with number of 4 and 1 utterances.

Stand-up comedy is a popular phenomenon entertainment featuring a solo performer, called as Comic who narrates a comical story in front of live audiences. Since it was first developed in the United States, stand-up comedy has been flourishing all over the world. Stand-up comedy programs have become the most interesting television shows in Indonesia. It could be seen by the number of programs in some local television channels. One of them is SUCI (Indonesian Stand-up Comedy) broadcasted by Kompas TV. SUCI is a stand-up comedy competition purposes to seek the best Indonesian Comic. This paper aims to analyze the sequential organization of three Indonesian Comics who performed in Grand Final SUCI season five. Using the serial sequential organization proposed by Scarpetta and Spagnolli (2009) as the theoretical framework, this study outlines the narrative of the stand-up comedy’s texts and seeks whether there is a difference between the three finalists of SUCI 5 in delivering their narratives.