Planet of Slums Follow Up - Popular Comedy

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PLANET OF SLUMS FOLLOW UP Laurie Taylor re-visits some of the scenes encountered in last week’s discussion of the new urban slums – slums which currently contain more than one billion people, many of them living in almost unimaginable squalor. He is joined by Patrick Wakely, Emeritus Professor of urban development at the University of London to consider some of the points raised by listeners. POPULAR COMEDY: Benny Hill, Morcambe and Wise, Julian Clary, Victoria Wood…comedy is crucial to how the English see themselves according to cultural theorist Andy Medhurst, author of National Joke, Popular Comedy and English Cultural Identities. It is a new study of what humour contributes to different English communities, and how English comedy has developed its distinctive tropes. Are comedy ‘queens’, from Kenneth Williams to Julian Clary all derived from the trials of Oscar Wilde? Is class comedy like Steptoe and Son and the Royle Family peculiar to the English? Laurie and Andy discuss the role of humour in English culture.