Mother-in-Law Jokes

Available for over a year

There was a time in the TV heyday of the 1970s when the mother-in-law joke was standard fare. It might be heard in the mouths of stand up comedians or even as part of the background of familiar sitcoms like the Rise and Fall of Reginald Perrin. With the help of Durham University classicist professor Edith Hall, Ian traces this very particular, and many would say archaic, joke type back to the Roman poet Juvenal by way of his 17th-century English translator John Dryden. A comic rant about mothers-in-law is part of a more general rant in his sixth satire in which he is trying to dissuade a young man from marrying by telling him how terrible women are. Ian traces its intermittent journey from erudite translation via music hall performers to the late 20th-century TV days. He also debates the possibility that it may have to become something very different to survive in a more enlightened entertainment world. Producer: Tom Alban