Class Sketch
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Class Sketch
The ''Class sketch'' is a comedy sketch first broadcast in an episode of David Frost's satirical comedy programme ''The Frost Report'' on 7 April 1966. It has been described as a "genuinely timeless sketch, ingeniously satirising the British class system" and in 2005 was voted number 40 in Channel Four's "Britain's 50 Greatest Comedy Sketches". It was written by Marty Feldman and John Law, and features John Cleese, Ronnie Barker, and Ronnie Corbett. Synopsis Cleese, tall and patrician in appearance and demeanour, represents the upper class; Barker, of average height, the middle class, and Corbett, short in stature, the working class. Each in turn describes their social advantages and disadvantages, and contrasts them with their neighbours, an effect emphasised by the actors' relative heights as they look downwards or upwards to each other: It is this situation that gives Corbett the pay-off line; as the others describe their advantages in the form of "I get ... (e.g. a s ...
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Comedy Sketch
Sketch comedy comprises a series of short, amusing scenes or vignettes, called "sketches", commonly between one and ten minutes long, performed by a group of comic actors or comedians. The form developed and became popular in vaudeville, and is used widely in variety shows, comedy talk shows, and some sitcoms and children's television series. The sketches may be improvised live by the performers, developed through improvisation before public performance, or scripted and rehearsed in advance like a play. Sketch comedians routinely differentiate their work from a "skit", maintaining that a skit is a (single) dramatized joke (or "bit") while a sketch is a comedic exploration of a concept, character, or situation.Sketch
definition 3b, Merriam-Webster online. Retrieved 5/4/2019


History

Sketch comedy has its origins in

Punch Line
A punch line (a. k. a. punch-line or punchline) concludes a joke; it is intended to make people laugh. It is the third and final part of the typical joke structure. It follows the introductory framing of the joke and the narrative which sets up for the punch line. In a broader sense, "punch line" can also refer to the unexpected and funny conclusion of any performance, situation or story. Etymology The origin of the term is unknown. Even though the comedic formula using the classic "set-up, premise, punch line" format was well-established in Vaudeville by the beginning of the 20th century, the actual term "punch line" is first documented in the 1920s; the Merriam-Webster dictionary pegs the first use in 1921. Linguistic analysis A linguistic interpretation of the mechanics of the punch line response is posited by Victor Raskin in his script-based semantic theory of humor. Humor is evoked when a trigger, contained in the punch line, causes the audience to abruptly shift its ...
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Comedy Sketches
Comedy is a genre of fiction that consists of discourses or works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. The term originated in ancient Greece: in Athenian democracy, the public opinion of voters was influenced by political satire performed by comic poets in theaters. The theatrical genre of Greek comedy can be described as a dramatic performance pitting two groups, ages, genders, or societies against each other in an amusing '' agon'' or conflict. Northrop Frye depicted these two opposing sides as a "Society of Youth" and a "Society of the Old". A revised view characterizes the essential agon of comedy as a struggle between a relatively powerless youth and the societal conventions posing obstacles to his hopes. In this struggle, the youth then becomes constrained by his lack of social authority, and is left with little choice but to resort to ruses which en ...
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British Comedy
Throughout film, television, and radio, British comedy has become known for its consistently peculiar characters, plots, and settings, and has produced some of the most renowned comedians and characters in the world. History British comedy history is measured in centuries. Shakespeare incorporated many chase scenes and beatings into his comedies, such as in his play ''The Comedy of Errors''. The quarrelsome couple Punch and Judy made their first recorded appearance in Britain in 1662, when Samuel Pepys noted a "pretty" puppet play being performed in Covent Garden, London. The various episodes of Punch and Judy are performed in the spirit of outrageous comedy — often provoking shocked laughter — and are dominated by the anarchic clowning of Mr. Punch. Satire has been a major feature of comedy in the British isles for centuries. The pictorial satire of William Hogarth was a precursor to the development of political cartoons in 18th century England. The medium developed under the ...
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Public Service Announcement
A public service announcement (PSA) is a message in the public interest disseminated by the media without charge to raise public awareness and change behavior. In the UK, they are generally called a public information film (PIF); in Hong Kong, they are known as an announcement in the public interest (API). History The earliest public service announcements (in the form of moving pictures) were made before and during the Second World War years in both the UK and the US. In the UK, amateur actor Richard Massingham set up Public Relationship Films Ltd in 1938 as a specialist agency for producing short educational films for the public. In the films, he typically played a bumbling character who was slightly more stupid than average and often explained the message of the film by demonstrating the risks if it was ignored. The films covered topics such as how to cross the road, how to prevent the spread of diseases, how to swim, and how to drive without causing the road to be unsafe for ...
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The Nearly Complete And Utter History Of Everything
''The Nearly Complete and Utter History of Everything'' is a collection of television comedy sketches, produced in 1999, broadcast in two parts on 2 and 4 January 2000 on BBC One. Based on well-known historical events, it took its title and concept from the 1969 London Weekend Television series ''The Complete and Utter History of Britain''. Cast The Ages of Man A version of the class sketch which had previously been broadcast as part of the BBC Millennium programme on 31 December 1999. *Ronnie Barker – Renaissance Man *Ronnie Corbett – Medieval Man *Stephen Fry – Modern Man 1066 The Battle of Hastings staged and described in the style of a modern football match, a version of a sketch from ''The Complete and Utter History of Britain''. *Clive Anderson – Archbishop of Canterbury *Ray Clemence – Ray Clemence the Younger *George Cohen – Master George Cohen *James Fleet – William of Normandy *Archie Gemmill – Archie Gemmill, currently in exile *David Gower – Lord ...
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Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and transitioned into the Renaissance and the Age of Discovery. The Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history: classical antiquity, the medieval period, and the modern period. The medieval period is itself subdivided into the Early, High, and Late Middle Ages. Population decline, counterurbanisation, the collapse of centralized authority, invasions, and mass migrations of tribes, which had begun in late antiquity, continued into the Early Middle Ages. The large-scale movements of the Migration Period, including various Germanic peoples, formed new kingdoms in what remained of the Western Roman Empire. In the 7th century, North Africa and the Middle East—most recently part of the Eastern Ro ...
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English Renaissance
The English Renaissance was a Cultural movement, cultural and Art movement, artistic movement in England from the early 16th century to the early 17th century. It is associated with the pan-European Renaissance that is usually regarded as beginning in Italy in the late 14th century. As in most of the rest of northern Europe, England saw little of these developments until more than a century later. Renaissance style and ideas, however, were slow to penetrate England, and the Elizabethan era in the second half of the 16th century is usually regarded as the height of the English Renaissance. However, many scholars see its beginnings in the early 16th century, during the reign of Henry VIII. The English Renaissance is different from the Italian Renaissance in several ways. The dominant art forms of the English Renaissance were literature and music. Visual arts in the English Renaissance were much less significant than in the Italian Renaissance. The English period began far later than ...
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Miller
A miller is a person who operates a Gristmill, mill, a machine to grind a grain (for example corn or wheat) to make flour. Mill (grinding), Milling is among the oldest of human occupations. "Miller", "Milne" and other variants are common surnames, as are their equivalents in other languages around the world ("Melnyk (surname), Melnyk" in Russian language, Russian, Belorussian language, Belorussian & Ukrainian language, Ukrainian, "Meunier (other), Meunier" in French language, French, "Müller (surname), Müller" or "Mueller (surname), Mueller" in German language, German, "Mulder" and "Molenaar" in Dutch language, Dutch, "Molnár" in Hungarian language, Hungarian, "Molinero" in Spanish language, Spanish, "Molinaro" or "Molinari" in Italian language, Italian etc.). Milling existed in hunter-gatherer communities, and later millers were important to the history of agriculture, development of agriculture. The materials ground by millers are often foodstuffs and particularly c ...
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Stephen Fry
Stephen John Fry (born 24 August 1957) is an English actor, broadcaster, comedian, director and writer. He first came to prominence in the 1980s as one half of the comic double act Fry and Laurie, alongside Hugh Laurie, with the two starring in ''A Bit of Fry & Laurie'' (1989–1995) and ''Jeeves and Wooster'' (1990–1993). He also starred in the sketch series ''Alfresco'' (1983–1984) alongside Laurie, Emma Thompson and Robbie Coltrane, and in ''Blackadder'' (1986–1989) alongside Rowan Atkinson. Since 2011, he has served as president of the mental health charity Mind. Fry's film acting roles include playing his idol Oscar Wilde in the film ''Wilde'' (1997), for which he was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor; Inspector Thompson in Robert Altman's murder mystery ''Gosford Park'' (2001); and Mr. Johnson in Whit Stillman's ''Love & Friendship'' (2016). He has also made appearances in the films ''Chariots of Fire'' (1981), '' A Fish Called Wanda'' (1988), ' ...
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The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was founded by Arthur B. Sleigh in 1855 as ''The Daily Telegraph & Courier''. Considered a newspaper of record over ''The Times'' in the UK in the years up to 1997, ''The Telegraph'' generally has a reputation for high-quality journalism, and has been described as being "one of the world's great titles". The paper's motto, "Was, is, and will be", appears in the editorial pages and has featured in every edition of the newspaper since 19 April 1858. The paper had a circulation of 363,183 in December 2018, descending further until it withdrew from newspaper circulation audits in 2019, having declined almost 80%, from 1.4 million in 1980.United Newspapers PLC and Fleet Holdings PLC', Monopolies and Mergers Commission (1985), pp. 5–16. Its si ...
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Elitism
Elitism is the belief or notion that individuals who form an elite—a select group of people perceived as having an intrinsic quality, high intellect, wealth, power, notability, special skills, or experience—are more likely to be constructive to society as a whole, and therefore deserve influence or authority greater than that of others. The term ''elitism'' may be used to describe a situation in which power is concentrated in the hands of a limited number of people. Beliefs that are in opposition to elitism include egalitarianism, anti-intellectualism, populism, and the political theory of pluralism. Elite theory is the sociological or political science analysis of elite influence in society: elite theorists regard pluralism as a utopian ideal. Elitism is closely related to social class and what sociologists term "social stratification". In modern Western societies, social stratification is typically defined in terms of three distinct social classes: the upper class, th ...
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