British Situation Comedy and “The Culture of The

British Situation Comedy and “The Culture of the New Capitalism” Submitted by Philip John Wickham to the University of Exeter, as a thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English, January 2013. This thesis is available for Library use on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. I certify that all material in this thesis which is not my own work has been identified and that no material has previously been submitted and approved for the award of a degree by this or any other University. Signature……………………………………………….. 1 Abstract This study examines British television situation comedy over the last fifteen years and analyses the genre as part of a discourse about the nature of modernity. In this period globalisation, technology and the rapid reassessment of formerly established social structures have created new modes of everyday existence that represent significant changes to people’s lives. The thesis argues that contemporary sitcoms address these shifts in social understanding and anxieties about contemporary British life. A wide range of texts are discussed, four in particular detail; Peep Show , Love Soup , Saxondale and Home Time ; which explicitly try to form a dialogue with their audience about living in modernity. The thesis largely takes a methodological approach from Television Studies, referencing scholars from the discipline, in particular John Ellis’s concepts of “working through” and employing a significant amount of textual analysis. Chapter two looks at the context of television in this changing world and chapter three analyses how sitcom as a genre has redefined its forms. Chapter four identifies the importance of ‘tone’ in comedy and analyses how modernity demands new modes of address for comedy to meet the expectations of its audience. The study demonstrates how texts balance new approaches with continuities drawn from the existing sitcom tradition. In order to interrogate the nature of social change and its effects, chapter one engages with the work of a number of social theorists. In particular it analyses the recent writings of Richard Sennett and Zygmunt Bauman, who identify contemporary life as “the culture of the new capitalism” and “liquid modernity” respectively. They consider how such change might affect how individuals feel about themselves and their place in society. Throughout, the thesis demonstrates how this work might be applied to the study of sitcom and combines social theory with a detailed analysis of this television form in transformation, arguing that sitcom remains a resonant site for audiences to participate in a productive discourse about how we live today. 2 List of Contents Abstract 2 Acknowledgments 4 List of Illustrations 5 Introduction 6 Chapter One Society and Modernity 30 Chapter Two Television: Revolution and Evolution 79 Chapter Three The Changing Face of Sitcom 146 Chapter Four Tone of Voice 220 Conclusion 298 Appendix : Illustrations 318 Works Cited 321 3 Acknowledgments I would like to thank my supervisors, James Lyons and Joe Kember, for their support and advice during work on this thesis and my colleagues in Heritage Collections and the Library at Exeter, particularly Jessica Gardner. I’m also grateful for my years working at the BFI, where I developed my interest in studying sitcom and had support from many of my compadres there, especially Bryony Dixon and Rebecca Barden. My parents and family have been a huge support to me over the years and first introduced me to sitcoms. Most of all I would like to thank my wife, Helen Hanson, whose support and encouragement has been invaluable. 4 List of Illustrations Appendix Figure 1 Steve Coogan (‘Tommy’) and Ruth Jones (‘Mags’) in ‘Cockroaches’, Saxondale (1:4) Figure 2 Steve Coogan in ‘Cockroaches’, Saxondale (1:4) Figure 3 Steve Coogan in ‘Cockroaches’, Saxondale (1:4) Figure 4 Steve Coogan (‘Tommy’) in ‘Cockroaches’, Saxondale (1:4) Figure 5 Tamsin Grieg (‘Alice’) in ‘Lobotomy Bay’, Love Soup (2:8) Figure 6 Tamsin Grieg and Mark Heap (‘Douglas’, right) in ‘Lobotomy Bay’, Love Soup (2:8) Figure 7 Tamsin Greig in ‘Lobotomy Bay’, Love Soup (2:8) Figure 8 Tamsin Grieg and Mark Heap in ‘Lobotomy Bay’, Love Soup (2:8) 5 INTRODUCTION This study examines television situation comedy (sitcom) in the United Kingdom over the last fifteen years and argues that its texts can be understood as part of a discourse about the nature of modernity. I will argue that the modernity encountered by the television audience in this period and depicted in the characters, situations, jokes and forms of sitcoms in Britain marks a definite shift from the patterns of life understood for the previous three or four decades. Debates around the meaning and nature of modernity have formed a large body of critical work, going back two centuries. This critical history is outlined in studies written around twenty to thirty years ago by Fredric Jameson, David Harvey and Marshall Berman, who also all put forward their own varying analyses of what modernity was becoming at that particular juncture in time. In one sense modernity is a state of now; of the dynamics of the moment with its tensions between past, present and future; yet each phase of modernity has its own distinct character and is experienced differently, depending on the social, historical, geographic and technological circumstances. If the ‘modern’ as we understand it began some centuries ago, it has undergone a number of transformations that represent new ideas in the way life is organised. Harvey, Berman and Jameson engage with ideas about ‘postmodernity’, then a popular concept in theorising culture. However, if as Jameson suggests, “postmodernism is what you have when the modernization process is complete” (ix), then it proved premature as an argument, for change has become even more relentless in recent years, indicating that the process is, in fact, far from over. Now lives 6 are constantly changing and responses to this are ever more complex, as Harvey suggests: “modernity …is characterised by a never-ending process of internal ruptures and fragmentations within itself” (12), all of which form part of its discourse. This current period of modernity goes under many different names. Most of these try to give some sense of its fluidity or flexibility or its place within the history of capitalism and modernisation. Thus Jameson defines it as “late capitalism” (xviii, with “postmodernity” as a synonym), while Harvey prefers “flexible accumulation” (147). Richard Sennett sometimes refers to it as “flexible capitalism” ( The Corrosion of Character 9) but more often adopts the more widely applicable term “the culture of the new capitalism” (The Culture of the New Capitalism ). Zygmunt Bauman pronounces the era of one of “liquid modernity” (Liquid Modernity ) before applying the “liquid” idea to specific aspects of present- day living. As the work of Sennett and Bauman is at the centre of this study, I will use “culture of the new capitalism” and “liquid modernity” as terms to define contemporary modernity. The post-war society, based on identifiable structures and codes, both in social organisation and in the inherent sense of self, has been largely broken down through considerable shifts in both the economy and culture. Change has occurred through globalisation, technology and the rapid reassessment of previously accepted notions like class, the nature of work, personal relationships or indeed mass entertainment. Some of these changes may be progressive or necessary while others may be encouraged by ideology or profit imperatives but 7 they have all served to create a climate of uncertainty that informs ‘our’ modernity. ‘Modernity’ is defined here as the attitudes and structures informing contemporary life – the condition of modern living in Britain – both for society as a whole and for the individuals within that society. As Jameson has written, “modernity would then…describe the way ‘modern’ people feel about themselves” (310) and my contention is that these feelings are aired within sitcom. In using the terms ‘our’ and ‘we’ in this study I’m referring to modes of living shared by people without much power over the last fifteen years within Western democracies in general and Britain in particular; people who form the bulk of the television audience. Sennett suggests that “what’s peculiar about uncertainty today is that it exists without any looming historical disaster; instead it is woven into the everyday practices of a vigorous capitalism” ( Respect 31). Uncertainty then pervades modernity; Berman suggests that “to be modern is to live a life of paradox and contradiction” (13) and that “to be modern is to find ourselves in an environment that promises us adventure, power, joy, growth, transformation of ourselves and our world – and at the same time, that threatens to destroy everything we have, everything we know, everything we are” (15). We did not become part of “the culture of the new capitalism” overnight. The external forces that have helped to transform society and the shifts in attitudes that have resulted from these changes have been gestating for a long time as markets have been deregulated, sexual mores and familial ties have become less rigidly defined, new technologies have transformed how people 8 communicate with other and how they make transactions with institutions, old community structures have diminished and consumption and individualism have grown in response to all these developments. Ultimately this has led to a new landscape of living, where people think and feel differently about themselves and their place in society and where there is an acknowledgement of perpetual motion, of continuous change. Harvey argues that “if the only thing certain about modernity is uncertainty, then we should, surely, pay considerable attention to the social forces that produce such a condition” (118). Culture is inextricably linked with the society in which it exists, which informs both cultural texts and how they are seen and understood.

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