The masks of anarchy : a theoretical study of the intersections between punk and alternative comedy

Punk's place within pop-cultural history is assured, yet in the claims made for its 'serious' and revolutionary role, the part played by the comic in its critical function remains relatively under-explored. This thesis aims to investigate this dimension in greater depth, pursuing the intersections further into punk's own influence on the subsequent growth of alternative comedy. As with any movement that emphasises 'newness' and change, punk and alternative comedy defined themselves against a ' past' and a 'dominant'. The cultural context and their [disengagement [from]with it will be explored through a theoretical analysis which takes in both the parodic aspect, and punk's attempted reconfiguration of the very terms of ' history' and relation to context - space, time, memory, past, future. Punk will be considered as both a 'post modem' phenomenon, and as mounting a challenge to postmodernism. One major area of change, touching upon shifting boundaries of power in performance, is that of the performer-audience dynamic. The techniques available to alternative comedians will be seen to be indebted to the altered dynamic

enabled by punk. The deconstruction of hierarchies will be discussed in tandem with the continued struggle for dominance. The interplay of alienation and engagement, violence and play, along with the invocation of the abject, will be considered in relation to comic theory.

Notions of honesty in performance emerge throughout as particularly crucial in both punk and alternative comedy's self-construction, and the

implications of this for identity and onstage personae will be examined. The move from 'truth of performance' to 'performative fiction' will he considered in relation to attempted contextual reconfigurations, with the entailed question of the 'amateur's' incomplete abdication of responsibility. I will suggest that alternative comedy makes an effort to redress punk's lapses on this point, and thence to restore a sense of political responsibility.