'Tears of laughter': 1990s British cinema in the comic mode

The thesis examines the interactions of comedy and drama in three significant strands of British film production during the decade of the 1990s, classified and considered under the headings of ‘comedies of class, culture and community’, ‘ethnic’ comedy dramas exploring issues of cultural identity, and romantic comedies, set and produced in Britain. The study will consider the extent to which these particular kinds of narrative are both indebted to earlier forms of comic drama in British film culture, and also represent a decisive break from established traditions in British film culture. The thesis seeks to demonstrate that the ‘comic mode’ proved to be a dynamic creative mechanism in recent British cinema, facilitating the construction of innovative and genuinely exploratory filmic stories about characters seeking work, cultural acceptance and romantic fulfilment.

Part one considers the role of humour in societies, the relationships between comedy and other dramatic modes of expression, such as tragedy and melodrama, and the significance of genres in British film culture. Part two discusses a series of 1990s films which dramatise issues of community from a comic and tragi-comic perspective, and includes case studies of Brassed Off (1996) and The Full Monty (1997). Part three examines a series of 1990s British films revolving around British-Asian and African-Caribbean characters attempting to feel ‘at home’ in Western and modern British culture, and features a detailed analysis of East is East (1999). Part four explores the emergence of romantic comedy as a popular and influential genre in 1990s British cinema, and concludes with case studies of Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994) and Notting Hill (1999). The thesis will claim that the comic framework deployed in the films discussed was crucial to their success in creating compelling portraits of the multi-faceted nature of modern British society.