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Book cover

Mockumentary Comedy

Performing Authenticity

  • Book
  • © 2018

Overview

Authors:
  1. Richard Wallace

    1. University of Warwick, Coventry, United Kingdom

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  • Offers an altogether new approach to investigating one of contemporary film and television’s most popular and persistent narrative modes
  • Brings a number of film and television texts into critical discussion of the mockumentary for the first time
  • Charts an entirely new terrain to existing texts on mockumentary, focusing on the significance of comedy and performance

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Comedy (PSCOM)

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Table of contents (7 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xiii
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  2. The Fine Line between Stupid and Clever: An Introduction

    • Richard Wallace
    Pages 1-35

  3. Music

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 37-37
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    2. Acting Naturally: Performing The Beatles

      • Richard Wallace
      Pages 39-63

    3. Parodying Performance in This Is Spinal Tap

      • Richard Wallace
      Pages 65-95

    4. Best in Show: Christopher Guest as a Mockumentary Auteur

      • Richard Wallace
      Pages 97-123

  4. Politics

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 125-125
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    2. ‘The Day the PM Joined The Thick of It’: The Mockumentary and New Labour

      • Richard Wallace
      Pages 127-163

    3. Campaigning for Authenticity in the Post-Truth Era

      • Richard Wallace
      Pages 165-200

    4. Conclusion: Digital Mockumentary

      • Richard Wallace
      Pages 201-209

  5. Back Matter

    Pages 211-226
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Keywords

About this book

This book is the first to take comedy seriously as an important aspect of the popular mockumentary form of film and television fiction. It examines the ways in which mockumentary films and television programmes make visible—through comedy—the performances that underpin straight documentaries and many of our public figures. Mockumentary Comedy focuses on the rock star and the politician, two figures that regularly feature as mockumentary subjects. These public figures are explored through detailed textual analyses of a range of film and television comedies, including A Hard Day’s Night, This is Spinal Tap, The Thick of It, Veep and the works of Christopher Guest and Alison Jackson. This book broadens the scope of existing mockumentary scholarship by taking comedy seriously in a sustained way for the first time. It ultimately argues that the comedic performances—by performers and of documentary conventions—are central to the form’s critical significance and popular appeal. 


Authors and Affiliations

  • University of Warwick, Coventry, United Kingdom

    Richard Wallace

About the author

Richard Wallace is Assistant Professor in the Department of Film and Television Studies at the University of Warwick, UK.

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