- 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
Buy this book
- 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.
- About the authors
-
Richard Wallace is Assistant Professor in the Department of Film and Television Studies at the University of Warwick, UK.
- Table of contents (7 chapters)
-
-
The Fine Line between Stupid and Clever: An Introduction
Pages 1-35
-
Acting Naturally: Performing The Beatles
Pages 39-63
-
Parodying Performance in This Is Spinal Tap
Pages 65-95
-
Best in Show: Christopher Guest as a Mockumentary Auteur
Pages 97-123
-
‘The Day the PM Joined The Thick of It’: The Mockumentary and New Labour
Pages 127-163
-
Table of contents (7 chapters)
Recommended for you
Bibliographic Information
- Bibliographic Information
-
- Book Title
- Mockumentary Comedy
- Book Subtitle
- Performing Authenticity
- Authors
-
- Richard Wallace
- Series Title
- Palgrave Studies in Comedy
- Copyright
- 2018
- Publisher
- Palgrave Macmillan
- Copyright Holder
- The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s)
- eBook ISBN
- 978-3-319-77848-8
- DOI
- 10.1007/978-3-319-77848-8
- Hardcover ISBN
- 978-3-319-77847-1
- Softcover ISBN
- 978-3-030-08554-4
- Edition Number
- 1
- Number of Pages
- XIII, 226
- Number of Illustrations
- 5 b/w illustrations, 8 illustrations in colour
- Topics
