The performance of place and comedy explored through postdramatic and popular forms with reference to the staging of 'A Good Neet Aht'
The journey begins with a mapping of the terrain of praxis in a discussion of autoethnography, popular performance and the postdramatic. A parallel discussion on place and class draws on the tradition of Cultural Studies. These provide the framework for the analysis of the performance of A Good Neet Aht which is also supported by audience response surveys. The results show a strong sense of place can be engendered through performance. Moreover, this particular sense of place is imbued with class identity and its cultural associations, specifically, comedy. What emerges is a new performance form of contemporary relevance of collaborative meaning making involving place, performer and audience. This self-reflective journey has at its centre the locale of the former mining village of Sharlston in West Yorkshire where I spent most of my childhood. Therefore, the methodological approach to this exploration of place and comedy utilises autoethnography. This autoethnographical method was chosen as it situates the researcher at the centre of the research recognising that the cultural milieu the researcher operates in can affect outcomes. The research process involved creating a performance drawing on the influence of northern comedians and their material as intertextual elements amidst an autobiographical investigation of the performance of identity as it is shaped by place. The performance consists of autobiographical material relating to family members; my experience of being seen by others as ‘a northerner’; archive film material of northern comics; and the performance of stand-up. The methodology has involved documenting the whole performance and the thesis refers to selected video clips as part of the analysis. Within the text there are hyperlinks to scenes from recordings of performances and exploratory studio sessions. These scenes can also be found on an accompanying DVD to this thesis.
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