Sunshine on Putty: The Golden Age of British Comedy from The Big Night Out to The Office Book

	Introduction	xi
	Chronological Timeline	xxvii
Part 1
1	On the Launchpad: The Reeves and Mortimer despot/democrat trajectory is about to commence	3
2	'Don't Mention the War' Conflict aftermath and comedic rebirth, from The Goons to Richard and Judy	23
3	Morris, Iannucci, Coogan, Lee, Herring and Marber: a.k.a. The new school of linguistic exactitude	42
4	The Great Mythological Armour Shortage of 1993-4: Parts One to Five	65
5	Constructing the Citadel: The comedy edifice needs bricks and mortar, just like any other (in five more parts)	82
6	The Illusion (or Otherwise) of Spontaneity: Eddie Izzard and Phil Kay play different 'danger edges'	103
7	It's Frank's (and Chubby's and Jo's and Jenny's) World: The rest of us just live in it	121
8	'Sensation' or Given that we consume culture with the same hearty appetite with which we might approach a tasty meat or cheese product, why not savour the two pleasures in the same language?	142
9	A Class of His Own: Paul Whitehouse, The Fast Show, and the poetry of social insecurity	154
10	Cry Harry for England: Hill, Murray and the absence of empire	174
11	'That Would Be an Ecumenical Matter' Father Ted answers the Irish Question	193
12	The Chat Nexus	211
Part 2
13	David Baddiel Syndrome or The tyranny of obligatory irreverence	235
14	Vic Reeves Welcomes Us into His Beautiful Home: And shows us paintings differing markedly from those of Ronnie Wood	251
15	A Grove of His Own: Steve Coogan fights to maintain his position in Virbius's gory lineage	260
16	The Royle We: Caroline Aherne and the comedy of popular sovereignty	272
17	'A Little Bit of Politics' or Who do you think you are kidding, Mr Elton?	286
18	Morals: Cartoons, Brass Eye, a brief history of swearing and the real-life Mary Whitehouse Experience	304
19	Equal Opportunities, the Ones that Never Knock: Race and Ali G, sex and Smack the Pony, and Spaced-the final frontier	323
20	Families at War: The Reeves and Mortimer despot/democrat trajectory reaches its terrifying conclusion	349
21	The League of Gentlemen: Three character actors no longer in search of an author	358
22	Ceramics Revue: The Johnny Vegas story	371
23	Script for a Jester's Tear: Reality TV and the comedification of the self	384
24	The Office: Yea, though I walk through the Thames Valley of the shadow of death...	401
25	'I Told You I Was Ill' Spike's last resting place and Back Passage to India	417
	Conclusion	429
	Afterword: Little Britain, BBC3 and the post-Office road map	439
	Bibliography	449
	Acknowledgements	452
	Index	455