Slapstick and Comic Performance: Comedy and Pain

by Louise Peacock

Slapstick comedy has a long and lively history from Greek Theatre to the present day. This book explores the ways in which comic pain and comic violence are performed within slapstick to make the audience laugh. It draws examples from theatre, television and film on both sides of the Atlantic.

192 pages, Hardcover

First published July 2, 2014

About the author

Louise Peacock, who has always been interested in history, took a PhD in medieval studies before turning to children's liturature. Her first book, Crossing the Delaware, was inspired by a trip with her son to Washington's Crossing.
Dr. Peacock lives in Haslett, Michigan.

Reviews

[Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Much of this book goes into detail about slapstick in theater and live performance; however, it was very useful in researching and explaining how slapstick comedy takes form in film (even though film was one of the least discussed areas of slapstick within the book). I would have loved if Peacock explained further or created another book about slapstick’s specificity just to film, but it was sufficient for my research and understanding. As far as I know, this is the only scholarly book out there that explains slapstick as a legitimate topic of discussion and is very clear in defining slapstick comedy (which is very hard to do!).

[Florencia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jackass Tesis Research:

Bastante interesante y útil (además es de simple lectura). Llega un punto que empieza a volver sobre lo mismo y de vuelve un poco redundante pero igualmente es uno de los que más voy a usar para la tesis 👍