COST 1 (1) pp. 43–59 Intellect Limited 2010
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Comedy Studies
Volume 1 Number 1
© 2010 Intellect Ltd Article. English language. doi: 10.1386/cost.1.1.43/1
KEYWORDS
comedy theory
Northern Ireland
(the) Troubles
Gary Mitchell
Sigmund Freud
Henri Bergson
TIM MILES
British Institute for Humour Research, University of Surrey
‘Pack up your troubles
and smile, smile, smile’:
comic plays about
the legacy of ‘the
Troubles’
ABSTRACT
There have been several plays concerned with the history, and legacy, of ‘the Troubles’
in Northern Ireland, produced since the ceasefires of 1994, that have chosen to por-
tray events comically. The article will focus on five: A Night in November (1994)
by Marie Jones; The Lieutenant of Inishmore (2001) by Martin McDonagh; The
History of the Troubles (Accordin’ to my Da) (2002) by Martin Lynch, Connor
Grimes and Alan McKee; and Caught Red-Handed (2002) by Tim Loane.
The article has four main aims: firstly, to offer a brief analysis of the comedy of
these plays; secondly, to argue that these plays offer audiences, in Northern Ireland
and elsewhere, an important, and often therapeutic, way of responding to ‘the
Troubles’; thirdly, to argue that many critics have failed to realize the significance
of some of these plays, in part as a result of their failure to appreciate the function of
the comedy; and, finally, to argue that it is through an analysis of the comedy that
insights may be gained as to why some of these plays have ‘travelled’ while others
have played only to local audiences.
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Tim Miles
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1. A copy of the Agree
may be found on the
official web site of the
Northern Ireland Office:
http://www.nio.gov.
uk/agreement.pdf.
Laughter is not just an expression of emotion. It is a public symptom of
engaging in a kind of conflict resolution.
(Terrence Deacon quoted in Carr and Greeves 2006: 25)
In his essay in Stepping Stones: The Arts in Ulst