I am a big fan of the generation known as the 'Alternative Comedians' that emerged in the late seventies and eighties and were featured, early in, in clubs like The Comedy Store and The Comic Strip.

I have been reading a fantastic book about them, called "Didn't You Kill My Mother-In-Law?" by roger Wilmut and Peter Rosengard. there is another I own called "That's Anarchy" by Chrissie Macdonald.

Comedians include Victoria Wood, Mayall and Edmonson, Richardson and Planer, French and Saunders, Alxei Sayle, Pauline Melville, Frost and Arden, Ben Elton, Keith Allen, Arnold Brown, Helen Lederer, Jenny Eclaire and many, many others.

Some programmes created by these comedians are "The Young Ones", "Happy Families", "Girls On Top", "The Comic Strip Presents...", "Saturday/Friday Live" "Filthy Rich and Catlflap", "Bottom", "French and Saunders", Absolutely Fabulous" "Blackadder" "Jam and Jerusalem", "The Thin Blue Line", "The Life and Times of vivienne Vyle", "Rik Mayall Presents", "Teenage Kicks", Victoria Wood's programmes and so many more.

who else likes them, and what are your favourites?

Who else has followed in their footsteps more recently?

There is a stand-up show coming up soon featuring the early comic strip crowd called the 1981 show or something (according to Stewart Lee on Richard Bacon's Fivelive show last week).

Some of the performers hated the pejorative 'alternative' tag and argued they were just comedians and not an alternative anything. In fact they still told the same mum-in-law jokes but just inserted Thatcher's name in. Bit like today's comedians whose Premier league footballer jokes are basically recycled 70s thick Paddy gags.

i think the 'alternative' comedians aimed their jokes at politcal targets and tried to keep things a bit more immediate, rather than aiming at gender sstereotypes et cetera.

Quote: ToddB @ May 17 2011, 12:27 PM BST

i think the 'alternative' comedians aimed their jokes at politcal targets and tried to keep things a bit more immediate, rather than aiming at gender sstereotypes et cetera.

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That's a fair point and the few comedians who still do political material (Marks Steel and Thomas, Rob Newman) are again outside of the mainstream.

Quote: youngian @ May 17 2011, 11:59 AM BST

There is a stand-up show coming up soon featuring the early comic strip crowd called the 1981 show or something (according to Stewart Lee on Richard Bacon's Fivelive show last week).

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At Last! The 1981 Show at London's Southbank - Sunday 29 May 2011

http://ticketing.southbankcentre.co.uk/find/dance-performance/tickets/at-last-the-1981-show-58634

Quote: youngian @ May 17 2011, 11:59 AM BST

Some of the performers hated the pejorative 'alternative' tag

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I've never heard it used in the pejorative.
Doesn't surprise me that they didn't like the tag though, it often happens that a convenient label is used for contemporaneous artists who have nothing else in common. A lot of punk bands were similarly branded without their consent.

Quote: Agnes Guano @ May 19 2011, 12:58 PM BST

At Last! The 1981 Show at London's Southbank - Sunday 29 May 2011

http://ticketing.southbankcentre.co.uk/find/dance-performance/tickets/at-last-the-1981-show-58634

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Looks like it will be a sell out. Speaking of which, will advert voiceover specialist Alexei Sayle be doing his Marxist-Leninist comedian eats Pot Noodles gag?

Quote: Nogget @ May 19 2011, 1:36 PM BST

I've never heard it used in the pejorative.
Doesn't surprise me that they didn't like the tag though, it often happens that a convenient label is used for contemporaneous artists who have nothing else in common. A lot of punk bands were similarly branded without their consent.

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In the eighties, "Alternative comedy" was often described as being an "alternative" to being funny, mostly by people in mainstream comedy or those who were it's supporters.

Quote: Tony Cowards @ May 19 2011, 4:16 PM BST

In the eighties, "Alternative comedy" was often described as being an "alternative" to being funny

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You're right of course, but that's a subversion of the intended meaning, which was an 'alternative' to the existing conventional comedy. It wasn't intended to be a pejorative term, was it. (Was it?)

Quote: Nogget @ May 19 2011, 4:46 PM BST

You're right of course, but that's a subversion of the intended meaning, which was an 'alternative' to the existing conventional comedy. It wasn't intended to be a pejorative term, was it. (Was it?)

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No the original meaning wasn't meant to be pejorative, it meant "alternative to the mainstream" but the 'mainstream' people used it as a pejorative term as they believed it was an "alternative" to being funny.

There is an "Alternative Comedy Memorial Society" created by Thom Tuck and John-Luke Roberts.

For those of you who remember alternative comedy, don't forget about this event, curated by Stewart Lee and Paul Jackson.

http://ticketing.southbankcentre.co.uk/find/dance-performance/tickets/at-last-the-1981-show-58634