But what has Footlights ever done for us? Gender, comedy and the politics of privilege

Abstract

In recent years, institutions such as Cambridge University, and Cambridge societies such as Footlights, have been under scrutiny for their perceived elitism. This article nevertheless makes the case that such views overlook the place of gender within these contexts, and above all, the history of gender discrimination and the struggle for representation on the part of women within such institutions. Looking primarily at Footlights, and two of its most prominent early female members (Eleanor Bron and Emma Thompson), and focusing on some of their early work on screen, this article argues that we consider the exceptional nature of female performers emerging from the society. The article argues, in turn, that we take into account the distinctive, critical type of work on the part of these performers, in terms of its comedic and reflextive approach to female representation; arguing also that we link such work to the authorial opportunities, but also competitive contexts, of Cambridge University comedy during these times.

Keywords:

• Comedy
• gender
• Footlights
• privilege
• Eleanor Bron
• Emma
• Thompson

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Bron, along with Python regular Carol Cleveland, was notably the only female performer to appear in A Poke in the Eye, the first of the Amnesty shows in 1976.

2 Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace, co-devised with former Footlights members Richard Ayoade and Matt Holness, started out as a stage show that won the Perrier Award in 2001, before its subsequent transfer to television.

3 The show, from my research, is unavailable to purchase in any format from online retailers; nor, from what I have encountered, are clips from the show available to view on any online platform.

4 See, for example, the comments thread on the show’s iMDb page (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094566/reviews?ref_=tt_urv), which offer an interesting array of responses, a number of them castigating the show for its intellectual pretentiousness and apparent ego-centricity.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Neil Archer

Dr Neil Archer is a Senior Lecturer in Film at Keele University. His recent publications include: N. Archer, 2021. Cinema and Brexit: The Politics of Popular English Film (Bloomsbury). https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/cinema-and-brexit-9781501351334/ and N. Archer, 2017. Beyond a Joke: Parody in English Film and Television Comedy (Bloomsbury). https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/beyond-a-joke-9781350242449/.