Alternative Comedy Now and Then Critical Perspectives

Oliver Double
 is a Reader in Drama at the University of Kent, UK, but before becoming an academic he worked as a stand-up comedian on the national comedy circuit and set up Last Laugh, Sheffield's longest running comedy club. He continues to perform occasionally in his one-man shows and as compere of the Funny Rabbit Comedy Club. He has written a number of books, chapters and articles on stand-up comedy, variety theatre and popular performance, and helped to establish the British Stand-Up Comedy Archive, based at Kent’s Templeman Library.

Sharon Lockyer
 is a Reader in Sociology and Communications at Brunel University London, UK. She is the founding director of the Centre for Comedy Studies Research (CCSR) – the first, and only, international research centre devoted to the academic study of comedy. Her research interests include critical comedy studies, identity politics and comic media representations and the sociology of popular culture and she is widely published in these areas in books, journal articles and blogs.