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Keeping Quiet: Visual Comedy in the Age of Sound Paperback – 6 Dec. 2024
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'A custard pie in the face of those who say slapstick is dead, by the go-to writer of British visual comedy'
– Harry Hill
'There's nothing funnier than visual comedy done well. And there's no more entertaining and informative book about its relevance today'
– Bill Dare, producer of Dead Ringers
"...In this lovingly compiled and thorough history of the genre beyond the advent of sound, writer and performer Julian Dutton extols the artistry of dumb-show, pantomime and slapstick, rejecting the notion that it's necessarily retro or survives only through nostalgia...
An absorbing, affectionate but critically rigorous account of a grossly undervalued area of comedy performance."
– Jay Richardson, Chortle
"A must-have item for all fans of comedy as it fills a distinct gap in the bookshelves. Highly recommended!"
– Dick Fiddy, BFI Film & TV historian & archivist
Keeping Quiet is a love-letter to the modern sight-gag on film and television, tracing the history of physical clowning since the advent of sound.
Taking up the story of visual humour where Paul Merton’s Silent Comedy leaves off, Julian Dutton charts the lives and work of all the great comedians who chose to remain silent, from Charlie Chaplin - who was determined to resist the ‘talkies’ - right through to the slapstick of modern-day performers such as Rowan Atkinson, Matt Lucas and Harry Hill. This fascinating chronicle - spanning nine decades - shows how physical comedy, at first overshadowed by dialogue-films in the 1930s, reinvented itself and how this revival was spearheaded by a Frenchman: Jacques Tati.
Julian Dutton draws on his own experience as a comedy writer and performer to give an expert analysis of the screen persona and the comedy style of dozens of the screen’s best-loved performers including Laurel & Hardy, Buster Keaton, Harpo Marx, Norman Wisdom, Jerry Lewis, Benny Hill, Peter Sellers, Eric Sykes, Ronnie Barker, Marty Feldman - and many more.
This book will appeal both to the serious student of film, television and theatre - including those aspiring to write or perform comedy - and to the general reader and comedy fan.
- Print length350 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- Publication date6 Dec. 2024
- Dimensions17.09 x 2.24 x 25.2 cm
- ISBN-101036906604
- ISBN-13978-1036906603
Product details
- Publisher : Everyman Humour
- Publication date : 6 Dec. 2024
- Language : English
- Print length : 350 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1036906604
- ISBN-13 : 978-1036906603
- Item weight : 726 g
- Dimensions : 17.09 x 2.24 x 25.2 cm
- Best Sellers Rank: 1,801,952 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 81 in Theories of Humour
- 829 in TV Tie-in Humour
- 44,467 in General Humour
- Customer reviews:
About the author

Julian Dutton is a writer and performer whose work has won a British Comedy Award, a BAFTA, and a Radio Academy Gold Award. He is the co-creator, co-writer & co-star of BBC TV's comedy series 'Pompidou' starring Matt Lucas, he co-created, wrote & performed in BBC1's hit comedy series 'The Big Impression,' and his TV sitcom 'Scoop' ran for three series of 39 episodes. Born in London, he has toured as an actor throughout the UK & Europe and as a comedian and impressionist has appeared in the West End supporting many of Britain's top comics like Harry Hill and Al Murray. He has written & performed in more than two hundred radio comedy shows for the BBC and is the author of nine books ranging from travel and humour to history and fiction - the best-selling 'Shakespeare's Journey Home: a Traveller's Guide through Elizabethan England,' 'Keeping Quiet: Visual Comedy in the Age of Sound,' ('A brilliant history of modern slapstick,' - Harry Hill), 'The Secret Diary of Samuel Pepys, aged ten & three quarters,' and 'Are We All Here?' - a collection of humorous articles, some of which first appeared in the Independent on Sunday. Most recently he has published 'Water Gypsies: a history of life on Britain's Rivers and Canals,' for The History Press, based on his childhood growing up on a Thames houseboat, 'The Parade's Gone By: everyday life in Britain in the twentieth century,' 'My Town, My Rules, - the Diary of Britain's Greatest Councillor,' based on his cult comic creation on twitter, Councillor Battley, and 'Old Man Out,' a fantastical comic thriller. He combines writing books and scripts with touring the UK in a sell-out show about the actor John Le Mesurier, Do You Think That's Wise? and performing his impressions shows aboard cruise-ships.
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