ABSTRACT
Peter Barnes's controversial play Laughter!, which uses slapstick comedy devices against the background of Auschwitz, failed in spite of its author's reputation. When it trivializes, instead of enlightening, humour cannot go very far. The article analyzes Peter Barnes's plays within the wider context of the battle between Modernism and Classicism. The Jacobean shock-effects used by Barnes in his plays lack real force, and only manage to preach to the half-converted. Veiled threats of new censorship laws under the Thatcher Era, the age of Political Correctness, made permissiveness an easy target for moralists. The article evaluates the shock-tactics Laughter! is a comment on, from the Swinging Sixties to the Anti-Clockwise Eighties.
