ABSTRACT
A lesbian joke is no laughing matter. Or so urban myth would have it. Public folklore promoted by the tabloid press decrees that lesbians, like feminists, are people that the great British public are supposed to laugh at and certainly not to laugh with. But today, this reactionary line is faltering somewhat in the face of a new social reality. ‘Alternative’ comedy has moved to take up a central space in British cultural life. Many of the groups in society once considered marginal and politically threatening to the status quo, have blossomed to provide some of the richest sites of comedy. Women now constitute the expanding establishment in popular comedy, with the likes of French and Saunders becoming increasingly influential, while gay male comics have also crossed into a wider public realm: Julian Clary tells provocative anal jokes on prime time TV while the drag queen Lily Savage welcomes viewers to breakfast TV with disconcerting aplomb.
