Australian Stage Comedians 1915-1930: Configuring a Comic National Identity

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This project aims to make a major contribution to Australian cultural history by examining the origins of what has often been described as the distinctive Australian sense of humour. While elements of this national characteristic emerged in colonial times, including an emphasis on stoicism, self-deprecation and the contradictions of existence (e.g. in Steele Rudd's and Henry Lawson's stories), this project will increase community awareness of how stage comedians during and after the First World War focused these tendencies into a distinctive emphasis on the comedy of everyday experience, and on maintaining a tough-minded optimism in adversity.