This collection is a wide-ranging exploration of contemporary British television drama and its representations of social class. Through early studio-set plays, soap operas and period drama, the volume demonstrates how class provides a bridge across multiple genres and traditions of television drama. The authors trace this thematic emphasis into the present day, offering fascinating new insights into the national conversation around class and identity in Britain today. The chapters engage with a range of topics including authorial explorations of Stephen Poliakoff and Jimmy McGovern, case studies of television performers Maxine Peake and Jimmy Nail, and discussions of the sitcom genre and animation form. This book offers new perspectives on popular British television shows such as Goodnight Sweetheartand Footballers Wives, and analysis of more recent series such as Peaky Blinders and This is England.
1. Introduction (David Forrest and Beth Johnson).- Part I: Authorship and Class - 2. Beth Johnson (The University of Leeds) - This is England: Authorship, Critical Contexts and Class Telly.- 3. David Forrest (The University of Sheffield) - Jimmy McGovern's The Street and the Politics of Everyday Life.- 4. Stephen Harper (The University of Portsmouth) - High-flyers, Hooligans and Helpmates: Images of Social Class in the Television Dramas of Stephen Poliakoff.- Part II: Institutions and Structures of Class - 5. Paul Elliott (University of Worcester) - Through Class Darkly: Class in the British TV Noir.- 6. Felicity Colman and David James (Manchester Metropolitan University) - Military Class: Hearts and Minds on the Domestic Screen.- 7. Gill Jamieson (University of the West of Scotland) - Creating a Level Playing Field: 'Honest Endeavour Together!': Social Mobility, Entrepreneurialism and Class in Mr Selfridge.- 8. James Dalby (University of Gloucestershire) - Social Class and Television Audiences in the 1990s.- 9. HollyGale Millette (The University of Southampton) - Searching for Hugh Gaitskell in a Neoliberal Landscape - Masculinities and Class Mobility in Goodnight Sweetheart.- Part III: Place and Class - 10. James Leggott (Northumbria University) - From Newcastle to Nashville: The Northern Soul of Jimmy Nail.- 11. Het Phillips (University of Birmingham) - 'A Woman Like That Is Not A Woman, Quite. I Have Been Her Kind': Maxine Peake and the Gothic Excess of Northern Femininity.- 12. Paul Long (Birmingham City University) - Class, Place and History in the Imaginative Landscapes of Peaky Blinders.- 13. Helen Piper (University of Bristol) - Happy Valley: Compassion, evil and exploitation in an ordinary 'trouble town'.- Part IV: Taste and Class - 14. Phil Wickham (University of Exeter) - 21st Century British Sitcom and the Hidden Injuries of Class .- 15. Chris Pallant and James Newton (Canterbury Christchurch University) - Animating Class in Contemporary British Television.- 16. Antony Mullen (Durham University) - Public Property: Celebrity and the Politics of New Labour in Footballers' Wives.- 17. Sue Vice (The University of Sheffield) - Grandma's House and the Charms of the Petit-Bourgeoisie.
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