View Single Post
  #23  
Unread 09-28-2010, 05:36 AM
Steve Bucknell's Avatar
Steve Bucknell Steve Bucknell is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: Stocksbridge. Near the Dark Peak.
Posts: 1,524
Blog Entries: 35
Default Nah then, Janice.

Sorry Maryann and Janice. My wife and I were rolling on the floor laughing at your bewilderment. The mystery to me is how Bill gets this.

It makes me realise how difficult humour is to explain. This is regional, related to Yorkshire dialect and South Yorkshire ways of speaking. Ian is parodying plain-speaking local folk wisdom. These are the sort of phrases you hear in the chip-shop or the canteen or the bus-shelter, attempts to fathom the meaning of life. He scrambles them all up and brings out their absurdity and black hilarity. Everything is surly and dark and getting darker, yet full of subversive humour.

In performance the poem's last line always gets a great roar of laughter/recognition from the audience who recognise their own black humour reflected back at them.

Now Bill needs to tell us.

Last edited by Steve Bucknell; 09-28-2010 at 05:49 AM.
Reply With Quote