Ealing comedy

noun

Etymology

From Ealing Studios, the studio which released most such films, named after the London town of Ealing.

Definitions

  1. A genre of English comedy film, typically populist and satirical about life in post-WWII…

    A genre of English comedy film, typically populist and satirical about life in post-WWII British society.

    • Ealing comedy is suddenly being regarded as the intellectual's treat.
    • What Michael Balcon described as the 'mild anarchy' (1969: 159) permeating Ealing comedy was, over the course of the decade, usurped by the moderate anarchy of the St Trinians and Carry On films.
    • The use of voice-over, characteristic of Ealing comedy, is also ironic.
  2. A film in this genre.

    • This new film follows the pattern of an Ealing comedy, with escalating chaos and fantasy as the entire fabric of life collapses for the inhabitants of a Leningrad apartment block
    • OK, it's [The Ladykillers] an Ealing comedy so there's something very British and very genteel about it , which isn't particularly our thing.
    • Its finest moments are nevertheless as always the vignettes of tenderly observed British ordinariness: Wallace remarking 'Cracking piece of toast, Gromit' at the breakfast table, just like Stanley Holloway in an Ealing comedy

The neighborhood

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sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA