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2. Comedy and Conflict : The Fifth International Comedy Conference: in collaboration with Dr CP Lee of Salford University

Comedy is often a bedfellow of conflict, whether in the domestic sphere or on an international stage. Double acts have made their careers through representations of conflict real or imagined. Comedians have used conflict as the basis for performances since comedy began – a pie in the face is as guaranteed a laugh getter as a well timed insult. There would be no Odd Couple without conflict – The War of the Roses used matrimonial conflict as the basis for its discourse and comedy has often flourished in the face of conflict, we need only look at the ‘tiny revolutions’ of gags that were told during the days of Soviet occupation in Eastern Europe