Thinking Allowed Folgen

British comedy, from Music Hall to TV sitcom, was once a democratic medium. Humour united people otherwise divided by class and education. But new research finds that the Alternative Comedy Movement transformed comedy's place in our culture. It rejected the 'lowbrow' tone of earlier humour, creating the basis for comic taste to provide new forms of social distinction. The sociologist, Sam Friedman joins Laurie Taylor to debate comedy snobbery. Also, mobile communications have elided the distinction between work and home. The cultural studies lecturer, Melissa Gregg, and the Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis, Rosalind Gill, ask if the lines between our personal and professional lives are increasingly blurred. Producer: Jayne Egerton.

Have the working class in modern Britain become objects of fear, scorn and ridicule? That's the claim of Owen Jones who joins Laurie and Imogen Tyler on today's Thinking Allowed. He claims that the media and politicians alike dismiss as feckless, criminal and ignorant a vast, underprivileged section of society whose members have become stereotyped by one, disgust-filled word - 'chavs'. If this is true, then how has the reality of the working-class majority become regularly served up as a feral rump for our contempt and amusement? Also, what happens to Goths when they get old? Laurie talks to Paul Hodkinson about his study of members of that youth cult which used to be called Gothic Punk. How have they adapted their love of black clothes, multiple piercings, make up and androgyny to mortgages, children and the rites of passage incumbent upon middle age? Producer: Charlie Taylor.

One third of us now think we are sleep deprived. Why should that be? Who loses the most and how is society reacting? Laurie is joined by Stephen Williams to discuss a new area for sociology, the contested area of the 'politics of sleep'. Also, what happens when a woman commits murder? It is a very rare event and can challenge ingrained notions about the nature of femininity. Perhaps because of that, a new study finds that there are existing stereotypes which guide the reaction of both the media and the judiciary to women who kill. Lizzie Seal and Louise Westmarland join Laurie to discuss our attitudes towards women, murder and femininity Producer: Charlie Taylor.