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Jeremy Garnet, a second-rate novelist, gets talked into joining his old pal Stanley Featheringstonehaugh Ukridge in an insane plan to start a chicken ranch. Garnet should bail out on his crazy friend, but he falls in love with one of Ukridge's neighbors, Phyllis. Soon he is up to his neck in sick chickens, bad debts, a hostile future father-in-law, a sinister plot, and dirty golf. It all gets a bit thick, what? (Summary by Mark Nelson)...

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Comedy

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One of Shakespeare’s most popular plays, As You Like It is a pastoral comedy of mistaken identity, wit, and love. Daughter of a banished duke and forced to flee the court, Rosalind hides in the Forest of Arden disguised as a man. When her true love Orlando also shows up in the forest, she courts him without revealing her identity. Meanwhile, Phebe mistakenly falls in love with her disguise, Silvius pines for Phebe, Jacques philosophizes, and Touchstone makes fun of it all, and love and happiness triumph (for the most part) as Rosalind orchestrates a happy ending amid the confusion. (Summary by Rosalind Wills)...

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Comedy, Play

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Shakespeare's pastoral comedy was written and first performed around 1599, and presents some of his familiar motifs: a cross-dressing heroine, a wise-cracking fool, brothers usurping their brothers' power, a journey from the court to the country, and various romantic entanglements. (Summary by Elizabeth Klett)...

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Comedy, Play

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The play is set in Bath in the 18th century, a town legendary for conspicuous consumption and fashion at the time. Wealthy, fashionable people went there to take the waters, which were believed to have healing properties. The plot centres on the two young lovers, Lydia and Jack. Lydia, who reads a lot of popular novels of the time, wants a purely romantic love affair. To court her, Jack pretends to be Ensign Beverley, a poor officer. Lydia is enthralled with the idea of eloping with a poor soldier in spite of her guardian, Mrs. Malaprop, a moralistic widow. Mrs. Malaprop is the chief comic figure of the play, thanks to her continual misuse of words that sound like the words she intends but mean something completely different. (The term malapropism was coined in reference to the character.) Lydia has two other suitors: Bob Acres (a somewhat buffoonish country gentleman), and Sir Lucius O'Trigger, an impoverished and combative Irish gentleman. Sir Lucius pays Lucy to carry love notes between him and Lydia (who uses the name Delia), but Lucy is swindling him: Delia is actually Mrs. Malaprop....

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Comedy, Play

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Love's Labour's Lost is an early comedy by William Shakespeare. The King of Navarre and his three friends take a vow of study and seclusion for three years, during which they are forbidden to see or speak to women. Their vows are immediately tested by the arrival of the Pricess of France and her three ladies to the King's court. (Summary by Elizabeth Klett)...

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Play, Comedy

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Their Mutual Child (aka The Coming of Bill and The White Hope) is full of the loveable characters, preposterous situations, and opportunities to chuckle, if not outright laughs, that we expect from PG Wodehouse. It lacks the frantic slapstick of some Wodehouse comedy, but has a quieter more reflective humour. Kirk, the erstwhile hero, is a typical Wodehousian hero. At the beginning of the story, he is thoroughly likeable, a healthy, but a somewhat weak and malleable fellow. He dabs at beings a painter for a living, and runs with a gang of hangers-on, who sponge off him. However, his life changes dramatically when he meets the charming and lovely Ruth. Ruth is out of Kirk's league socially and financially. She possesses an exceedingly rich father and an excessively dominant and eccentric aunt, Miss Laura Delane Porter. Miss Porter’s claim to fame is her authorship of books and pamphlets aimed at bettering the world through hygiene and eugenics (the highly questionable “science” of race improvement by restricting mating to superior types deemed suited to each other). Against her father’s strong objections, but with Aunt Laura's approv...

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Comedy

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Bertram Wooster's manservant, Jeeves, is renown for his ability to apply his keen intellect to solve all problems domestic, and Bertie's friends and relatives flock to him for his counsel. But Wooster, jealous of Jeeves's fame, decides to step in and take over as the fixer of his pal's engagement, his aunt's gambling debts and old school-mate's desire to propose marriage. How far will Bertie sink them all in the soup? Will Jeeves come to the rescue? Right Ho, Jeeves features of course Bertie and Jeeves as well as Gussie Fink-Nottle, Tuppie Glossop, Aunt Dahlia and Anatole the high-strung French chef in this P.G. Wodehouse farce of England's upper crust. (Summary by Mark Nelson)...

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Comedy

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Generally considered one of Shakespeare's problem plays, Measure for Measure examines the ideas of sin and justice. Duke Vincentio turns Vienna's rule over to the corrupt Angelo, who sentences Claudio to death for having impregnated a woman before marriage. His sister Isabella, a novice nun, pleads for her brother's life, only to be told that he will be spared if she agrees to relinquish her virginity to Angelo. (Summary by wildemoose)...

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Comedy, Play

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John Fletcher's comedy (probably written and performed around 1611) is a sequel to Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, in which, as the title suggests, the tamer will be tamed. Petruchio, the shrew-tamer, has been widowed, and marries a second wife, Maria, a chaste witty lady. At the instigation of her cousin Bianca, and with the fellowship of her sister Livia, Maria decides to go on strike for equal rights, refusing to behave as a proper 17th century wife. Fletcher's play addresses the issue of men and women's roles within marriage, a controversial issue for his day. (Summary by Elizabeth Klett)...

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Comedy, Play

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The Princess Priscilla of Lothen Kunitz finds court life stifling and runs away to England with the elderly court librarian. Her intention is to live a pure and simple life filled with good works. But life among ordinary people in an English village is not what she expects it to be... (Introduction by Tabithat)...

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Fiction, Comedy

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The Pirates of Penzance; or, The Slave of Duty is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. The story concerns Frederic, who, having completed his 21st year, is released from his apprenticeship to a band of tender-hearted pirates. He meets Mabel, the daughter of Major-General Stanley, and the two young people fall instantly in love. Frederic finds out, however, that he was born on 29 February, and so, technically, he only has a birthday each leap year. His apprenticeship indentures state that he remains apprenticed to the pirates until his 21st birthday, and so he must serve for another 63 years. Bound by his own sense of duty, Frederic's only solace is that Mabel agrees to wait for him faithfully. (Summary from Wikipedia)Cast Narrator: https://catalog. .org/people_public.php?peopleid=2506 Julie VW Frederic: https://catalog. .org/people_public.php?peopleid=103 Karen Savage Pirate King: https://catalog. .org/people_public.php?peopleid=4698 StephenC Samuel: https://catalog. .org/people_public.php?peopleid=5717 Phil Chenevert Ruth: https://catalog. .org/people_public.php?pe...

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Comedy, Music, Romance, Humor

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William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice was probably written between 1596 and 1598, and was printed with the comedies in the First Folio of 1623. Bassanio, an impoverished gentleman, uses the credit of his friend, the merchant Antonio, to borrow money from a wealthy Jew, Shylock. Antonio pledges to pay Shylock a pound of flesh if he defaults on the loan, which Bassanio will use to woo a rich heiress, Portia. A subplot concerns the elopement of Shylock's daughter Jessica with a Christian, Bassanio's friend Lorenzo. In its focus on love and marriage, the play shares certain concerns with Shakespeare's other comedies. Yet its depiction of the tensions between Jews and Christians in early modern Venice - and its highly dramatic trial scene in Act 4 - create darker currents in the play. (Summary by Elizabeth Klett)...

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Comedy, Play

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Magic, fairies, young lovers chasing each other through a forest, a man with a donkey's head, and impish Puck wreaking havoc right and left. What's going on here? It's A Midsummer Night's Dream , Shakespeare at his most fanciful. The play opens with Theseus, Duke of Athens, preparing for his wedding. Egeus complains to Theseus that his daughter Hermia refuses to marry Demetrius. When Hermia is given the choice between marriage to Demetrius or life as a nun, she and her true love Lysander flee into the forest. Demetrius follows them; and Helena, who loves Demetrius, follows him . Also in the forest are Oberon and Titania, king and queen of the fairies, at odds with one another. At Oberon's behest, Puck causes Demetrius to fall in love with Helena -- oops, he missed, that was Lysander instead. Mayhem ensues. In the meantime, a group of bumbling craftsmen rehearses a play. Puck gives one of them, Bottom, the head of an ass and makes Titania fall in love with him. Further hilarity results as Bottom sees nothing at all odd about this. Eventually everything is straightened out, Bottom and the rest perform their play, there is a triple wed...

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Play, Comedy

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Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest is subtitled A Trivial Comedy for Serious People, and has proved immensely popular since its first performance in 1895. The play certainly has its farcical and comic elements, such as the witty banter exchanged by the characters and the flippant attitude towards love and marriage that characterizes the action. However, the play also explores more serious themes through the central story of Jack Worthing's search for his identity. (Summary by Elizabeth Klett)...

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Comedy, Play

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Young and beautiful Helen Eskdale and fabulously wealthy Lord Teviot seem to be the perfect match. But when they marry, they find that misunderstandings and jealousies continually drive them apart. The machinations and intrigues of a large supporting cast surround the central question of whether their marriage will survive. Emily Eden's comedy of manners is reminiscient of Jane Austen's witty and ironic novels. (Summary by Elizabeth Klett)...

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Comedy, Fiction

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Why Marry? is a comedy, which tells the truth about marriage. We find a family in the throes of proving the morality of marriage to a New Age Woman. Can the family defend marriage to this self-supporting girl? Will she be convinced that marriage is the ultimate sacredness of a relationship or will she hold to her perception that marriage is the basis of separating two lovers. Why Marry? won the first Pulitzer Prize for Drama. (Summary by Linette Geisel)...

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Comedy, Fiction, Humor, Philosophy, Play, Romance

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An Ideal Husband is an 1895 comedy by Oscar Wilde which revolves around blackmail and political corruption, and touches on the themes of public and private honor. The action is set in London, in the present, and takes place within a single day. Sooner or later, Wilde notes, we shall all have to pay for what we do. But he adds that, No one should be entirely judged by their past. (Summary from Wikipedia)...

Excerpt Details
Comedy, Play

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The Prince and Betty is a novel by P. G. Wodehouse. It was originally published in Ainslee's Magazine in the United States in January 1912, and, in a slightly different form, as a serial in Strand Magazine in the United Kingdom between February and April 1912, before being published in book form, in the UK only, by Mills & Boon, London, on 1 May that year. A substantially different version, which incorporated the plot of Psmith, Journalist, was published in the US by W. J. Watt, New York on 14 February 1912, and is the only version now widely available. (This is the version presented here.) The story tells of how unscrupulous millionaire Benjamin Scobell decides to build a casino on the small Mediterranean island of Mervo, dragging in the unwitting heir to the throne to help. Little does he know that his stepdaughter Betty has history with the young man John Maude, and his schemes lead to a rift between the newly-reunited pair....

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Fiction, Comedy