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GCSE English Literature · key term
Physical comedy involving exaggerated movement, collisions, blows or chases.
Used by AQA and Edexcel
Paper 1
Humour created through exaggerated physical action, such as comic beatings, falls or chases.
Revise: Stephano and TrinculoThe audience knows who spoke, so the beating combines dramatic irony with slapstick. It also exposes Stephano’s poor judgement: the supposed future ruler cannot correctly understand a conversation among his own followers.
Paper 1
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Comedy based on physical action and exaggerated situations, such as the confusion caused by Caliban and Trinculo sheltering under one cloak.
The audience understands the arrangement, but the drunken Stephano mistakes their combined legs and voices for one extraordinary creature. This produces slapstick and dramatic irony through bodies, costume and mistaken identity.
